Rutger Bregman: Poverty isn't a lack of character; it's a lack of cash
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so many poor decisions?
Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher.
"a personality defect."
would be so blunt.
wrong with the poor themselves
should be held responsible
help them to make better decisions.
how to live their lives,
that I discovered
about poverty was wrong.
stumbled upon a paper
all the way to India,
with sugarcane farmers.
collect about 60 percent
poor one part of the year
an IQ test before and after the harvest.
completely blew my mind.
on the test before the harvest.
in poverty, it turns out,
to losing a night's sleep
I heard that Eldar Shafir,
and one of the authors of this study,
new theory of poverty.
behave differently
doesn't much matter --
money or food.
to your immediate lack --
in five minutes
to be paid tomorrow.
goes out the window.
because they are dumb,
programs don't work.
are often completely ineffective.
of money-management training
that it has almost no effect at all.
don't learn anything --
this all out decades ago.
any complicated brain scans;
more that 100 years ago.
the psychology of poverty before.
writers who ever lived,
firsthand in the 1920s.
he wrote back then,
they have the right to preach at you
below a certain level."
as resonant today.
a few solutions up their sleeves.
with their paperwork
to remind them to pay their bills.
with modern politicians,
a symbol of this era
in which the poor live?
with the software
by installing some extra memory instead?
responded with a blank look.
more money to the poor
of left-wing politics
an old-fashioned, leftist idea?
by some of history's leading thinkers.
first hinted at it in his book, "Utopia,"
the spectrum from the left to the right,
Martin Luther King,
for your basic needs:
what you have to do for it,
what you have to do with it.
is not a favor, but a right.
nature of poverty,
we've all been waiting for?
about basic income.
all over the globe,
upon a story of a town
had actually eradicated poverty.
was guaranteed a basic income,
below the poverty line.
descended on the town.
was voted into power,
little point to the expensive experiment.
no money left to analyze the results,
their files away in some 2,000 boxes.
a Canadian professor,
to all manner of statistical analysis,
a resounding success.
had not only become richer
improved substantially.
by as much as 8.5 percent.
were new mothers and students --
around the globe,
pretending we know best.
and teddy bears to the poor,
industry of paternalistic bureaucrats
hand over their salaries
thing about money
to buy things they need
experts think they need.
and entrepreneurs and writers,
and talent we would unleash
like venture capital for the people.
in the US, for example.
dollars each year,
spending, higher dropout rates,
of human potential.
the elephant in the room.
a basic income guarantee?
than you may think.
with a negative income tax.
below the poverty line.
best estimates,
one percent of GDP --
above the poverty line.
and little nudges is past.
for radical new ideas,
than just another policy.
of what work actually is.
meaning or significance.
actually like their job.
as 37 percent of British workers
doesn't even need to exist.
so we can buy shit we don't need."
and the garbagemen
professionals with excellent résumés
add-on of disruptive co-creation
talent we're wasting,
they'll have to "earn a living."
at Facebook lamented a few years ago:
to make people click ads."
and economy right now.
in the past few years,
may feel pessimistic
to know what we're against.
"I have a nightmare."
is not determined
to prepare you for another useless job
without poverty is not a privilege
we've got the evidence
first wrote about a basic income,
discovered the true nature of poverty,
is not a lack of character.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Rutger Bregman - HistorianRutger Bregman is the author of "Utopia for Realists."
Why you should listen
Rutger Bregman is one of Europe's most prominent young thinkers. The 28-year-old historian and author has published four books on history, philosophy and economics. His book Utopia for Realists -- on universal basic income and other radical ideas -- has been translated in more than 20 languages. His work has been featured in The Washington Post and The Guardian and on the BBC.
Rutger Bregman | Speaker | TED.com