Jeg vil gerne starte med et simpelt spørgsmål: Hvorfor tager de fattige så mange dårlige valg? Jeg ved, at det er et svært spørgsmål, men kig på dataen. De fattige låner mere, sparer mindre, ryger mere, træner mindre, drikker mere og spiser mindre sundt. Hvorfor?
I'd like to start with a simple question: Why do the poor make so many poor decisions? I know it's a harsh question, but take a look at the data. The poor borrow more, save less, smoke more, exercise less, drink more and eat less healthfully. Why?
Tja, standardforklaringen blev opsummeret af den britiske premierminister, Margaret Thatcher. Hun kaldte fattigdom "en personlighedsbrist".
Well, the standard explanation was once summed up by the British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher. And she called poverty "a personality defect."
(Latter)
(Laughter)
Dybest set mangel på karakter.
A lack of character, basically.
De færreste ville være så direkte. Men idéen om, at der er noget i vejen med de fattige selv er fru Thatcher ikke ene om. I mener måske, at fattige er ansvarlige for deres egne fejl. Andre vil måske hævde, at vi burde hjælpe dem med at træffe bedre valg. Men den underliggende antagelse er den samme: der er noget galt med dem. Hvis vi kunne ændre dem, hvis vi kunne lære dem, hvordan de skulle leve, hvis bare de lyttede. Ærligt talt, var det også min holdning længe. For få år siden opdagede jeg, at al min viden om fattigdom var forkert.
Now, I'm sure not many of you would be so blunt. But the idea that there's something wrong with the poor themselves is not restricted to Mrs. Thatcher. Some of you may believe that the poor should be held responsible for their own mistakes. And others may argue that we should help them to make better decisions. But the underlying assumption is the same: there's something wrong with them. If we could just change them, if we could just teach them how to live their lives, if they would only listen. And to be honest, this was what I thought for a long time. It was only a few years ago that I discovered that everything I thought I knew about poverty was wrong.
Det hele startede, da jeg læste en afhandling af nogle amerikanske psykologer. De var rejst 13.000 km. til Indien for at foretage en fascinerende undersøgelse. Det var et eksperiment med bønder, der dyrkede sukkerrør. Disse bønder får 60% af deres årlige indkomst på en gang, lige efter høsten. De er altså relativt fattige den ene del af året og rige den anden del. Forskerne testede bøndernes intelligens før og efter høsten. Deres opdagelse overraskede mig fuldstændigt. Bønderne scorede meget lavere i testen før høsten. Det viser sig at leve i fattigdom svarer til at miste 14 point i en IK-test. Det svarer til at mangle en nats søvn eller være alkoholiker.
It all started when I accidentally stumbled upon a paper by a few American psychologists. They had traveled 8,000 miles, all the way to India, for a fascinating study. And it was an experiment with sugarcane farmers. You should know that these farmers collect about 60 percent of their annual income all at once, right after the harvest. This means that they're relatively poor one part of the year and rich the other. The researchers asked them to do an IQ test before and after the harvest. What they subsequently discovered completely blew my mind. The farmers scored much worse on the test before the harvest. The effects of living in poverty, it turns out, correspond to losing 14 points of IQ. Now, to give you an idea, that's comparable to losing a night's sleep or the effects of alcoholism.
Få måneder senere hørte jeg, at Eldar Shafir, professor ved Princeton Universitet og medforfatter af denne afhandling, kom til Holland, hvor jeg bor. Vi mødtes i Amsterdam for at tale om hans banebrydende nye teori om fattigdom. Jeg kan sammenfatte den i et ord: Knaphedsmentalitet. Det viser sig, at mennesker opfører sig anderledes, når en ting er en mangelvare. Det er ligegyldigt, hvad den ting er, om det er mangel på tid, penge eller mad.
A few months later, I heard that Eldar Shafir, a professor at Princeton University and one of the authors of this study, was coming over to Holland, where I live. So we met up in Amsterdam to talk about his revolutionary new theory of poverty. And I can sum it up in just two words: scarcity mentality. It turns out that people behave differently when they perceive a thing to be scarce. And what that thing is doesn't much matter -- whether it's not enough time, money or food.
