Poverty isn't a lack of character; it's a lack of cash | Rutger Bregman
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- Опубліковано 9 лют 2025
- "Ideas can and do change the world," says historian Rutger Bregman, sharing his case for a provocative one: guaranteed basic income. Learn more about the idea's 500-year history and a forgotten modern experiment where it actually worked -- and imagine how much energy and talent we would unleash if we got rid of poverty once and for all.
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I remember someone telling me," my brother told me years ago, if you're hungry, read a book, so at least your mind is full". I said, "have you or your bother ever been hungry?" He said, "no". People who don't know poverty are out of touch!
@@elijahwartgow6672 out of touch, you're making up connections/illusions to justify your inhumane attitude. It's so easy to blame the poor and powerless for their misery, and offer stupid advise from a distance.
Being too hungry to read, is very, very, very hungry......Many live at that address due to outside-circumstances that are out of their control; Not laziness, ignorance, or criminality.
Meanwhile, those of us that HAVE known poverty, and hunger, and homelessness, but have worked themselves out of it know that books are what sustained us through the hard times. Despite not knowing poverty, your brother is 100% right.
Active-duty soldiers know: when you can't get sleep, eat. When you can't eat, sleep. When you can't do either, do something to take your mind off of being hungry and tired, because dwelling on it doesn't help.
Assuming it's true that adults in poverty "cannot control" their lives... KIDS in poverty have complete control over at least 12.5% of it - specifically, the 6+ hours a day they spend during school, 180 days a year. During that time frame, they have complete and utter control of their actions. They can *choose* to get whatever they can from their free education, or they can *choose* to do nothing with it. And they get free lunches, too, so the hunger is at least somewhat addressed.
@@grantjohnson5785 typical stupid answer, from stupid...you don't deserved a response other than "stupid".
@@grantjohnson5785 Agreed, excepting: ....'complete and utter control of their actions'......Potentially only, because in many, many cases; that's not literally so, and that creates and/or leaves a vacuum which is the 'when-n-how' criminals (cons, drug dealers, pimps, pedophiles etc.), step in and take over; Where the healthy adults fell short.
Maslow had it right. You cannot get to higher needs until you have the basic ones covered.
Then how do you explain self actualized starving artists?
Have a plan if you plan to have.
You can not appreciate achievement unless you experience it for yourself.
Having it handed to you isnt the same.
+Furrowed Brow - True, meaningful, monetary achievements in life are for the few; most people will never get there, no matter how hard they try. A lot of this is down to nothing more than luck, and letting your society be divided into the lucky and the unlucky is not a way to create society-wide happiness.
@@rjfaber1991
I would add genetics.
Survival stress just takes up so much computation resources, which results in bad decisions. Period.
Good parenting is FAR more important.
Constant stress (survival stress) also negatively impacts physical and mental health which results in bad decisions
@@DWilliams-l3f I had good parents and I still have to juggle three jobs to keep a roof over my head and food in my belly. My good parents have had little impact on my current economic situation.
@@DWilliams-l3f If the parents are poor, or you regional economic circumstances stink, parenting matters very little. All parenting can do is assist the offspring in not making otherwise worse decisions.
Parenting economically is nearly dubious in outcome.
Abe Lincoln grew up poor with an abusive father. He was fortunate there was need for lawyers and lawyers that worked for rail roads got paid extraordinarily well. He was elected the 16th US president.
Parenting is almost dubious.
When you're hungry, you steal. When you're hopeless and you live in a society that tells you you need stuff, you want to steal. When you don't do either, and the frustration of doing what you are told is "living the right way" you get angry, and possibly violent.
Ugh, you can't win impoverished.
I literally cried listening to the speech because I have seen extreme poverty. My high school classmate was so poor (she never even had a clean blanket in winter and never enough money to buy lunch at school) and she acted so differently from us middle-income kids. At that time I and my friends didn't understand at all so we stayed away from her. However, my parents, who have also lived like that in their early years, felt so sorry for her that they asked me to give her some food, school supplies and clothes, of course, in secret. They told me"Please be nice and kind to her. She will appreciate it. You have never been in that situation so you won't understand that struggle." I did as told. Now looking back I should've been nicer. Just a small act of kindness can help. The latter part of the speech hurt me too as I feel I'm pursuing a degree that I don't like at all because I have to earn a living. As I grow I begin to understand how important money is, and how difficult and challenging it is to be who you want to be when the financial situation drags you down.
That weird kid was me and probably still the same. I don't know. The cloud of poverty covered my head since I was born and it takes insane amount of energy to get a glimpse of the sunshine of reality around me.
That degree will probably still be useful - being poor will not make it easier for you to live a good life.
But I feel you, I’ve been in a similar situation. And I learned: Your degree doesn’t need to stop you from further developing in the direction you believe to be right. And you watching this TED talk and taking the time to write that comment seem like good signs to me :)
9:52
COVID-19 has made these ideas more relevant than ever.
For president?
🤣 sorry i wasn’t meaning to respond but instead just comment on the video haha ... definitely not covid, ... I’m here collecting my CERB too. Covid is highlighting a lot of systemic societal issues and helping push for change here it seems. Some good from it at least :S
Janice Brown yup 👍 thanks you too! Stay safe and keep informing others the importance of covid protections!
@Snappingturtle 267 what about all the companies that aren't allowed to be open? How are they supposed to have money if there aren't enough jobs? And that isn't how it works we will easily be able to pay off the debt. Go watch a video on national debt. Unless government spending goes up then that little bit of debt to help the unemployed during covid is fine.
@Snappingturtle 267 the only thing that could happen is inflation. Which is just basically a tax on savings the economy will be fine just the value of a currency decreases. You are really uneducated. If it weren't for welfare people would starve to death.
In Austria, we actually had a de-facto basic income for many years and we have an unemployment rate of 4.8% and are one of the richest countries in the EU. In fact, it enabled me to go from callcenter agent to data scientist in just a few years. Without it, I would probably still work in a callcenter.
Kevin Unknown if you dropped out of college, that was your choice. The government didn’t force you to do that. I have absolutely no help from parents but because of grants and scholarships I’m able to go to college and work part time and get good grades. I’m sorry but the path you chose is your doing, not the government. Try watching some Jordan Peterson videos on responsibility.
Kevin Unknown I am constantly reading and researching about many different view points, not just Jordan Peterson. Why do you think I watched this video? The difference is that Jordan Peterson’s philosophy seems to a lot closer to reality than many others’ philosophy. I’m not saying that we have to have the same life situation for me to help you, or to assume you haven’t had struggles. I’m just giving you power by saying the results lie in the individual. Things happen to everyone. Luckily in America, it’s how we respond to those things that determines our future. This isn’t a new concept, it’s how our world has been since the beginning. Yes there are those who don’t have the same opportunities. But in most cases those can be overcome at least to some degree and yes, that is up to the individual.
@@hopemartushev7536, not always "it's only your fault/choice blahblah".
If you fought and succeeded, good for you. Others may need some help from the state, for example and this is not a shame.
Rather, people in need must be financially helped.
Ah yes, nothing like Jordan Peterson being called upon as the ultimate Pokemon of maintaining the status quo for the rich. Shame the disadvantaged. Tell them to clean their rooms. After all, with problems such as looming cataclysms and the need to safely travel and colonize outer space, we should ignore things like using technological advancements to uplift all of humanity, and instead glorify the individual struggle just to maintain basic solvency, while the richest get exponentially richer, and yet seem to have little concern for investing in the species' long term survival. A Star Trek future cannot happen when 95% of us can think of nothing but trying to get by, while the rich and tryhard upper middle class wizz around us in their luxury cars looking for more status
Zlatan Onkovic
Love Austria.
Best Wishes from Hogtown, Florida.
We all claim to love Martin Luther King Jr as THE Civil Rights Leader, but we need to remember his last movement was about eradicating poverty. He got it. He sought to unite poor people regardless of race and the middle class. Thank you Mr Bregman for waking up the world with pragmatism, critical thinking and hope.
