WEBVTT

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I'd like to start with a simple question.

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Why do the poor make
so many poor decisions?

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I know it's a harsh question,

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but take a look at the data.

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The poor borrow more, save less,

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smoke more, exercise less, drink more

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and eat less healthfully.

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Why?

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Well, the standard explanation

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was once summed up by the British
Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher.

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And she called poverty
"a personality defect."

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(Laughter)

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A lack of character, basically.

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Now, I'm sure not many of you
would be so blunt.

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But the idea that there's something
wrong with the poor themselves

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is not restricted to Mrs. Thatcher.

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Some of you may believe that the poor
should be held responsible

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for their own mistakes.

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And others may argue that we should
help them to make better decisions.

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But the underlying assumption is the same:

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there's something wrong with them.

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If we could just change them,

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if we could just teach them
how to live their lives,

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if they would only listen.

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And to be honest,

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this was what I thought for a long time.

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It was only a few years ago
that I discovered

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that everything I thought I knew
about poverty was wrong.

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It all started when I accidentally
stumbled upon a paper

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by a few American psychologists.

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They had traveled 8,000 miles,

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all the way to India,

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for a fascinating study.

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And it was an experiment
with sugar cane farmers.

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You should know that these farmers
collect about 60 percent

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of their annual income all at once --

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right after the harvest.

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This means that they're relatively
poor one part of the year

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and rich the other.

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The researchers asked them to do
an IQ test before and after the harvest.

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What they subsequently discovered
completely blew my mind.

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The farmers scored much worse
on the test before the harvest.

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The effects of living in poverty,

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it turns out,

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correspond to losing 40 points of IQ.

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Now, to give you an idea,

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that's comparable
to losing a night's sleep,

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or the effects of alcoholism.

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A few months later,

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I heard that Eldar Shafir,

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a professor at Princeton University
and one of the authors of this study,

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was coming over to Holland,

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where I live.

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So we met up in Amersterdam

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to talk about his revolutionary
new theory of poverty.

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And I can sum it up in just two words:

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scarcity mentality.

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It turns out that people
behave differently

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when they perceive a thing to be scarce.

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And what that thing is
doesn't much matter --

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whether it's not enough time,
money or food.

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You all know this feeling

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when you've got too much to do,

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or when you've put off breaking for lunch
and your blood sugar takes a dive.

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This narrows your focus
to your immediate lack --

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to the sandwich you've got to have now,

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the meeting that's starting
in five minutes,

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or the bills that have
to be paid tomorrow.

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So the long-term perspective
goes out the window.

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You could compare it to a new computer
that's running 10 heavy programs at once.

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It gets slower and slower,

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making errors.

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Eventually it freezes

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not because it's a bad computer,

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but because it has too much to do at once.

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The poor have the same problem.

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They're not making dumb decisions
because they are dumb,

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but because they're living in a context
in which anyone would make dumb decisions.

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So suddenly I understood

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why so many of our anti-poverty
programs don't work.

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Investments in education for example

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are often completely ineffective.

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Poverty is not a lack of knowledge.

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A recent analysis of 201 studies

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on the effectiveness
of money management training

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came to the conclusion that is has
almost know effect at all.

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Don't get me wrong.

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This is not to say that the poor
don't learn anything --

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they can come out wiser for sure,

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but it's not enough.

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Or as Professor Shafir told me,

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"It's like teaching someone to swim

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and then throwing them in a stormy sea."

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I still remember sitting there,

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perplexed.

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And it struck me that we could
have figured this all out decades ago.

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I mean these psychologists
didn't need any complicated brain scans;

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they only had to measure the farmers' IQ,

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and IQ tests were invented
more that 100 years ago.

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Actually, I realized I had read about
the psychology of poverty before.

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George Orwell,

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one of the greatest writers
who ever lived,

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experienced poverty
firsthand in the 1920s.

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"The essence of poverty,"

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he wrote back then,

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is that it "annihilates the future."

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And he marveled at quote,

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"How people take it for granted

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they have the right to preach at you

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and pray over you

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as soon as your income falls
below a certain level."

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Now, those words are every bit
as resonant today.

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The big question is of course,

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what can be done?

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Modern economists have a few
solutions up their sleeves.

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We could help the poor
with their paperwork,

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or send them a text message
to remind them to pay their bills.

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This type of solution is hugely
popular with modern politicians.

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Mostly because,

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well,

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they cost next to nothing.

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These solutions are,

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I think,

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a symbol of this era

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in which we so often treat the symptoms,

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but ignore the underlying cause.

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So I wonder,

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why don't we just change the context
in which the poor live?

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Or, going back to our computer analogy,

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why keep tinkering around
with the software

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when we can easily solve the problem
by installing some extra memory instead?

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At that point,

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Professor Shafir responded
with a blank look.