Vi kender alle følelsen af at have for meget at lave, eller hvis vi har sprunget frokosten over, og vores blodsukker dykker. Det indsnævrer dit fokus til den sandwich du SKAL have nu, det møde, der starter om fem minutter, eller de regninger, der SKAL betales i morgen. Langtidsperspektivet forsvinder. Det kan sammenlignes med en ny computer, der kører ti tunge programmer på en gang. Den bliver langsommere og laver fejl. Til sidst går den i stå - ikke fordi det er en dårlig computer, men fordi den skal lave for meget på en gang. Fattige har det samme problem. De træffer ikke dårlige beslutninger, fordi de er dumme, men fordi de lever i en sammenhæng, hvor alle træffer dårlige beslutninger.
You all know this feeling, when you've got too much to do, or when you've put off breaking for lunch and your blood sugar takes a dive. This narrows your focus to your immediate lack -- to the sandwich you've got to have now, the meeting that's starting in five minutes or the bills that have to be paid tomorrow. So the long-term perspective goes out the window. You could compare it to a new computer that's running 10 heavy programs at once. It gets slower and slower, making errors. Eventually, it freezes -- not because it's a bad computer, but because it has too much to do at once. The poor have the same problem. They're not making dumb decisions because they are dumb, but because they're living in a context in which anyone would make dumb decisions.
Pludselig forstod jeg, hvorfor så mange af vore anti-fattigdoms- projekter ikke virker. Hvorfor investering i uddannelse ofte er ineffektivt. Fattigdom er ikke mangel på viden. En nylig analyse af 201 undersøgelser af effekten af kurser i finanshåndtering, viste at de nærmest ingen effekt havde. Misforstå mig ikke - det betyder ikke, at de fattige ikke lærer noget ... de bliver ofte klogere. Men det er ikke nok. Eller - som professor Shafir fortalte mig - "Det er ligesom at lære nogen at svømme og så smide dem ud i et stormfyldt hav."
So suddenly I understood why so many of our anti-poverty programs don't work. Investments in education, for example, are often completely ineffective. Poverty is not a lack of knowledge. A recent analysis of 201 studies on the effectiveness of money-management training came to the conclusion that it has almost no effect at all. Now, don't get me wrong -- this is not to say the poor don't learn anything -- they can come out wiser for sure. But it's not enough. Or as Professor Shafir told me, "It's like teaching someone to swim and then throwing them in a stormy sea."
Jeg husker, at jeg sad der, forvirret. Og det slog mig, at vi kunne have opdaget det for årtier siden. Disse psykologer behøvede ingen komplicerede hjernescanninger. At måle bøndernes IK var nok, og IK-test blev opfundet for over 100 år siden Jeg har tidligere læst om fattigdommens psykologi. George Orwell, en af verdens største forfattere, oplevede fattigdom på egen krop i 1920'erne. "Kernen i fattigdom," skrev han dengang, er, at den "udsletter fremtiden." Han undrede sig: "Hvordan folk tager det for givet, at de har ret til at prædike og bestemme over dig, så snart din indtægt kommer under et vist niveau."
I still remember sitting there, perplexed. And it struck me that we could have figured this all out decades ago. I mean, these psychologists didn't need any complicated brain scans; they only had to measure the farmer's IQ, and IQ tests were invented more than 100 years ago. Actually, I realized I had read about the psychology of poverty before. George Orwell, one of the greatest writers who ever lived, experienced poverty firsthand in the 1920s. "The essence of poverty," he wrote back then, is that it "annihilates the future." And he marveled at, quote, "How people take it for granted they have the right to preach at you and pray over you as soon as your income falls below a certain level."
Disse ord gælder stadig. Det store spørgsmål er: Hvad kan vi gøre? Moderne økonomer ryster løsninger ud af ærmet. Vi kunne hjælpe de fattige med deres regnskaber eller minde dem om at betale deres regninger. Den slags løsninger er enormt populære blandt moderne politikere, især fordi ... de koster så lidt. Sådanne løsninger er typiske for vor tid. Vi behandler symptomerne, men ignorerer årsagen.
Now, those words are every bit as resonant today. The big question is, of course: What can be done? Modern economists have a few solutions up their sleeves. We could help the poor with their paperwork or send them a text message to remind them to pay their bills. This type of solution is hugely popular with modern politicians, mostly because, well, they cost next to nothing. These solutions are, I think, a symbol of this era in which we so often treat the symptoms, but ignore the underlying cause.