And that's what got him killed, not his work fighting racial discrimination.
He was a villain to white people until he became a martyr.
The Poor People's Campaign has been revived. You should Google search it, or better yet followers them on Facebook. They are traveling around, peacefully protesting, and talking to city and state governments about eradicating poverty.
“It’s all right to tell a man to lift himself by his own bootstraps, but it is cruel jest to say to a bootless man that he ought to lift himself by his own bootstraps.”Martin Luther King..
The Democratic party is working toward this same thing...by making us all poor, we will be united in poverty!
As someone who grew up with parents who lived exclusively on minimum wage and had substantial debt all throughout my time in education I can tell you first hand that poverty isn't a character flaw but it creates them.
It’s been proven over and over that homelessness and poverty create not only more debt, but mental health issues that get worse over the years.
I'm calling B.S. on this one. Adversity doesn't make us what we are; it exposes us for what we are. Making minimum wage for more than a few years shows a lack of ambition or reliability. College can be done without incurring debt. Or it can be skipped altogether, which I did. I grew up in the foster care system, then was reunited with my birth mother and spent my later teen years in poverty. I couldn't afford college. Yet through hard work and hustle (and not complaining), I became a national magazine editor, a Director at a consulting firm, a corporate communications manager for a national health & beauty brand, and an entrepreneur and business owner. With a high school diploma. I now have mover a million dollars in net worth and it's because of hard work, good decisions, financial restraint, and being an employee who's dependable and teachable. And I know other people with similar stories. Whining keeps people in poverty.
@@lisawoody1708 That’s a great story, but it’s not the complete picture. Every one of us is affected by circumstances that are beyond our control. Every time someone hired you, that choice was up to them. You did the best you could, worked hard, but at the end of the day the decision of whether or not you got the job was not yours to make. Success stories show that success through hard work can be possible, but they are not proof that it always is. For that we need statistics, so what percent of people who work hard actually get out of poverty? Or we could take a different approach and ask, How many paths out of poverty are there, and how many people who need to take those paths? Because if there are fewer paths than people, then it is impossible to get everyone out of poverty without taking a different approach from hard work. I respect you and your story, but anecdotal evidence is not enough to say that “whining keeps people in poverty.”
@@Anonbinarymousefalse. The benefits rarely include anything but food. You still have to pay rent and car.
The government should subsides these things.
@@lisawoody1708sorry anecdotal evidence guy but your opinion sadly has to be dismissed due to severe personal bias :(
I worked with poor people in America for years and I can tell you they aren't lazy. They're either people who for mental or physical reasons can't work or find work that pays a living wage or they are capable people who grow up in such kaos and constant want that the belief that they can better themselves has been beaten out of them. This is something that is hard for middle and upper class people to understand because it is a such a different way of experiencing the world. Growing up middle-class I was told I was supposed to be smart and I never gave a thought about where my next meal was coming from. Poor kids don't have this kind of support and security.
Amen.
So true!
@madcheeseknight "make their lives better" With what? Why should we help the children, because they're cute and the homeless alcoholic is smelly, ugly and old. The poor outnumber the rich, when the poor realize this you get revolutions. People who believe it's the job of the poor to make their lives better forget that it usually involves the rich being the first lined up against the wall and shot in large numbers. And their supporters end up fighting on the losing side of a civil war, lose everything and become the next generation of poor. And the whole process starts all over again. It's happened in the US twice. It's happened in Europe dozens of times. It's happened in China hundreds of times. Poverty and oppression created the USSR, it also destroyed it. Inequality = Instability. You're basically saying it's not your job to put out the fire that is about to burn your house down.
exactly! people dont understand this and never will and it shocks me.being wealthy doesnt come only from hard work and being poor doesnt come from being lazy
I would only disagree that it is "hard to understand." It is quite easy to understand, but many people willfully choose to remain ignorant.
Because the notion of living in poverty is frightening, there are people who find comfort in believing that poverty is a character problem. They hear stories about the poor in the news or read stories about them in the paper or online and instead of thinking, “There but for the grace of God…”, they think to themselves, “This will never happen to me because I’ve done all the right things.” It’s a mindset similar to the Pharisee in the 18th chapter of Luke when he prayed. Such a belief also supports the idea that the world is just (i.e., that whatever one gets in life is what they deserve), which many want to believe when in fact it really isn’t.
@Snappingturtle 267 Read my comment again. I never said that it doesn't take hard work to succeed. My point was that many people get a false sense of security in believing that anyone who lives in poverty is dysfunctional and that it's complacent to believe that poverty doesn't befall good people. I've seen far too many decent, honest, hard working people who through no fault of their own are barely getting by.
Snappingturtle 267 And the widow who put her last two pennies into the offering, what did she sow to reap such poverty? Have you not read any of the many scriptures that talk about God’s love and compassion for the poor and how much He hates those who abuse them? If their poverty is due solely to their own flaws or bad decisions, why does He care for them so much and provide so many warnings not to mistreat them? Do you really believe that every impoverished person is so because they did something to deserve it? Does it make you feel better about yourself to believe you are not in poverty because you must’ve done something right?
@@Meridian83West Well said. In real life poverty also affects good people.
The story of job where he was made penniless through attacks of the devil shows that poverty is not always from a lack of a hardworking and resourceful spirit. It is important for parents to instruct their children on wise living which will be effective in every facet and bring happiness for by wisdom this world was created.
Snappingturtle 267 why should your opinion be given credence? Because you’re snapping turtle? You have lots of experience running businesses? Academics study data. He’s telling you what conclusions we can gather from data, not how to run a business.
"it's a cruel jest to tell a bootless man that he oughta lift himself by his own boot straps."
MLK.
@Snappingturtle 267 Ya that is how success works. Nobody is becoming successful from welfare. But welfare does give people a base on which they can work to become successful.
@Snappingturtle 267 Actually our country is built on exploitation. CEOs making over 300% of their employees' salary are being handed money for literally nothing. The people that actually generate profit see none of it. We get our hourly or salary, and all the profits go to the top. If that's not a handout, I don't know what is.
@Snappingturtle 267 our country was built on a lot of different backs who for centuries were not aloud to participate in its abundance. Can you say, "trying to catch up?"
@Snappingturtle 267 slavery, Jim Crow, red lining, inflated loans, etc. There are a lot of things that aren't known to a lot of people when it comes down to it.
@Snappingturtle 267 I have not called myself anything to you. You sound very angry. Are you okay?
"They're not rich because they're nice, they're nice because they're rich."
Parasite is one heck of a movie
Not sure how true that is. It's kind of generalizing especially since some of the nicest people I met were poor while some of the top jerks were rich. Also being nice is relative. A poor person helping you with gas on the road is contributing a much greater percentage of their wealth so they should be much nicer than the rich.
I think a better measure would be effectiveness and recognition. The rich get more recognition and effectiveness for their actions (Kind/Evil); therefore, people attribute it more commonly to them being kind/evil.
@@neo-babylon7872 I took it as meaning that it's easier to be nice when ur not hungry
I guess being Nice and Rich dont usually go hand in hand but then it's easier to be nice if you are rich.thing is from my experience I find Nice ppl don't get Rich cos most of the time they give half of what they have whilst the more selfish counter-part stock up solely for themselves eventually making them rich which leads me to think Rich people could only be that nice if their goals are to get richer.that being said Riches could be anything other than monetary wealth and posession.
@@deadheadliving exactly, people use selfishness to get rich and then are able to act all nice after the fact. Niceness doesn't get you filthy rich.
“When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist.”
- Dom Helder Camara
When enough people ask this question the smears will be irrelevant. Some think ending poverty is impossible without ruining the economy. And yet spending on endless wars or huge tax breaks for the rich, or a huge wasteful bureaucracy, never causes fear to strike about our economy by the people in power.
Did you even watch the video? Your ignorance is astounding.
