“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

If you are not guaranteed surviving today, then planning for tomorrow is irrelevant.

COVID-19 has made these ideas more relevant than ever.

"They're not rich because they're nice, they're nice because they're rich."

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!

Maslow had it right. You cannot get to higher needs until you have the basic ones covered.

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.

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.

Survival stress just takes up so much computation resources, which results in bad decisions. Period.

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.

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.

Who else is here after he grilled tucker carlson

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.

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.

"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.

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.

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.

Damn, this TED Talk needs about 7,5 billion individual views.

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.

We need more people to carry this message across the world.

"it's a cruel jest to tell a bootless man that he oughta lift himself by his own boot straps." MLK.

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."

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

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.

You don't know how true this all is unless you've lived on a huge range of different income levels like I have.

The sad thing is that most of us has known this for years. We keep sharing the message but nothing seems to change.

Poor people always make poor decision because they only have poor option

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.

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

An excellent talk. I have been rich and I have been poor. And getting out of poverty is almost impossible for most.

Probably one of the best ever TED talks I've ever watched. This is absolutely 👌🏿

Poverty is imposed. Imagine a society that values maximizing human potential rather than protecting the greediest.

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.

Arrived here after Rutger Bregman dog walked Tucker Carlson (on his own show) and I need to know more about this great man.

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.

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.

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.

If the poor are not under the stress of survival they might start THINKING!!!! The top dogs don't want that to happen

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.

Probably the best TED conference ever...

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.

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.

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.

I didn't expect this to turn into a discussion about universal basic income but I'm glad it did

It's hard to build something from nothing. If a man with little to no money makes a financial mistake, the impact is much more damaging than for the rich man who makes the same dollar-for-dollar mistake because the rich man can absorb it while the poor man cannot. Just food for thought.

*Reality Check: The 2008 crash: rich people and their character flaws for which the U.S is still suffering.*

If we objectify a population or community than we can avoid the facts and their safety.

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!

Martin Luthor didn't say 'I have a nightmare.' That line was brilliant. :) This was a wonderful talk. 🙂

"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!

“ NO MAN CAN BE WISE ON AN EMPTY STOMACH “.- George Eliot

As a beneficiary of such a policy in the 1950s, I can attest that It Works. The cash that I was 'given' was earned by working at an entry level factory job. After four straight summers working there I completed four years at a university where I finished with a bachelors degree. A higher paying job then led to a year and summer session at the same university and a masters degree. My next step was work as a graduate assistant at another university and, after 3 years at this, finished with a PhD - and from there to become a college professor. In short, what Bregman discusses in this video DID work for me in the Old Republic of the last century! Sadly, all this changed with the ascendancy of regressive policies and a culture of greed from the disastrous Republican Party. We can continue this deadly spiral against our better nature, and decay and die, with a ruinous decline into authoritarianism from another tRUMP presidency. ..... The very bottom line is: DON'T LET THAT HAPPEN!

“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.”

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.

But if the poor have money, how will we control them and fight our wars for us? :((((((

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...

Andrew Yang talks about this now. Hes the only candidate advocating for it.

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.

Thank you so much Rutger! This was an amazing and moving talk.

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

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.

Thank you Tucker for suggesting this guy. :-)

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.

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.

I’ve always said, I don’t need more work, I need more money.

Wow. In reading through these comments, I’m realizing this country really is polarized beyond repair.

One effective way to combat poverty would be to just work less and let someone else have a job. The problem of poverty isn't just that the poor consume to little, but the rich consume to much. Hans Rosling explains this every well in his TedTalk.

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.

why focus on whether the opinion is left or right? why not try to listen what the opinion is?

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.

Finally, after years of motivational videos condemning the poor for their poor decisions as a lack of character, here is a man who looks at poverty right from the context. Rich people will say: The poor will use their money to buy things they consume. Tell me, what does anyone expect a person who has money enough for food for a couple of days to do? Invest it in the stoke market? Man will attend to their most pressing need in this context! So this man is absolutely right.

I really love the idea, but I wonder, if the basic income is provided, how would the prices and cost of living change? If the government cannot control the prices for food, education and sheltering, the basic income would be next to nothing soon.

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.

Thought it would be just another 15 min ted talk, glad i clicked

God says: Give to the poor. Rutger Bregman says: Give to the poor. I say: Thank God for Rutger Bregman.

"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"

Where is the love option for videos? Like doesn't do justice.

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.

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!

Ben Shapiro be like "How can you be so poor? Just get more money"

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?

Tucker Carlson brought me here

He nailed it. I consider myself poor when I was a kid. I went to school and luckily I graduated college and now I am a licensed engineer. I was sorrounded by poor people as a kid, until now. Margaret Thatcher is wrong, it is not about personality defect.

I am glad that someone who HAS learned the lessons of History is being allowed to say something. Even if no one in power will ever listen 🙄

Really brilliant talk. “The best minds of our day are being used to make people click ads” - so true!

Finally, a fair and honest view about poverty,....

Only people who don´t want to help the poor with a penny and don´t want to know that they might be the cause themselves, "think" that poverty is a "character problem". In that case it is their character that is a problem, because poverty is a society/social problem and not an individual problem..

this video is too underrated man

Rutger Bregman, thank for sharing your amazingly refreshing dream that we ALL would benefit from. Keep up the good work. Love from Canada.

500 years to realize that poverty = lack of cash.

We can never have a real conversation about how to bring people out of poverty when we are so focused on debating capitalism and socialism. Everyone wants to end poverty. We need to define how we are going to do this.

One of the best TED Talks I've ever seen

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.

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'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.

we need to stop voting for someone until we have seen their TAX PLAN

Beautiful speech! Here in my adoptive country Finland, an experiment on this has just ended.

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.

I feel so happy after watching this. 😅 Ofcourse, lots to do within and without. Thanks so much for sharing, Mr. Rutger B!

Oh my God, I love this performance, thank you a lot! God bless! And I am in!