Så jeg spørger: Hvorfor ændrer vi ikke de fattiges levevilkår? Som i eksemplet med computeren: Hvorfor lappe softwaren, hvis vi nemt løser problemet ved at installere mere hukommelse? Professor Shafir fik et tomt blik i øjnene og svarede efter nogle sekunder: "Åh, jeg forstår. Giver vi flere penge til de fattige, så udrydder vi fattigdom. Det ville være godt. Men den venstreorienterede politik, I har i Amsterdam... findes ikke i Amerika."
So I wonder: Why don't we just change the context in which the poor live? Or, going back to our computer analogy: Why keep tinkering around with the software when we can easily solve the problem by installing some extra memory instead? At that point, Professor Shafir responded with a blank look. And after a few seconds, he said, "Oh, I get it. You mean you want to just hand out more money to the poor to eradicate poverty. Uh, sure, that'd be great. But I'm afraid that brand of left-wing politics you've got in Amsterdam -- it doesn't exist in the States."
Men er det virkelig en gammeldags, venstreorienteret ide? Jeg husker, jeg læste om en gammel plan ... Den blev foreslået af historiens førende tænkere. Filosoffen Thomas More var den første til at skrive om det i sin bog "Utopia" for mere end 500 år siden. Fortalerne er kommet fra hele spektret fra venstre til højre, fra borgerrettighedsfortaleren Martin Luther KIng, til økonomen Milton Friedman. Det er en utrolig enkel ide: Borgerløn, garanteret basisindtægt.
But is this really an old-fashioned, leftist idea? I remembered reading about an old plan -- something that has been proposed by some of history's leading thinkers. The philosopher Thomas More first hinted at it in his book, "Utopia," more than 500 years ago. And its proponents have spanned the spectrum from the left to the right, from the civil rights campaigner, Martin Luther King, to the economist Milton Friedman. And it's an incredibly simple idea: basic income guarantee.
Hvad er det? Det er nemt. En månedlig udbetaling, der dækker dine basale behov: Mad, husleje, uddannelse. Uden betingelser, ingen fortæller dig, hvad du skal yde for den, og ingen fortæller dig, hvad du skal bruge den til. Borgerløn er ikke en gave, men en rettighed. Det er ingen skam at modtage den. Så mens jeg lærte om fattigdommens sande natur, tænkte jeg hele tiden: Er det den ide, vi alle har ventet på? Kan det virkelig være så enkelt? De næste tre år læste jeg alt om borgerløn. Jeg undersøgte dusinvis af eksperimenter fra hele verden. Hurtigt faldt jeg over en fortælling om en by, der havde indført det ... og udryddet fattigdom. Men så ... glemte næsten alle det.
What it is? Well, that's easy. It's a monthly grant, enough to pay for your basic needs: food, shelter, education. It's completely unconditional, so no one's going to tell you what you have to do for it, and no one's going to tell you what you have to do with it. The basic income is not a favor, but a right. There's absolutely no stigma attached. So as I learned about the true nature of poverty, I couldn't stop wondering: Is this the idea we've all been waiting for? Could it really be that simple? And in the three years that followed, I read everything I could find about basic income. I researched the dozens of experiments that have been conducted all over the globe, and it didn't take long before I stumbled upon a story of a town that had done it -- had actually eradicated poverty. But then ... nearly everyone forgot about it.
Byen var Dauphin i Canada. I 1974 fik alle indbyggere udbetalt en basal indtægt, så ingen kom under fattigdomsgrænsen. I begyndelsen af eksperimentet ankom en hær af forskere til byen. I fire år gik alt godt. Men så blev der valgt en ny regering, og den nye canadiske regering så ingen mening i det dyre eksperiment. Der var ingen penge til at analysere resultaterne, så forskerne pakkede deres papirer ned i 2.000 kasser. Der gik 25 år før Evelyn Forget, en canadisk professor, fandt optegnelserne. I tre år analyserede hun data og ligegyldigt hvad hun prøvede blev resultatet det samme. Eksperimentet var en stor succes.
This story starts in Dauphin, Canada. In 1974, everybody in this small town was guaranteed a basic income, ensuring that no one fell below the poverty line. At the start of the experiment, an army of researchers descended on the town. For four years, all went well. But then a new government was voted into power, and the new Canadian cabinet saw little point to the expensive experiment. So when it became clear there was no money left to analyze the results, the researchers decided to pack their files away in some 2,000 boxes. Twenty-five years went by, and then Evelyn Forget, a Canadian professor, found the records. For three years, she subjected the data to all manner of statistical analysis, and no matter what she tried, the results were the same every time: the experiment had been a resounding success.