I am a socialist lmao
@@taliesinhalliday once you realise that if you lived someone else's live had everything exactly the same as they did parents friends external influences etc you would become the same that they are now, then you realise that you cannot judge for no reason we are but reprocussions of our own circumstances and nothing else. just think if the bullies didnt put you down and I'm gonna guess mother boosted you with a level of self confidence underneath (sorry for probably bad assumption) you probably would be stuck in the same poor place
@@taliesinhalliday Lets teach people how to farm. Yet, they need land. Why they dont have it? Ask that question and be acused of communism. I make that question. Dont you?
If you are not guaranteed surviving today, then planning for tomorrow is irrelevant.
absofuckinglutely
No one is guaranteed to survive today... so by your argument, no one should plan for tomorrow.
Idiotic.
You may or may not survive, if you do not plan as though you will survive, you will never get anywhere in life.
Grant Johnson Like it or not, that is the kind of mindset poverty forces on to people, because in their case, tomorrow really isn’t promised to them. They’re at a significantly higher risk for being victims of crime and illness compared to the general population.
@@punkyagogo The mindset of "tomorrow isn't promised" should be followed by everyone, regardless of poverty or wealth, and regardless of risk factors, because it is true for everyone. That said, let's compare some numbers.
Risk of poor person dying tomorrow: 99.9%
I'm not saying there aren't other factors in poverty... but failing to plan for tomorrow is a BIG one, and it is one that is entirely within one's own control.
"Poverty annihilates the future." - George Orwell
Damn, this TED Talk needs about 7,5 billion individual views.
Unfrotunately you need a computer, internet access, and electricity to view this video... Counts out about half the world.
if you want the whole world to become comunist ....
@@rikvanderbruggen988 Hmm, yes, maybe we don't want that. Would solve way too many problems. And then what? No one knows.
@@rikvanderbruggen988 communist???? You kidding right....i hope u know whats communism....lol
@@jairoagudelo6843 yeah i do and this aint pure communism i know, but it has a lot of its characteristics
Amen. I'm from the U.S. and, I hate to admit this, we are so far away from this and now with the recent election it will be worse.
My eyes opened to the affects of poverty when I became a high school teacher after a career in industry. Maslow's hierarchy of needs. In Chicago, with brutally cold winters, I witnessed some kids that did not own a coat. They just put on another sweat shirt. For anyone with a heart can look at that and not feel pain, god help you.
In the words of Jess Streib of Duke University, "We need to realize a lot of people work hard and don't get ahead, and a lot of people don't work hard and are still ahead."
@Joost Broek did you watch the video your commenting under?
YES!
Arrived here after Rutger Bregman dog walked Tucker Carlson (on his own show) and I need to know more about this great man.
Saaaaaaaame
He doesn't know anything about economics. Quoting an author who never took economics is pretty dumb. Half of his statements were pipe dreams and ALL of the studies he quoted are flawed and to propose them for 300m people is laughable.
I also think poverty is bad. Is the solution for poverty getting paid for Nothing? Poverty has been decreasing world wide for decades. It's almost as if capitalism works.
Inequality is increasing? If the millionaire becomes a billionaire and the homeless man ends up getting a stable job and buys a house, there is more inequality but both are better off.
This guy is a quack
Same.
@@TheCrimson7272 You get it. A lot of people are just jealous of the rich. They think millionares got millionare by family inheritance or common luck. Which is quite the opposite. Many millionaires in the US for example got rich by hard work, dedication, taking risks and being wise with the money they had. Bregman wants to give lazy people free provisions which would in return become more lazy. Why work when the government takes care for you? Also why work when the government would in return lower your provisions? Usually these people would do some undeclared work to avoid tax cuts and reductions in provisions.
Bregman is a dangerous socialist like AOC and purely in it for power and money. He wrote multiple books just for money and fame.
@@TheCrimson7272 so homelessness is not rising in the u.s, life expectancy hasnt gone down in the u.s?
An excellent talk. I have been rich and I have been poor. And getting out of poverty is almost impossible for most.
VitruvianVision
That's because the rich elite don't want the poor to succeed, they only want you smart enough to perform the menial labor tasks they require, to make them more money.
Do you think helps like training and guidance are useful for the poor?
Undrtakr900, stop your victim mentality, it will get you nowhere.
Why not help make it easier for people to leave poverty? Surely there could be methods to use? :-)
Jappie Alkmaar you can tell this is truth but not the fact
Who else is here after he grilled tucker carlson
Link?
@@peterdyreng2155 ua-cam.com/video/6_nFI2Zb7qE/v-deo.html
That is exactly why I'm here. He sure made Carlson look like a fool!
@Snappingturtle 267 Hmmm, strange, it seems like his country of the Netherlands is doing fine. Nah, must be fake news.
@Snappingturtle 267 Cut back on the "LOL", try to be more formal when arguing and maybe then, people would regard your opinion. It's called being a "decent human being".
As a young history student I really look up to this guy. He has a very blunt, but easy way to get information across, and he made tucker carlson mad af, which is always a plus in my book.
Good old clueless Tucker!!!!!
This "blunt" style is typical for Dutch society. Not in a negative way, it helps us getting things done. But on this topic, The Netherlands have a long way to go too.
@@sva9834 very true, both your first and second point.
He is hot too
Stan vA Oh I’m German, I know ^^
The sad thing is that most of us has known this for years. We keep sharing the message but nothing seems to change.
Because most of us doesn't have power to do anything, and deep down we already know the Government are only puppet of billionaire to control us so they can keep exploiting us.
action is needed not just talking about it
Andrew Yang believes in this
Perhaps you should work harder so you can give more, make the change that way, actually do something.
Just support Andrew Yang. Great guy
Loved him in Davos, loved him here. probably wont be invited to many places after stating these "extreme" views of taxation of the rich and global income
Eru I thought that was the guy! He’s awesome!
you seriously think you can tax the relative few rich and redistribute to the masses of poor, you think there is that much money around ?
@@ralphvandereb66 actually, yes, there is enough money.
If you want, We could even point out: money is created out of nothing. Just look up how money is created.
@@autohmae well i am sure you are a great economist then, are you also a flat earther ?
@@ralphvandereb66 no, I'm not a great economist. But the most leading economists say that something like UBI is a very useful tool and should probably be used. Also great economist and flat earther are not usually things that go together. ;-)
I'm glad this good man's voice has a platform.
Sadly, we live in a world where idealistic do-gooders are mocked, rejected, and thwarted by the many who have succumbed to cynicism, and the power elite who encourage and harness this mass apathy.
Being a Good Samaritan doesn't make you stupid or naive or weak. It makes you brave.
Nevertheless, until there is a sea change in humanity's mass consciousness, the "business as usual" approach of mankind and the resulting downward spiral of economic and political vicious cycles seem to be locked in.
What are you talking about ? There are lots of countries around the world that have very little poverty. In the US it's 2% who were in poverty in 2015, in the UK it's 0.7%, in the Netherlands it's: 0.5%, Germany it's: 0.2% and in Switserland it: 0.0%. It's a policy decision.
@@autohmae Child poverty in the UK continues to rise. It's real and it's terrible.
@@autohmae Also the UK Conservatives tend to have a habit of changing the definition of poverty to make statistics seem less bad. :-(
So true!
If someone uses a small Canadian town full of white people, and tries to use their results as a example of how giving away free stuff works for the people of Africa or even an inner city like Detroit, they ARE STUPID and NAIVE. Every inner city in this country has cheap public housing and free food EBT cards for the poor. This man is an idiot, and a LIAR! You don't talk about IQ and they try to find the highest IQ poor people you can find, and then ignore the "elephant" in the room, and pretend minorities aren't poor because of their scientific backed LOWER IQs. I swear. The people praising this guy are just as stupid and naive as him. Go do some good, donate all your money and possessions, and go live in public houses and see how it REALLY is. Try not to die from a hate crime at the hands of the "poor"
You don't know how true this all is unless you've lived on a huge range of different income levels like I have.
