Basic income: Enriching humanity on an individual level | Halldóra Mogensen | TEDxReykjavik

How would our societies change if people had the freedom to make choices based on not what they have to do to survive, but what they want to do to thrive? In a future where technological advancement, with machine learning and automation, is poised to greatly disrupt our societies and create an ever deepening inequality, we must look at the possibility of severing the connection between work and income and provide everyone with the means to thrive.

In her talk at TEDxReykjavík, Halldóra Mogensen, a member of parliament for the Icelandic Pirate Party, talks about universal basic income, aiming to further the conversation on the topic in Iceland, inspire us to start questioning our current economic model and inventing our way into a more sustainable future.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community.

Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx

Imagine not having to put
a limit on yourself,

based on your need for an income.

Not letting the obligation
that you have to do this or that,

or you won't have food
to put on the table,

or a roof over your head,

control your choices.

If you had the basics taken care of
- food, clothing, shelter, health -

what would you spend your days doing?

What's the first thing
that comes to your mind?

If you want to start a business,

develop a new idea,
devote yourself to your art,

or dedicate your life to helping others,

how much opportunity do you have to do so?

How much time and energy left over

after eight hours at work
and two in a commute?

How much freedom,

after bankrupting that business
you finally took a chance at starting?

If it fails, that might
very well be the end of it.

Your last chance to live your dream,
gone into debt and disillusionment.

For those of us who have
no fallback, no economic safety net,

the stress that gives rise to

is a burden we carry with us
in all that we do.

What a difference it could make,
if we were able to set that burden down.

What a difference it would make

if we were able
to take a chance and mess up

and know that our bills
would still get paid.

Because making mistakes

is far more valuable
than we give it credit for.

Failure is inherent in all learning.

The path to mastery
is through constant failure

and constant readjustment
in response to that failure,

again, and again, and again.

What if all those who failed,
and had to go back to their day jobs,

had gotten a second, a third, a fourth,
a perpetual chance even.

Where would we be today?

Cancer cured?

Flying cars?

A colony on Mars?

The world that I imagine
as a result of this thought experiment

is a world that I believe we can reach.

But the only way to reach it
is if people are truly free.

The type of freedom

that comes from equal opportunities
and the ability to make choices,

based on not what you have
to do to survive,

but what you want to do to thrive.

We could do this by providing
a universal basic income to everyone.

Now, in its simplest form,
the idea of a universal basic income

means that everyone should receive

an amount of money
sufficient to make ends meet,

regardless of their circumstances,

like employment,
social status, or even need.

Then, those who are able,
or wish to supplement their income,

are then free to take
any work that they choose.

The income they receive from that work

would be an addition
to their universal basic income,

- after taxes, of course.

The basic income is unconditional

in that nothing you do or don't do
will affect you receiving it.

It enshrines the principle
that we are all valued members

of these human societies
we've created all over the world.

We have a right to share
in their collective wealth.

The philosopher Thomas Paine

in 1797 wrote a pamphlet
called "Agrarian Justice",

where he makes an argument
for universal basic income.

He states that,

"The earth in its natural,
uncultivated state

was and ever would have continued to be
the common property of the human race."

He goes on to say,

"It is the value of the improvement only,
and not of the earth itself,

that is individual property,"

and that "the proprietor, therefore,
of cultivated lands,

owes to the community a ground rent
for the land which he holds."

Now, the idea that we should all receive
a dividend from our stake

and our shared ownership
of the planet's resources

is a powerful one.

And, I think, an important one for the future.

A future where technological advances
with machine learning and automation

are poised to greatly
disrupt our societies

and create an ever deepening inequality.

To counter this, we must find a way

to sever the connection
between work and income.

I believe that we have
a unique opportunity to do just that,

and at the same time

do away with that very stress
of having to make ends meet

by working a job that, essentially,
a robot could do better.

A report published by Carl Benedikt Frey
and Michael Osborne of Oxford University

found that 47 percent of US jobs

are at risk of automation
in the next decade or two.

In poorer countries like India,
69 percent of jobs are at risk.

In China, 77 percent.

A report published
by the World Economic Forum

argues that job losses could be offset
by employment growth in other areas,

but comes to the conclusion

that the rise of robots will still lead
to a net loss of over five million jobs

in 15 major developed
and emerging economies,

by 2020.

These aren't just factory jobs
that we're talking about here.

Those jobs are already mostly gone
in the western world.

We're talking about
cashiers, telemarketers,

jobs in insurance and the food industry,
serving, office and administrative jobs,

sales, transportation

- the list goes on.

The power of machine learning

means that the jobs people thought
would be safe from automation

are now at risk too.

Katja Grace from Oxford's
Future of Humanity Institute

led a study asking the world's leading
researchers in artificial intelligence

when they think artificial intelligence

will be better than human beings
at a wide range of tasks.

North American researchers estimate
that this will happen in 74 years.

But their Asian counterparts
see this happening in just 30 years.

However you look at it,

before long AI will outsmart humans
in almost everything.

I think 30 years is a reasonable estimate,

but there are important factors
in slowing down automation.

One of those is likely
the cheapness of labor.

Think how difficult the fight
for higher wages will be in the future

where technology offers cheaper and more
efficient results than human labor.

In our current economic model

where income, and therefore survival,
is dependent on having a job,

workers will have
very little leverage to negotiate

as wages will be driven down
by the constant threat

of either outsourcing
to a cheaper labor force overseas,

or to robots.

In our current economic model,
who benefits from automation?

In the past,

the main benefactors
of technological advances

have been businesses, industry.

Technology has made
the world richer overall, yes,

but not everyone has benefited.

In 2009, the top 1 percent
owned 44 percent of the world's wealth.

In 2014, they had 48 percent.