Evelyn Forget opdagede, at indbyggerne i Dauphin ikke bare var blevet rigere, men også klogere og sundere. Børnenes evner i skolen var klart bedre. Antal indlagte på hospitalet var op til 8,5% lavere Vold i hjemmet var faldende ligesom psykisk sygdom. Og folk sagde ikke deres job op. De eneste, der arbejdede lidt mindre, var nybagte mødre og studerende, som gik længere tid i skole. Lignende resultater er opnået i utallige andre eksperimenter globalt fra USA til Indien.
Evelyn Forget discovered that the people in Dauphin had not only become richer but also smarter and healthier. The school performance of kids improved substantially. The hospitalization rate decreased by as much as 8.5 percent. Domestic violence incidents were down, as were mental health complaints. And people didn't quit their jobs. The only ones who worked a little less were new mothers and students -- who stayed in school longer. Similar results have since been found in countless other experiments around the globe, from the US to India.
Så ... hvad har jeg lært. Når det drejer sig om fattigdom, skal vi rige holde op med at være bedrevidende, holde op med at sende sko og bamser til fattige, vi aldrig har mødt. Vi bør afskaffe alle bureaukraterne, og give deres lønninger til de fattige, som de skulle hjælpe.
So ... here's what I've learned. When it comes to poverty, we, the rich, should stop pretending we know best. We should stop sending shoes and teddy bears to the poor, to people we have never met. And we should get rid of the vast industry of paternalistic bureaucrats when we could simply hand over their salaries to the poor they're supposed to help.
(Bifald)
(Applause)
Det gode ved penge er, at folk kan bruge dem til at købe ting, de behøver i stedet for ting, som eksperterne tror, de behøver. Tænk hvor mange dygtige forskere, entreprenører og forfattere som George Orwell, der sygner hen i fattigdom. Tænk hvor meget energi og talent vi kunne frigøre, hvis vi udryddede fattigdom for altid. Jeg tror, at borgerløn vil få folk til at investere mere i dem selv. Vi har ikke råd til at lade værd for fattigdom er utrolig dyrt. Se bare på omkostningerne ved børnefattigdom i USA. Den beregnes til 500 milliarder dollars om året, på grund af højere omkostninger til sundhedspleje, flere der dropper ud og mere kriminalitet. Det er et utroligt spild af menneskeligt potentiale.
Because, I mean, the great thing about money is that people can use it to buy things they need instead of things that self-appointed experts think they need. Just imagine how many brilliant scientists and entrepreneurs and writers, like George Orwell, are now withering away in scarcity. Imagine how much energy and talent we would unleash if we got rid of poverty once and for all. I believe that a basic income would work like venture capital for the people. And we can't afford not to do it, because poverty is hugely expensive. Just look at the cost of child poverty in the US, for example. It's estimated at 500 billion dollars each year, in terms of higher health care spending, higher dropout rates, and more crime. Now, this is an incredible waste of human potential.
Men lad os tale om "elefanten i rummet". Hvordan får vi råd til garanteret borgerløn? Det er faktisk billigere, end man skulle tro. I Dauphin indførte de negativ indkomstskat. Dvs. at indtægten stiger, i det øjeblik du kommer under fattigdomsgrænsen. Det scenarie - ifølge økonomernes bedste skøn - vil det koste 175 milliarder, en fjerdedel af USA's millitærbudget, én procent af BNP, at løfte alle fattige amerikanere op over fattigdomsgrænsen. Man kan faktisk udrydde fattigdom. Det burde være vores mål.
But let's talk about the elephant in the room. How could we ever afford a basic income guarantee? Well, it's actually a lot cheaper than you may think. What they did in Dauphin is finance it with a negative income tax. This means that your income is topped up as soon as you fall below the poverty line. And in that scenario, according to our economists' best estimates, for a net cost of 175 billion -- a quarter of US military spending, one percent of GDP -- you could lift all impoverished Americans above the poverty line. You could actually eradicate poverty. Now, that should be our goal.
(Bifald)
(Applause)
Tiden for små tanker og almisser er forbi Tiden er inde til radikalt nye ideer, og borgerløn er mere end blot ny politik. Den påvirker også hvad arbejde er. Og på den måde vil den ikke kun gavne de fattige men også alle os andre.
The time for small thoughts and little nudges is past. I really believe that the time has come for radical new ideas, and basic income is so much more than just another policy. It is also a complete rethink of what work actually is. And in that sense, it will not only free the poor, but also the rest of us.