So have I, and I still come to the same conclusion. There are some decisions that don't require much thought. It comes down to a simple question. I can barely support myself, so would it be advisable to have kids?
@@Mick0722MX Are you suggesting that poor people shouldn't be allowed to have kids?
@@janhend925 I never said they shouldn't be allowed. I'm saying they should be responsible to not have kids if they can't be raised properly.
@@Mick0722MX Thank you, you have a good point and the courage to state it. But I ask myself: People who are responsible, but cannot afford children. Is that not something that is unjust?
@@boerbol9422 No. What's unjust is expecting tax payers to fork out more money because those people choose to be stupid.
If the poor are not under the stress of survival they might start THINKING!!!! The top dogs don't want that to happen
I agree....
Mark Hedger ,this is a very good point.Just like almost everything else in this world is corrupt.They also want us in poor health so we still invest in Pharmacy,medication etc..Greetings from Germany
Exactly...they need to exploit others to survive.
i'm poor and starting a company. the majority of the poor in america don't stay in the lower class except when they are young and just left home. the majority of millionaires in america started with $0
btw running a company is more stress not less than just getting a stable job, be thankful to people who are willing to shoulder that to create jobs not hate them. because you know what happened when we lowered taxes? we got more total tax revenue thanks to so many companies returning who left america due to the tax rate
"I believe in a future where the value of your work is not determined by the size of your paycheck, but by the amount of happiness you spread and the amount of meaning you give. I believe in a future where the point of education is not to prepare you for another useless job but for a life well-lived. I believe in a future where an existence without poverty is not a privilege but a right we all deserve" That's top class!
Ask anyone who has lived on both sides of the poverty line and they can tell you exactly this. That first year of not having to worry about money every minute of every day is like getting back that carefree feeling of childhood. It's a 16 ton weight lifted off of your chest. And you'll do anything at that point to make sure no one you care about has to suffer the same way.
A judge's daughter ran into me and totaled my car, and me. She was high on drugs and driving without a license. I had been earning $250K annually. The daughter didn't even get a ticket. I was threatened and harassed by the judge's "friends" and told to walk away from the lawsuit. I didn't but it was thrown out of court. I was innocent and injured. 30 years later I am disabled and poor. The judge's daughter is the cause of my symptoms.
Wow no news story about this?? This is horrible!
@@tigera10030 there is no story, he's lying
Where did that 250k go ?
Incredible !
Something tells me there are other things going on here... A case like this being thrown out of court? Unlikely. Additionally, you could have appealed.
Thank you Tucker for suggesting this guy. :-)
Judging by the comments, I think some people are overestimating the meaning of universal basic income - especially what is being discussed in this talk. What he is describing is the bare minimum. People don't stop working and live off the bare minimum - they want to live well. This would just mean that they had a chance of doing so in the first place.
I think automation (and sustainable clean energy) will reach a point where it just drives costs down to nothing. So eventually, we'll reach a point where everyone can have everything for free, and the only real concern is population control.
Amani Kilumanga Finally! Someone who uses logic. You're correct. Some of the best economists in the world have explained how automation boosts the economy by increasing productivity whilst reducing costs. If the whole world became automated, then everything would become so cheap that no one would be poor.
You can't get around the fact that at some point very few people own all the robots that do all the work and the rest of us somehow owe them money because we didn't have any jobs ourselves. This is an exaggeration but also a truth to some proportion.
Taxing the rich must be done or complete accumulation of ownership of property in the hands of the few is unavoidable.
Well, now, we have to pay businesses x amount of money for their services. If the businesses were fully automated, that amount of money could be less. The price for the end-user would approach cost (of the robot), because any business that is overpricing its services can be replaced with another more competitive business.
And then if there's a 3D printer kind of thechnology (that can print printers, as well as robots), then everyone can have a robot at the cost of the raw materials of it. This is assuming energy is solved and the software is open source.
Another thing we can do is give much needed loans to people with the worst prospects so that they get a vasectomy. High-school dropouts have 3 children, while college graduates have 1 child...
Even the ultra-successful Arnold Schwarzenegger tells people not to call him a selfmade man. He would never have become a superstar without lots of support from people around him.
Indeed, nobody can become successful without help from others. ^_^
You can work very hard for a promotion at work, but it's still down to your employer to give it to you. Kinda makes the term "hard work" very subjective when you think about it.
Mark Zuckerberg said the same thing. And then he followed it by "we should explore ideas like Universal Basic Income so everyone has a cushion to land on."
@@michaelblower7363 very true. although imo that is what life is. we've all heard the phrase "life's not fair". The thing that differentiates america from other countries is that no matter how unfair life gets, it is always possible to prevail. Even if your boss declines your raise, you can pursue other jobs. I'm not saying its easy, but I do not like when people downplay the blessing of living in America.
Gabe Dutton I agree with you in spirit, it is technically possible for someone to lift themselves up from a low position. However, it not always as simple as a lack of initiative that so many people are stuck in poverty. Even if every single poor person were to suddenly get super motivated and adopt a “do-whatever-it-takes” attitude in order to succeed, there are simply not enough opportunities like that to accommodate everyone. I’m not saying there aren’t lazy people out there. There absolutely are. Always has been, always will be, but that’s not the case for the majority of them. We should at least explore different ideas like a basic universal income. What could it hurt? If it doesn’t work, then we can try something else.
@@Pretermit_Sound well i certainly think you are the most convincing person i've spoken with on this topic, and i think you make an interesting point from a statistical basis. You may very well be correct that there simply is not enough opportunities to accommodate everyone. I still would guess that even in the direst circumstances there is a glimmer of hope. In regard to ubi, I'm investing in gold so not too worried ab inflation lol
Martin Luthor didn't say 'I have a nightmare.'
That line was brilliant. :)
This was a wonderful talk. 🙂
I THINK he actually meant Martin Luther KING (and not his name sake "Martin Luther" As in protestant reformer way back when)
....just saying one needs to exercise care in quoting people ....hey does this guy even KNOW what "Martin Luther" WAS? I mean Martin Luther KING (and MLK jr) surly knew....
Dougie Quick obviously, the only "Martin Luther" that comes to mind when talking about :"I have a.." is doctor King. Full stop.
MLK had a dream.
What he didnt have was a plan.
Have A Plan If You Plan To Have.
Furrowed Brow scarcity takes your plans and flushes them. Thanks for showing you weren’t paying attention.
@@DanMcMillan-is-awesome
Scarcity?
Which 3rd world country do you live in?
The saying goes: "He made his bed, let him sleep in it." What's missed from that
saying is that -- we don't get to make the bed frame; nor the bedroom, etc., etc.
My opinon: This TedTalk became one of my most favorite speeches!
- The speech is organized very well. Whatever his argument is he brings examples and proofs in different ways: stories, statistics, pictures, researches.
-He talks about very sensitive topic while being able to do little jokes that perfectly fit in the speech.
-Moreover, he bring a new perspective which is rare to find. There are many people arguing that everything in life comes with our mindset.
Personal connection: To be honest, I even have personal connection as an example. Whenever I have a deadline in my university courses, my mind is busy being anxious about the time that is running from me:) And as a result I do everything quickly and it kind of worsens the quality of the work. Its the same concept: Scarcity. Scarcity affects mind and our actions!
*Reality Check: The 2008 crash: rich people and their character flaws for which the U.S is still suffering.*
No...wealthy people don't buy during bubbles. They wait until there's blood in the streets and buy everything. Then they sell it off later on the way up. Do you realize how much discipline that behavior requires?
Speak for yourself. I’m doing great.
Goes back to the point of the video, they already secured their basic needs; that's why they can wait, it is not discipline.
@@germsage6726 Also would explain their creation of the bubbles in the first place.
Start the fire, then come along later to put it out.
Yes - and that was socialism, not capitalism
“the moral test of government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; those who are in the shadows of life; the sick, the needy and the handicapped.”