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And after a few seconds,

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he said,

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"Oh, I get it,

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you mean you want to just
hand out more money to the poor

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to eradicate poverty.

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Uh, sure, that'd be great ...

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but I'm afraid that brand
of left-wing politics

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you've got in Amsterdam ...

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it doesn't exist in the States."

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But is this really
an old-fashioned, leftist idea?

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I remembered reading about old plan --

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something that has been proposed
by some of history's leading thinkers.

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The philosopher Thomas More
first hinted at it in his book, "Utopia,"

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more than 500 years ago.

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And its proponents have spanned
the spectrum from the left to the right,

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from the civil rights campaigner
Martin Luther King,

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to the economist Milton Friedman.

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And it's an incredibly simple idea.

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Basic income guarantee.

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What it is?

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Well, that's easy.

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It's a monthly grant,

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enough to pay for your basic needs:

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food, shelter, education.

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It's completely unconditional,

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so no one's going to tell you
what you have to do for it,

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and no one's going to tell you
what you have to do with it.

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The basic income is not a favor,

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but a right.

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There's absolutely no stigma attached.

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So as I learned about the true
nature of poverty,

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I couldn't stop wondering ...

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is this the idea
we've all been waiting for?

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Could it really be that simple?

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And in the three years that followed,

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I read everything I could find
about basic income.

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I researched the dozens of experiments

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that have been conducted
all over the globe,

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and it didn't take long

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before I stumbled upon a story
of a town that had done it --

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had actually eradicated poverty --

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but then ...

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nearly everyone forgot about it.

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This story starts in Dauphin, Canada.

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In 1974, everybody in this small town
was guaranteed a basic income,

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ensuring that no one fell
below the poverty line.

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And at the start of the experiment,

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an army of researchers
descended on the town.

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For four years all went well.

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But then a new government
was voted into power,

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and the new Canadian cabinet saw
little point to the expensive experiment.

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So when it became clear there was
no money left to analyze the results,

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the researchers decided to pack
their files away in some 2,000 boxes.

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25 years went by,

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and then Evelyn Forget,

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a Canadian professor,

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found the records.

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And for three years she subjected the data
to all manner of statistical analysis,

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and no matter what she tried,

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the results were the same every time.

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The experiment had been
a resounding success.

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Evelyn Forget discovered

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that the people in Dauphin
had not only become richer,

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but also smarter and healthier.

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The school performance of kids
improved substantially.

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The hospitalization rate decreased
by as much as 8.5 percent.

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Domestic violence incidents were down,

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as were mental health complaints.

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And people didn't quit their jobs.

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The only ones who worked a little less
were new mothers and students --

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who stayed in school longer.

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Similar results have since been found

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in countless other experiments
around the globe,

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from the US to India.

NOTE Paragraph

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So ...

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here's what I've learned.

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When it comes to poverty,

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we the rich should stop
pretending we know best.

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We should stop sending
shoes and teddy bears to the poor,

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to people we have never met.

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And we should get rid of the vast
industry of paternalistic bureaucrats

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when we could simply
hand over their salaries

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to the poor they're supposed to help.

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(Applause)

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Because, I mean, the great
thing about money

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is that people can use it
to buy things they need

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instead of things that self-appointed
experts think they need.

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Just imagine how many brilliant scientists
and entrepreneurs and writers,

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like George Orwell,

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are now withering away in scarcity.

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Imagine how much energy
and talent we would unleash

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if we got rid of poverty once and for all.

NOTE Paragraph

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I believe that a basic income would
work like venture capital for the people.

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And we can't afford not to do it,

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because poverty is hugely expensive.

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Just look at the cost of child poverty
in the US for example.

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It's estimated at 500
billion dollars each year,

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in terms of higher health care spending,

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higher dropout rates,

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and more crime.

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Now this is an incredible waste
of human potential.

NOTE Paragraph

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But let's talk about
the elephant in the room.

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How could we ever afford
a basic income guarantee?

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Well, it's actually a lot cheaper
than you may think.

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What they did in Dauphin is they
financed it with a negative income tax.

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This means that your income
is [stacked up]

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as soon as you fall
below the poverty line.

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And in that scenario,

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according to our economists'
best estimates,

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for a net cost of 175 billion --

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a quarter of US military spending,

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one percent of GDP --

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you could lift all impoverished Americans
above the poverty line.

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You could actually eradicate poverty.

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Now that should be our goal.

NOTE Paragraph

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The time for small thoughts
and little nudges is past.

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I really believe that the time has come
for radical new ideas,

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and basic income is so much more
than just another policy.

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It is also a complete rethink
of what work actually is.

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And in that sense,

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it will not only free the poor ...

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but also the rest of us.

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Nowadays, millions of people feel

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that their jobs have little
meaning or significance.

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A recent poll among 230,000 employees,

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in 142 countries,

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found that only 30 percent of workers
actually like their job.