I vore dage føler mange at deres job ikke giver mening eller ingen betydning har. Fornylig viste en afstemning blandt 230.000 lønarbejdere i 142 lande, at kun 13 % af de ansatte holdt af deres job. En anden afstemning viste, at 37 % af britiske arbejdere har et job, som de ikke mener behøver at findes. For at citere Brad Pitt i "Fight Club": "Alt for ofte har vi et arbejde, som vi hader, for at købe møg, vi ikke behøver."
Nowadays, millions of people feel that their jobs have little meaning or significance. A recent poll among 230,000 employees in 142 countries found that only 13 percent of workers actually like their job. And another poll found that as much as 37 percent of British workers have a job that they think doesn't even need to exist. It's like Brad Pitt says in "Fight Club," "Too often we're working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need."
(Latter)
(Laughter)
Misforstå mig ikke... Jeg taler ikke om lærere, skraldemænd eller plejepersonale. Hvis de holdt op med at arbejde, ville vi have et problem. Jeg taler om de højtlønnede professionelle med strålende CV'er, som tjener deres løn ved at afholde strategiske peer-to-peer-møder, mens de udregner værdiforøgelsen af disruptivt samarbejde i deres netværk.
Now, don't get me wrong -- I'm not talking about the teachers and the garbagemen and the care workers here. If they stopped working, we'd be in trouble. I'm talking about all those well-paid professionals with excellent résumés who earn their money doing ... strategic transactor peer-to-peer meetings while brainstorming the value add-on of disruptive co-creation in the network society.
(Latter)
(Laughter)
(Bifald)
(Applause)
Eller noget i den retning. Tænk hvor meget talent vi mister, når vi fortæller vore børn, at de skal "tjene til livets opretholdelse". En nørd, der arbejdede på Facebook, beklagede sig for få år siden: "De bedste hjerner i min generation udtænker metoder til at få folk til at klikke på annoncer."
Or something like that. Just imagine again how much talent we're wasting, simply because we tell our kids they'll have to "earn a living." Or think of what a math whiz working at Facebook lamented a few years ago: "The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads."
Jeg er historiker. Og hvis historien lærer os nogen, er det, at ting kan være anderledes. Vi kan sagtens ændre strukturerne i samfundet og økonomien. Ideer kan ændre verden - og gør det. Især i de seneste par år er det blevet indlysende, at vi ikke kan fastholde status quo ... Vi har brug for nye ideer.
I'm a historian. And if history teaches us anything, it is that things could be different. There is nothing inevitable about the way we structured our society and economy right now. Ideas can and do change the world. And I think that especially in the past few years, it has become abundantly clear that we cannot stick to the status quo -- that we need new ideas.
Jeg ved, at mange af jer ikke ser lyst på den voksende ulighed, fremmedhadet og klimaforandringerne. Men det er ikke nok at vide hvad man er imod. Vi må også gå ind for noget. Martin Luther King sagde ikke: "Jeg har et mareridt."
I know that many of you may feel pessimistic about a future of rising inequality, xenophobia and climate change. But it's not enough to know what we're against. We also need to be for something. Martin Luther King didn't say, "I have a nightmare."
(Latter)
(Laughter)
Han havde en drøm.
He had a dream.
(Bifald)
(Applause)
Så ... her er min drøm: Jeg tror på en fremtid, hvor værdien af dit arbejde ikke afhænger af beløbet på din lønseddel, men af den glæde du spreder, og de meningsfulde ting du gør. Jeg tror på en fremtid, hvor formålet med uddannelse ikke er at gøre dig klar til et unyttigt job, men et godt liv. Jeg tror på en fremtid, hvor et liv uden fattigdom ikke er et privilegium, men en ret alle har. Så langt, så godt ... Vi har forskningen, vi har beviserne, og vi har midlerne.
So ... here's my dream: 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. So here we are. Here we are. We've got the research, we've got the evidence and we've got the means.
Mere end 500 år efter Thomas More skrev om borgerløn, og 100 år efter George Orwell opdagede sandheden om fattigdom, har vi brug for at ændre vort verdenssyn, for fattigdom er ikke mangel på karakter. Fattigdom er mangel på penge.
Now, more than 500 years after Thomas More first wrote about a basic income, and 100 years after George Orwell discovered the true nature of poverty, we all need to change our worldview, because poverty is not a lack of character. Poverty is a lack of cash.
Tak.
Thank you.
(Bifald)
(Applause)