None of those things are legitimate functions of government.
Don't you all start with government. Every nation has the government it deserves. We all contribute to the reality we and next generations have to live in by our everyday little actions and mindsets, and what we say etc.
NO. Those are the moral tests of a parent, of a person. The only moral test of a government is whether it exists at the consent of the governed and that it plunders less, not more.
@@pashaveres4629 Dear Pasha Veres, SAYS WHO? They need to be a function of a civilized humane society!
Beautifully said
Rutger is a genius. I remember reading books, in the 60's, about how automation and robots would make a utopia where we all had a great life in clean cities full of trees and parks, with plenty of time to learn, grow, and do fun things with our kids. The reality, nearly 50 years later, is that just as I expected, the rich don't like the idea of giving up a SMALL portion of what they have so that the rest of the world can have a great life too, so when our jobs are replaced by AI, unless someone finally "gets it" that society has to undergo a radical change in how we see work, money, and life itself, things will actually get worse over the next 50 years, not better. The richest 1% now owns half the world's wealth. They could give up 20% of that, and everyone else would be happy.
@Zaya the 1960s.
unfortunately not so simple
You're leading by example by donating 20% of everything you have right?
@@chris5201 I'm self-emplyed, and barely able to pay my bills right now. But thanks for asking. My point was that the RICH could give SOME money to the poor, and everyone would enjoy a better life, including the rich. I know they won't, because people's first thought is for themselves. To further address your point, I often give small jobs for free to those customers who obviously can't afford to pay. It's not much, but it's not nothing either.
E.G. Systems you should get a better job. If this was implemented and paid for by taxes it’d be nothing more than legislated theft
We need more people to carry this message across the world.
Yes that was called communism. Hundred million plus dead Russia's never recovered nor have a lot of other places.
No eric. What rutger teaches is that everyone can have a basic income. And from that basic can earn more. In comunidm that basic is your roof.
@@bingbong6066 No Jens, you missed the point an the reference. What he teaches is just one more aspect of the failed whole. The whole being Socialism which ultimately takes the form of Communism.
I'll ask you one more of the questions your cult can never answer. If giving people money helps them why not give them more and help them more?
@@bingbong6066 by the way he doesn't teach anything. He makes a lot of unsubstantiated claims based on one cherry-pick datastore source which is shoe horns in order to fit his predetermined conclusion
@@bingbong6066 You know what You're right Communism isn't a good example of this because well communism works off the same basic mindset It's still assumed that you'll all work for something before you get to magically have it. This assumes that you'll just steal it from other people!
There already is a federal minimum wage in America for Wall Street. They screw up and the federal government pays to bail out their company and guarantee their bonuses.
Ouch! Well said, sir!
@Snappingturtle 267 Wait whaaaa?? I didn't quite understand what you just said here, can you explain yourself and provide evidence from a credible source to back your claim?
@Snappingturtle 267 As a matter of fact, I did do my research before quoting CNN
So you are saying it is OKAY for the government to use TAXPAYER money, and LOAN(bailout) it to the financial institutions that LIED to the American public, allowed the repackaging of bad lending product, caused millions of people to lose their jobs and life savings, created the Great Recession. BECAUSE they promise the government go pay back the bailout with interest?!
And also the executives at these financial institutions also used the government loan(bailouts) to pay themselves bonuses(extra paychecks) for lying and making bad business decision!
So what about the average American? I did not hear the government loaning the public billions of dollars so they can recover their losses doing the Great Recession. The government didn't bailout (loan) the average American millions of dollars when they went bankrupt. How do you explain this?
What I am trying to say is, it is truly
Socialism for the rich
Capitalism for the poor
@Snappingturtle 267 It was the fraudulent practice insurance agency and the willful failure on the bank's part to verify the actual income of the person they are lending to that caused the Great Recession.
Make no mistake, public greed was involved, but it didn't come first, it was the corporate greed that induced the public greed.
And by the way, how is taxing the average American and then loaning(giving) it to the corporate elites, not a socialist redistribution? It is literally the definition of a wealth transfer.
These corporate elites used the bailout money as bonuses buyback properties and assets which they frauded the general public at dirt cheap price and then flipped it when the government propped up the economy, making them a huge profit. And that is how they were able to "pay back with interest"
If the government didn't bail them out, they would have been broke and be locked up in jail.
You are going to honestly tell me that this isn't wealth transfer for the rich?
This is not intended towards the OP, but you can easily go to independent news like Majority Report who can also explain the cause of the 2008 financial crisis with details and be right about it, unlike snappingturtle.
Thank you, Mr. Bregman. I've lived in poverty all my life, watched my wages drop, while prices if necessities skyrocket, and it's really nice to see more and more people getting real about the problem.
"What do you call a system that renders half of its population poor and low-income? You call that a FAILED SYSTEM." -Jimmy Dore
Systemic poverty, by definition, is not an individual's responsibility.
Failed by design, and as Bernie Sanders says, no person that works 40 hours a week should live in poverty under starvation wages!
Jimmy also said that Wall St. got bailed out for its OWN mistakes (and crimes), but the ppl (main st.) did NOT get a bail-out: corporate socialism for the rich and corporations and rugged individualism for everyone else...
Then learn to catch the lies politicians say as they sell insane points. Here's one example. I've heard more than one high ranking politician sell the notion that every child can have a college degree. The fact is, this makes no sense. Than who is going to do the well over 40 million very necessary jobs that require no degree? Why do politicians lie? Because the people's votes they are targeting are quite naive about business. "I'll have fries with my Bic Mac, and by the way, what college did you graduate from?" ...Sure thing, mr. politician...whatever you say. Laborers, railroad workers, streets and sanitation employees, dishwashers, janitors, and the long list of more examples.
@@jusayenso8186 Hopefully Bernie and Tulsi aren't among the vast majority of lying politicians. I've heard of Bernie and maybe even Tulsi referred to as 'controlled opposition'. I hope not! As Bernie says though, it takes a movement and not just 1 or 2 politicians (or spiritual leaders like MLK) to change ppls' views and foster attempts to solve global problems.
"Lack of character" is the same old trope that has been used by the wealthy (and those that share their immortality) about everyone else since time began.
Far past time that idea was buried.
It gives them a false sense of control over their own fate.
@voice of reason Intelligence is not linked to crime. Plenty of wealthy and smart people commit crime. From OJ, Burnie Madoff and Martha Stewart, the list is endless. Yes there is an indirect link between intelligence and income based on education.
@@mistakencrown4858 You do have a certain amount of control. Only fools don't accept this. My grandparents grew up in a poor farming family in a third world country. Now they and their children are well of business owners, artists, doctors etc.
Why because it's uncomfortable that it happens to be true sometimes?
@@AmazingStoryDewd There's a reason why some stories, situation, personalities, etc are called "extraordinary", because they literally are extra ordinary. Meaning not the norm. Thus are not a valid benchmark.
Poor people always make poor decision because they only have poor option
Exactly, they're to worried about how they're going to get by each day.
a very good point
your name bro lol he died in Garut didn't he
You didn't make good choices you had good choices...
limited option = scarce mentality
Andrew Yang talks about this now. Hes the only candidate advocating for it.
And he's now been thrown out of the race.
@@denelson83 You cant win unless you're corrupt
@@albiceleste101 Which means the US isn't a democracy. It's a _capitalist dictatorship._
And now he sold out to CNN. Yang's a fraud.
@@wolfstar675 He's been great on CNN. People sometimes need to take stock of the ramifications of their own opinions. If you think CNN (and all big media) is corrupt and has a negative effect on our country, you should WANT people with interesting, valuable voices to become well known enough that CNN has to give them screen time and a voice at the table. Hoping they'll just go out of business is kid stuff -- a major media company is too powerful a tool, and will just be bought by some new billionaire if they're ever close to bankruptcy.
