No one is suggesting societies the world over should implement an expensive basic income system in one stroke. Rutger Bregman Read Quote
Societies tend to presume that poor people are unable to handle money. If they had any, people reason, the poor and homeless would probably spend it on fast food and cheap beer, not on fruit or education. Rutger Bregman Read Quote
In the past 20 years scientists from very diverse disciplines – anthropologists, archaeologists, sociologists, psychologists – have all moved to a much more hopeful, optimistic view of human nature. Rutger Bregman Read Quote
A universal basic income means not only that millions of people would receive unconditional cash payments, but also that millions of people would have to cough up thousands more in taxes to fund it. This will make basic income politically a harder sell. Rutger Bregman Read Quote
Only the work that generates money is allowed to count toward GDP. Little wonder, then, that we have organized education around feeding as many people as possible in bite-size flexible parcels into the employment establishment. Rutger Bregman Read Quote
Employees have been worrying about the rising tide of automation for 200 years now, and for 200 years employers have been assuring them that new jobs will naturally materialize to take their place. Rutger Bregman Read Quote
If I say most people are pretty decent that may sound nice and warm but actually it’s really radical and subversive and that’s why, all throughout history, those who have advocated a more hopeful view of human nature – often the anarchists – have been persecuted. Rutger Bregman Read Quote
We so often tend to think our democracies are ruled by procedures and laws, but they are also governed by implicit rules and assumptions and one of them is the ability to feel shame – that you can be shamed. Rutger Bregman Read Quote
Psychologists even have a term for this: they talk about ‘mean world syndrome’. People who have just seen too much of the news have become more cynical, more pessimistic, more anxious, even more depressive. So, yeah, I think that is something you need to be wary of. Rutger Bregman Read Quote