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And another poll found that as much
as 37 percent of British workers

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have a job that they think
doesn't even need to exist.

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It's like Brad Pitt says in "Fight Club,"

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"Too often we're working jobs we hate
so we can buy shit we don't need."

NOTE Paragraph

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(Laughter)

NOTE Paragraph

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Now don't get me wrong --

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I'm not talking about the teachers
and the garbagemen

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and the care workers here.

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If they stopped working,

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we'd be in trouble.

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I'm talking about all those well-paid
professionals with excellent resumes

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who earn their money doing ...

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strategic transactor peer-to-peer meetings

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while brainstorming the value add
on all disruptive co-creation

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in the network society.

NOTE Paragraph

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(Laughter)

NOTE Paragraph

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(Applause)

NOTE Paragraph

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Or something like that.

NOTE Paragraph

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Just imagine again how much
talent we're wasting

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simply because we tell our kids
they'll have to "earn a living."

00:12:53.722 --> 00:12:56.400
Or think of what a math whiz
working at Facebook lamented

00:12:56.400 --> 00:12:57.580
a few years ago:

00:12:57.580 --> 00:12:59.546
"The best minds of my generation

00:12:59.546 --> 00:13:03.124
are thinking about how
to make people click ads."

NOTE Paragraph

00:13:04.566 --> 00:13:06.548
I'm an historian.

00:13:07.073 --> 00:13:09.285
And if history teaches us anything,

00:13:09.285 --> 00:13:11.879
it is that things could be different.

00:13:12.101 --> 00:13:13.406
There is nothing inevitable

00:13:13.406 --> 00:13:16.346
about the way we structured our society
and economy right now.

00:13:16.346 --> 00:13:18.623
Ideas can and do change the world.

00:13:18.877 --> 00:13:21.412
And I think that especially
in the past few years,

00:13:21.412 --> 00:13:22.853
it has become abundantly clear

00:13:22.853 --> 00:13:24.825
that we cannot stick to the status quo --

00:13:24.825 --> 00:13:27.003
that we need new ideas.

NOTE Paragraph

00:13:28.604 --> 00:13:31.935
I know that many of you
may feel pessimistic

00:13:31.936 --> 00:13:34.023
about a future of rising inequality,

00:13:34.023 --> 00:13:35.308
xenophobia

00:13:35.308 --> 00:13:36.692
and climate change.

00:13:37.087 --> 00:13:39.309
But it's not enough
to know what we're against.

00:13:39.309 --> 00:13:40.813
We also need be for something.

00:13:40.813 --> 00:13:43.626
Martin Luther King didn't say,
"I have a nightmare."

NOTE Paragraph

00:13:43.626 --> 00:13:44.873
(Laughter)

NOTE Paragraph

00:13:45.336 --> 00:13:46.638
He had a dream.

NOTE Paragraph

00:13:46.638 --> 00:13:47.740
(Applause)

NOTE Paragraph

00:13:47.740 --> 00:13:50.140
So ...

00:13:50.140 --> 00:13:51.670
here's my dream.

00:13:52.300 --> 00:13:54.165
I believe in a future

00:13:54.165 --> 00:13:58.061
where the value of your work is not
determined by the size of your paycheck,

00:13:58.061 --> 00:14:00.046
but by the amount of happiness you spread

00:14:00.046 --> 00:14:02.111
and the amount of meaning you give.

00:14:02.111 --> 00:14:03.358
I believe in a future

00:14:03.358 --> 00:14:04.690
where the point of education

00:14:04.690 --> 00:14:06.869
is not to prepare you
for another useless job,

00:14:06.869 --> 00:14:09.039
but for a life well-lived.

00:14:09.208 --> 00:14:10.707
I believe in a future

00:14:10.707 --> 00:14:13.910
where an existence
without poverty is not a privilege

00:14:13.910 --> 00:14:15.718
but a right we all deserve.

NOTE Paragraph

00:14:15.862 --> 00:14:17.086
So here we are.

00:14:17.296 --> 00:14:18.296
Here we are.

00:14:18.296 --> 00:14:19.391
We've got the research,

00:14:19.391 --> 00:14:20.465
we've got the evidence

00:14:20.465 --> 00:14:21.714
and we've got the means.

00:14:21.714 --> 00:14:25.646
Now, more than 500 years after Thomas
More first wrote about basic income,

00:14:25.646 --> 00:14:29.806
and 100 years after George Orwell
discovered the true nature of poverty,

00:14:29.806 --> 00:14:32.389
we all need to change our worldview,

00:14:32.389 --> 00:14:35.484
because poverty
is not a lack of character.

00:14:35.867 --> 00:14:38.844
Poverty is a lack of cash.

NOTE Paragraph

00:14:39.247 --> 00:14:40.602
Thank you.

NOTE Paragraph

00:14:40.756 --> 00:14:43.112
(Applause)