Only people who have lived in great poverty understand the destructiveness of money . It is the greed of the few that creates this imbalance that destroys families by the millions.
only someone who has lived a life without poverty would think something so stupid. in actuality absolute and abject poverty is the natural way of human civilization and only capitalism has reduced absolute poverty. relative poverty is not affected by capitalism or socialism, only natural disaster and war but capitalism can at least create living wages, food, shelter, electricity and even entertainment. socialism has the majority of times taken these things away from people and made everyone equally poor
Only people who believe money is destructive live in poverty
@@hopemartushev7536 Not true, I have everything I could ever need, just not a whole lot that I want. Just be glad I don't pursue it!
The corporation grew from the firm, and the firm grew from the shop, and the shop grew from the lemonade stand... At what point does one stop growing their business for fear of being labeled "greedy" by someone of lesser achievements? Your answer determines whether you belong on the left or the right.
Look up The Zeitgeist Movement hehe. May be worth your time o.O
It (among A LOT of other things) says that we should abandon money all together and automate almost everything. Should be possible in 20-30 years.
One word - brilliant! I hope enough people in power with good hearts wake up to the idea that poverty is a political choice and it can be solved through universal basic income.
i hope more people come to power who understand this is a good idea
Probably the best TED conference ever...
I’ve always said, I don’t need more work, I need more money.
Because you're a socialist piece of filth
@@AdrianSanchezq Thank you for reminding us that people are evil.
@@AdrianSanchezq Clearly, you're in the wrong place. This is a place of learning. The willfully ignorant do not belong here. You should be here, of course, but we both know you're not interested in improving your understanding of the world.
"Because you're a socialist piece of filth"
More money for less work? Sound like capitalist piece of filth.
I appreciate the sensible support for a really very sensible observation. A world that works for everyone is an opportunity. It’s not a demonstration of filth, or a socialist plot, it’s very humane and not traumatic.
The fact that we have to have a talk on poverty like this at all is just wow... If you have no cash you cannot operate in a modern society period.
Agreed
That is by design - supposedly how the globalists like it.
Really brilliant talk. “The best minds of our day are being used to make people click ads” - so true!
Probably one of the best ever TED talks I've ever watched. This is absolutely 👌🏿
His book HumanKIND is great too.
@@ebob4177 thank you, I'll look it up
why focus on whether the opinion is left or right? why not try to listen what the opinion is?
Because it is easier to complain than to analyse the countless complaints it gets from the left or the support it gets from the right.
刘政 because right wingers are either poor, angry trailer trash who think the reason they are poor is blacks, Jews or Mexicans.
And rich right wingers think because they were born rich and went to the best colleges and had their apartments paid for, poverty is just a result of people being stupid and lazy and not a self perpetuating, decade long circle. After all, they worked at Taco Bell a few months to pay the rent.
Because "left" ideological cancer has killed a few hundred million people and for some that's enough.
Riley and Nietz, CAN IT. You two are the problem that the OP is addressing because you're so quick to point fingers at each other rather than listen.
刘政 I've heard that basic income is popular among both the left and right. On the one hand it helps the poor, and on the other hand hands over the responsibility of how taxes are best spent to individuals and eliminates a lot of beurocracy since it may substitute most other government programs, allowing private business to provide the services.
Thought it would be just another 15 min ted talk, glad i clicked
@Snappingturtle 267 A universal basic income is NOT socialism. Maybe if you'd actually paid attention in school you'd know what socialism actually is and understand that...
Rutger Bregman, thank for sharing your amazingly refreshing dream that we ALL would benefit from. Keep up the good work. Love from Canada.
@Snappingturtle 267 Please explain.
I'm poor. People close to me make fun of me. I'm a "loser"& every argument turns to "at least I work".
I. Work. Too! I just get paid very little. But I LOVE WHAT I DO! As a kid, before I knew how money ran the world, I dreamed of my books on shelves. Even now, as a grown woman, I still carry my notepad and pencil everywhere I go. Now my book is on shelves. After decades of dreaming, I learned it's goosebumps that rule MY world not dollars.
So if others diss my beater car or my thrifty habits, or my goals to build my own raggedy cabin in the woods with free plank wood, that says more about their character than mine ✨ ❤ 👏 🙌📖 🖊 🌳
#dreambig #sparklebright #fuckthehaters #excusemykorean
I want to do what you do @veronica christopher
It has always astonished me how narrow minded people can be in regards to what they define as “success” or a “happy life”. Happiness is a state of mind, it is not dictated by your possessions. Keep on living your dream 🤗
Well said. However I dare say, you're not poor. You're richer than most people (including the ones who have more money).
People who make fun of other people because they own less - they are truly poor. Regardless of how much money they have.
@Joost Broek sure as long as they get free food and shelter lul
@S M indeed bro.
This is the most live changing UA-cam video I have ever watch in my entire life!!!!!
Can highly recommend his book "Utopia for Realists" too! Much more detailed and so well written! Changed my life too! :)
Wow. In reading through these comments, I’m realizing this country really
is polarized beyond repair.
Hi from a yr later...anytime i think it cant get any worse it DOES
So what do you think now cindi?
Let's face it: America got shot in the lung and has been living on life support with no hope of recovery ever since the Red Scare
This is such an amazingly beautiful and sensible talk. The time has come to focus on wellbeing and compassion instead of money, power and materialism. When will we rid ourselves of these small and childish ideals. It's time to evolve!
If you wanna pursue this ”evolvement” you can always donate all of your money to the poor....
@@akituokko9461 That would be a terrible strategy. Also, this is not about blaming each other, it's the system we're in that's out of whack. That's why I'm pursuing this 'evolvement' by demanding system changes from our government.
@@wschmidt944 you literally said that it would be terrible strategy but you still want all of us to do it? Thats kinda ironic. 😂
@@akituokko9461 You're talking about making personal changes. I'm talking system change.
@@akituokko9461 And also, giving away all my money would mean there's one more poor person in the world. So yeah, it's a terrible strategy.
Strongly agree. Think of all the creativity that will be put into action, when you don't have to worry about thinking about whether you have enough for food, rent, etc.
Just look of lottery winners. 75%og big lottery winners end up loosing all. That because most of them are already poor
When i was in school i was too poor to let myself go out anywhere with classmates when invited. Eventually i stopped getting invited and turned incredibly introverted as a result.
Same pinch. :(
Beautiful speech!
Here in my adoptive country Finland, an experiment on this has just ended.
Poverty is imposed. Imagine a society that values maximizing human potential rather than protecting the greediest.
I didn't expect this to turn into a discussion about universal basic income but I'm glad it did
Where is the love option for videos? Like doesn't do justice.
Snappingturtle 267 except europe u ignorant fool ;)
ITs a great idea but the rich people that control everything will not allow change. They want us peons to stay in our place.
This is why socialism is the first step, not UBI. If it comes to a point that people literally can't find employment because all the jobs are automated then they will need to be taken care of, but a handout from the rich and powerful will never be as effective for the fabric of society as a radical shift of power from the rich to the people.
You can't see yourself this way or believe in self-defeating conspiracy theories. If you see yourself as a 'peon' you've already lost. I'm NOT a rich man. I have dyslexia & have struggled my whole life. BUT I will NOT blame others.
Dan Williams he is clearly not saying that he views himself as a peon, he is presenting how the rich feel from their perspective. It’s very visible when you look at establishment controlled media that they take a stance against any policy having to do with giving money to the poor.
@@Avratin Exactly. UBI would be great in a socialist society. In a capitalist society, this means that a large mass of people will live on welfare while the capital owning class that has the ability to create goods and services will amass even more power and wealth. Ownership is power. It's as simple as that.
When Sweden created wage labourer equity funds, the capitalist class and industry groups went out in full force against the idea, shipping in protestors from all over and did everything they could to destroy the bill. This policy would have slowly but surely allowed the working class to buy up equity in companies. The goal was to have a majority of publicly traded companies in the country to be 50% owned by the people. Why would capitalists be against ownership, they claim to defend peoples right to ownership... or could it actually be that it is in their interest to keep the productive private property in their own hands?