By 2020, it is estimated

that the 1 percent will own
54 percent of global wealth.

Now, this concentration of wealth,
it doesn't have to continue,

we can change the system.

For the first time in history,
technology could lead us

to the abundance necessary
to enrich humanity on an individual level.

But to get there,

we have to be brave and open-minded enough

to dream a better world,

and then take the steps
towards that world.

Right now, automation is a threat,
but it doesn't have to be.

With a universal basic income,
it could be our road to freedom.

But to buy that freedom,

we need to stop running our economy
on the ideologies of the past

and start designing
the economy of the future.

Now, there are many ways

that we could fund
a universal basic income.

Most of them involve taxation reforms

that are sorely needed in our shifting,
highly technical, globalized economy.

We could, as Thomas Paine suggested,

start thinking differently
about the private ownership of land,

or even the resources
that we all need to survive.

We could start thinking differently

about innovation
and the ownership of ideas,

or the ownership of data
that we give freely to large corporations

who then profit from it.

Or the ownership
of technological progress,

which has been driven
by centuries of interchanging ideas.

Many of the technical wonders
that we enjoy in our everyday lives,

like computers and smartphones,

are based on research

that, to some degree,
has been taxpayer funded

and are produced with resources,
many of them rare minerals,

that are sourced from
the very ground we all walk.

How should these profits be shared?

There's also mounting evidence,

through the many experiments
that have been done

with universal basic income
all over the world,

that the system leads
to lower crime rates,

lower school dropout rates,

fewer accidents
and stress related illnesses,

whilst increasing the level
of education and entrepreneurship.

These findings,

along with the removal
of the burdens and bureaucracy

that comes with our current
welfare system,

would lead to massive savings
in taxpayer money

that could be diverted
into funding a universal basic income.

Now, these are just a few ideas.

They may seem implausible
or impossible even,

but where there's a will,
there's a way, no?

To better understand
where we are today and how we got here,

it is important to delve into the past

and to understand that the systems
that frame our lives are man-made.

We can change them.

Our current man-made system

is designed to reach
a goal grounded in ideology

that is today at odds
with an equitable and sustainable future.

That goal is maximum growth
of the economy.

In perpetuity,

Adam Smith, who's been coined
The Father of Modern Capitalism,

had a clear idea of how to get there,
of how to reach that goal,

by maximizing worker efficiency

and as a result,
production and consumption.

By breaking down complex processes
into many tiny steps,

each allotted to one worker,

human beings became little more
than cogs in the industrial machine,

whose output was an imagined
infinite economic growth.

It's interesting to note

that Adam Smith himself
pointed out the downfall of a system,

which in effect, employs human beings
into mindless drudgery

for half of their waking life

in order for them to make ends meet.

He warned that forcing individuals
to perform mundane and repetitive tasks

would lead to an ignorant
and dissatisfied workforce.

This was, it seems,
an acceptable side effect,

as the goal was, after all,
the material wealth of nations

and not an enlightened
and content population.

Smith, he believed monetary incentives
to be vital to get people to work.

After all, why would anyone choose

the hard and repetitive toil
that offered in the factories of his day,

if it wasn't absolutely
necessary for survival?

But the preconception was

that human beings are, in essence,
lazy and to some degree untrustworthy,

unless incentivized monetarily
to be otherwise.

The same school of thought
was then applied to our education system,

where instead of money,

exam scores, and degrees, and certificates
are used to incentivize learning,

as well as being pre-requisites
for graduating and then finding a job.

From an early age, we become accustomed

to working for extrinsic,
rather than intrinsic rewards.

Instead of being motivated
from that feeling of accomplishment,

when you come to understand concepts
and their application in the world,

that eureka moment,
when you finally get something.

Instead of that,

we're motivated to memorize
words and labels,

repeating them like a parrot,

to pass that exam, get that degree,

and contribute to that common goal,
endless economic growth.

What's wrong with that?

Hasn't it served to make
all of our lives a lot more wealthy?

Yes, it has.

At least, materially it has.

But it's also led to, as Smith warned,
an uninformed, dissatisfied population

forever seeking extrinsic validation
and instant gratification.

The perfect consumer!

Pollution of land, sea, and air

are the other fruits of this
low cost approach to civilization,

where we consume more
with every passing year,

as if this planet
were actually expanding in step.

Many of the conditions
that make this planet beautiful,

bountiful, and capable
of sustaining human life

are facing threats so far gone,

that our current technology
might not be able to deal with them,

even if we made
a concerted effort to do so,

which we are not.

Despite this,

our measure for success and well-being
is still Gross Domestic Product.

The amount of stuff we produce
without any regard to actual need,

making our economic system work

against the very systems we rely on
for our survival and well-being.

What does this tell us?

Do we not have to rethink
our very definition of success?

What makes a nation truly wealthy?

I believe that to find these answers,

we have to be willing
to examine our core belief systems

and ask ourselves if they're serving us.

And by us I mean all of us,

because if we're to evolve as a species,

we must rise above the individual interest

and start looking towards the interest
of the collective, the whole.

Our world is fast changing.

And with it, the societies and the systems
that we've built to sustain us.

Now, these changes will happen
with or without our participation.

It's not a question of if,
but of when and how.

The how is something
we have a little control over,

but only to the extent
of how willing we are

to look at the paths ahead,
understand the inevitable changes we face,

and to prepare.

We must prepare.

These will be the deciding factors

in whether a particular change
will be positive or negative for society.

Now, the how might very well be
a universal basic income,

which has the potential
to both mitigate unemployment,

greatly accelerate the rate
of technological development,

possibly save the planet,

and make people be more fulfilled
and happy than they have ever been.

Now, I think that's worth a shot.

Don't you?

Thank you.

(Applause)