Irish, Jewish, Romani, Black, and Mexican individuals. What do all these groups have in common? Each of the groups have been or is blamed for the economic stress or crises in different regions of the world. During the economic crash of 2008, rather than blame ethic groups, governments like Greece and Latvia scapegoated the poor, who bore the brunt of financial losses. In the TedTalk entitled, “Why do we blame individuals for economic crises?” the speaker Liene Ozolina addresses how Latvia placed fault on thousands of poor Latvians. Ozolina states that Latvia stigmatizes the poor and views poverty as a moral failing of the people instead of a governmental economic system failure. In response to the crisis, Latvia dramatically reduced public budget spending, which put many out of work. It then created social programs that taught individuals to take personal responsibility for their actions in response to its high unemployment rate. 

Ozolina proposes that governments should address the “true cause of poverty” and create programs that help individuals learn real job skills and get out of poverty. People need to place more blame on policy makers, rather than the people who are pushed into poverty. As a society, we need to shift responsibility from those with little political power to those who are given power by the people. 

I was cognizant of the global effects of the 2008 economic crash had in other countries, especially Greece because of their protests. I did not know that Greece and Latvia were affected in similar ways economically. I think it was really interesting to see how a former Soviet country responded to an economic crisis. It is interesting that Latvia only had an open economy for 17 years and in that time completely subscribed to the ideals of capitalist realism and individualism that plagues the West. This really extended my understanding of how governments can manipulate its society into blaming themselves for their own poverty, rather than holding the public officials accountable. 

Ozolina delivered a speech unaccompanied by visuals or any other aids. For some speakers this could be a weakness, but I thought that it helps the audience to directly engage with her speech. She used gesticulations and pacing throughout her speech to make it more engaging. I particularly liked how she used the accounts of individuals in poverty as supports for her thesis. As a society, we need to hold our public officials responsible when they are in denial about the causes of poverty because, as Ozolina says ”social inequality hurts us all”.