If people get to live and feed themselves well, the rich will lose their slaves.
Tucker Carlson brought me here
dillimore no way! me too. i’m obsessed with this guy. i’m going through his videos
Me too lol
Same here.
@@solomonsam8927I am against the elites. But the "historian" probably lives in the past with this ideas. We live in different times than Eisenhower's.
The rich will just move their money via two taps on their iPad. Things changed the world is connected, especially the financial market. 70-90% tax rate for the rich is unreasonable in this day and age.
And who believes Millionaires like Trump, Clinton, Pence, Sanders or Pelosi will get taxed at 80% is delusional...
@@jeffgrimm please remember that it is a marginal tax rate. They aren't paying on all of their money earned just the amount OVER x amount.
But if the poor have money, how will we control them and fight our wars for us? :((((((
Religion
True
@@ladywaffle2210 Rubbish. Growing up as a poor Christian, my faith helped me to hope. To believe in the future. I was encouraged by Biblical figures who rose from poverty to greatness. Plus my church has food drives.
@@leonrobinson8180 I have several Crusades, religion-based persecution, and several wars to show you. Where shall we start? The First Crusade? The Thirty Years War? The murder of gay men? The suppression of anything but heterosexuality for literally thousands of years? Religion has fueled more violence than almost anything else. But oh! Your church has a food drive, so I guess literally centuries of death and destruction is all forgiven.
What does it say about America when the common attitude about the poor is that it is a character flaw and the homeless deserve to be homeless instead of considering that there may be a broken institution that has stacked the deck against them?
That's not the common attitude in the US. The common attitude is that it is a lack of education, not a character flaw. The speaker uses some anecdotal quotes (by a non-American) and it automatically gets attributed to all as the common belief. It is not. The poor and rich in America are transient. Many of today's wealthiest Americans are from "new money". They had a brilliant idea and figured out how to market it to the masses. Most of us won't be a Bill Gates or a Mark Zuckerberg, but it is possible. The key is to take advantages of the opportunities presented to you as they become available.
LOL if you think everybody that can code will start an idea and have it be successful, you thought wrong. There's only so many Microsofts and Snapchats one can make. Mark and Bill are rare, rare cases and both of them were born to wealthy families and had opportunities that most working class people wouldn't have. That's like me hitting the lotto and buying the best teachers to teach my kid and then my kid goes to Harvard and learns how to code and starts XYZ and becomes a multi-billionaire. He probably wouldn't have been here or had the opportunity to succeed in such a way had I not hit the lottery.
LOL, uh, you missed my point.
Love Moore he literally just said most of us won’t be gates and zuckerburg but it is possible
For a "christian" nation, they certainly aren't very christly.
Since Aristotle we know this. In my philosophy studies at the university you learn at the beginning: Aristotle was just able to do philosophy, because he had slaves.
We do not have slaves anymore. But you need to have security and time for thinking about more than just how to survive.
Exactly. The most famous intellectuals were filthy rich.
@@ellcally508 I do not agree with this point. being able to afford life to te fullest definitely helped them focus on their study, but at the same time there have been many who did a lot just on the poverty line or under it.
And most of the intellectuals were ok financially, not filthy rich because being that much better than everyone usually has a negative result that gets u to appoint that u do not consider actuall work to be needed. that is why the laziest people are the mostrich ones (the ones who didn't get there, but started there-born there)
Oh there are slaves, many slaves...with invisible chains and even actually own people. You’d be amazed what you can buy on the dark net nowadays! But my original point is most people are enslaved and staying that way-just ask Donald Trump-“you’re fired”!
Trump, “I love the hispanics, they work cheep for me in my hotels, but the rest just stay in your $h*t hole countries, if you think your are coming to America to get rich like people of my skin tone you are wrong.”
Donald Trump sure does he loves his slaves, I mean minimum wage mules!
Trump, “Now Mexico pay us to keep the hispanics on that side of the wall, thank you very much.” “I will allow a few in each year to maintain my golf course lawns and hotel beds, for minimum slave wage, I mean working wage of course, hardest working people, love em”
Finally, a fair and honest view about poverty,....
My impression has always been that the powers that be know fully well that poverty can be eradicated but they simply don't want to do it.
It's not that simple, he talks about 1(one) case study in Canada, that lasted a very short period of time, I live in a country where the effects of prolonged states of welfare ruined the initiative and changed the idiosyncrasy of the people, and corrupt politicians keep taking money by increasing taxes and adding restrictions to "help" the poor by making everyone poorer and the giving those new poor aid so that they vote for them again, while the political class gets richer and everyone gets poorer and poorer, plus there are many things that were not considered, like how different cultures and customs shape the way a group of people behave. Is not a simple problem at all.
@Amy McGrath: I agree. Also regulating the market to a certain extent, granting people basic rights (i.e. work, income, health care..) doesn't make a country socialist. Those are responsibilities of a government. Capitalism and socialism are just opposite extremes one as radical and "bad" for the people as the other.
Thank you for articulating so eloquently what many of us spend our lives experiencing. But also feeling - 'What's the point?'. Well, you've stated the point really well. Like all great ideas, it's elegant, obvious and simple (and not necessarily original). Equality is not or should not be a radical notion - but it is. History and the present give us Masters and Slaves, - it's obvious that we can do better. But here we are, yet again, at war with ourselves and the planet. Best TED talk I've ever watched. Thanks...
There is equality in the US. What do you mean by equality? Almost all of us have the same opportunities (a chance) to improve our income and wealth. Do you mean equality where everyone has equal income or pay?
Andrew Yang is carrying this man's message absolutely. Wow!
We should care less about left or right politics (excluding extremes) and care more about the veracity of the ideas. Need to finally move away from "football club" style politics to meaningful actions.
That's the conflict that defines this era.
Leftists look at the current situation and think "This is unfair. How can we return some of that wealth and power to ordinary people?"
Rightists look out at the same world and think "This is unfair. How can we transfer even more wealth and power from the undeserving many to the economic elites?"
This comment is grossly underrated.
Jacob Serrano I agree.
@False Feathers Allowing corporations to control society with their wealth,control wages without regulation and force people to work for what they choose to give them is not libertarian,this is a very modern American view of the term libertarian and people like George Orwell and Oscar Wilde believed in a type of libertarianism that actually empowered the average person rather than corporations and the rich,the choice between death or wage slavery is not voluntary,dying is not a legitimate choice. The people need to be more in control of their society so I understand hesitation about wanting our state that is funding coups in other countries to control so much of the wealth but trusting the rich who are only motivated by profit and have no real accountability is even more foolish and trusting the free market to correct it and cause corporations to act benevolently when it isn't being corrected now is a fantasy. It isn't totalitarian to not let billionaires control the lives of the average person.
@False Feathers I cant believe that still to this day there are assholes who believe in the invisible hand bullshit
This is my favorite video I've seen in such a long time. I have been so pessimistic about the world, but truthfully this video has lifted me. Thank you so much ❤
Canada was once quite progressive. Now we are trying our hardest to become a poor imitation of the US.
canada proved UBI hurts society. just let alberta run everything and you will be a better version of the US
@@garetclaborn When? How?
I am from Alberta, and the amount of ignorance and idiocy there would surprise even those steeped in American politics.
@@noleftturnunstoned you just need to eat more bacon to understand them
I mean for about twenty years right after the government kidnapping of children, oppression of religious minorities, much more targeted racist efforts than the recent US could get away with in the last quarter of the twentieth century
How so?
Yes, the only job I ever had, that I also liked AND paid me a decent living? Was the only job I never quit. It was taken away from me instead. By greedy owners who were offered a hunk of cash for it. They couldn't resist. 67 people lost their jobs for a bit less then $2 million. I very rarely ever had to tell my 2nd shift crew what to do. I gave them 1 simple task. This is the job we have to have done by midnight. And I don't care how you get it done, as long as it's done right & before midnight. You can do what ever else you want, as long as the job is done. My crew loved me because I put it that simple and they loved they could either bust the job out, or take 7 hours & 45 minutes to get it done. They only let me down once and it was because I had let them down. By never asking them if anyone wanted to do another job, other then the one they were doing.
i bet you worked at a newspaper.
I grew up in a hopeless environment, and haven't been able to survive. I'm a young Black woman. If I could count how many times people with way more than I had have told me "Life is easy, you're just thinking about it the wrong way" while they drive around with daddy's money in their pockets, ughh. I'd have a home by now.
Are you doing better?
Great lecture. "Down and out in London and Paris" by George Orwell springs to mind. When you haven't any, it obsesses you and it effectively drowns out other things from your mind. It annihilates the future. Or "Wozzeck" by Büchner: It's easy to be moral when you're not poor.
And then Rutger becomes practical. The simplicity of what he says is great.
When I, as a poor single mom, get 'that judgemental look' i think of this brilliant quote by James A Baldwin "Anyone who has ever struggled with poverty knows how extremely expensive it is to be poor."
Being poor makes you poorer still.
Thank you so much Rutger! This was an amazing and moving talk.
"If history teaches us anything, it is that things could be different. There is nothing inevitable about the way we structured our economy and society right now. Ideas can and do change the world."
#yang2020
👏👏👏👏 I think this is a generational leap. Millenials have to take the torch and start running to kick boomers out!
*2024
Just finished the book, such an underrated author with a simple and powerful understanding. He taught me well. He should be talked about everywhere on social media.
With basic income, we could have teachers in huge numbers at all levels and all subjects. We could have a massive increase in "renaissance" people who spend their lives learning and sharing that learning, producing a genius culture of discovery and invention.
Pouring gems of wisdom into our long deprived minds about alternative to the so-called norms.
I grew up in Arkansas. Through elementary school, I ate once a day. In junior high I ate one meal a week on Sunday, and foraged from the woods around the school. Clover, dandelion, Polk salad, wild blackberries. I joined the Army and put on 30 pounds in basic training.
People are so much poorer now than they were then.
8:50 Results of UBI experiment in Canada
10:30 He starts his thesis about how and why to get rid of poverty.
10:40 The cost of poverty $500 bil
The cost to end poverty $175 bil
13:41 importance of being for the solutions instead of complaining about the problem.
14:10 He describes an inspired alternative dream life for workers.
thank you so much it’s for my homework for sociology to write 5 notes and i couldn’t be bothered watching this
'Simbol of this era: treat the symptoms but ignore the underlying cause' SO WELL SAID and so unfortunatelly it is an aspect of every part of our society especially the western society.
Poverty is a lack of available resources and services.
Poverty is the natural state of man. You have to hustle your way out of it and have personal discipline.
@@billwest7481 and when others hoard a majority of the available resources needed to simply exist we must stand up and fight for our survival.
@@gpurkeljc others produce the available resources. They don't hoard them. Sometimes they steal them using the government. But in a free market without a Central Bank they only get them when they produce them.
@@fatpotatoe6039 Flint Michigan and Nestle are a prime example of a corporation flexing its muscles for profit while depriving a community access to a drinkable water supply.
@@gpurkeljc That's unfortunate. I already knew of both circumstances. But I didn't justify that, did I? In a free market, profit is the result of value created above of cost and is a signal for more entrepreneurs to provide more of the good or service people most desire, resulting in a lower price. In pre-Industrial France, price controls on food meant villages starved to death because the price of food wasn't allowed to rise so that merchants would transport more to the starving villagers. Meanwhile, lack of price controls in Britain made it profitable to build a turnpike and canal system supplying all the hungry, which connected the nation's trade and enabled the development of a national market, enabling gains from specialisation and comparative advantage to manifest themselves, mobilising capital, and helping spur the Industrial Revolution which would double workers' wages in 32 years and provide them higher paying jobs than the 1 million that were created at the same time, despite mechanisation and enclosure, in the countryside.
it's just as he said we miss out on a lot of things simply because we like to think ourselves special for not being poor, when in reality we spend our lives for what is basically our simple needs. we can do better
If we objectify a population or community than we can avoid the facts and their safety.
Rutger Bregman: "Poverty isn't a lack of character." This man cares about all humanity. So should we. "Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me."
Recently, I've discovered another man, Andrew Yang. Yang picks up the wonderful type of thinking Bregman has laid out, and is now running with it. Running as President of the United States with it. We need this kind of thinking in the White House. Vote Yang 2020.
Yes, poverty is a lack of character. You cannot become rich if you cheat lie and steal. Nobody owes you anything. It's only lazy people who don't eat. I'm not referring to children. I'm referring to those guys on the street with backwards thinking.
@@LisaMaryification are you serious thats how this country was built...but the problem is you can't do the same its the brainwashing to make you think all of the 250,000 wealthy top in the world are angelic...soooo funny
@@LisaMaryification Read a history book
Yikes my man
The elites threw Yang out of the race.
Poor people do more to help others and are more caring for others than wealthy by far.
Exactly! When I have $10 to my name, and I give my coworker $5 to buy gas to get to work, I just gave half of my money to someone....
Let's see the Koch brothers, Warren Buffet, the Meijer family, THE WALDEN FAMILY, JEFF FUCKING BEZOS give half their money to people...
Terri Kukla society is built on the shoulders of the working poor and has always been. Particularly since the industrial age. Look at Gilded Age America. Look how quickly we progressed by exploiting immigrants for cheap labor so we could pour money into developing things like railroads and urbanization. This is the only model for success the people in power see as even possible. We must prove them wrong. Our lives depend on it.
Snappingturtle 267 the rich have the most money they ever had and the biggest capability to solve the worlds problems than they ever had. And what is the current case? Massive wealth disparity unparalleled in human history. Few hundred people have more money than a couple billion. Maybe they should donate a little more and a little fucking faster, no?
Snappingturtle 267 just because a few people at the top were once at the bottom doesnt mean that everyone can be at the top. It’s just not how a society works. There has to be workers for the company to run. And those workers need to be looked after by the companies they’re making money for.
Snappingturtle 267 I’m not saying small businessmen who own a pizzeria are corrupt capitalists. I’m referring to like giant corporations that make billions while exploiting their workers. You keep saying I’m wrong and this and that is bullshit. You have to prove that first. Attack the argument head on. Go ahead.
This is a statement that is true. Poverty builds character. Poverty forces you to think outside the box and be flexible. Poverty is lack of cash. Plain and simple.
Is it? Is having kids when you can barely support yourself a sign of built character, and critical thinking?
Because of the lack of intellectual power related to poor people, many authorities want people to live in poverty to guarantee their power... unfortunately we, ordinary people, condemn to live a completely poor life, depriving of everything which helps us to know them and their injustice.
Yes, we have to continue and we must accept all of these situations until we die...
Love this! Rutger Bregman - you are my new hero for the clarity and principles you espouse.
500 years to realize that poverty = lack of cash.
My thought exactly. I mean, I think we all knew it ("we" being people in poverty) but have long been told it's more complicated than that. It just isn't.
Define poverty. You are far richer than every single person who lived 500 years ago. Are you poor only when you compare yourself to others living in your same environment? Then maybe the issue is envy, not cash.
Adam Blade If people back then had 0 and I have 0, too, there's nothing to envy
@@serijas737 No, if people back then had 0, then you have at least 1000. Many of the commodities you have today were unfathomable 500 years ago, including talking on the Internet like this.
Adam Blade Bro, if I look at my bank account and I have 0 euros left, I don't have 1000.
One of the best TED Talks I've ever seen
This reminds me of a meme I saw a while ago that said: “oh no civilization has collapsed! If only we had a junior marketing intern to the regional managers assistant!”
I'm positively thrilled about the core message of this presentation although I must admit to feeling a certain sense of dread when thinking that the sentence "poverty is a lack of cash" had to be said and that it had to be made litteral and clear.