Humanity Empowered | Halldóra Mogensen

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 have 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. And then those who are able or wish to supplement their income are then free to take any work that they choose and 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 your receiving it. It enshrines the principle that we are all valued members of these human societies we've created all over the world and we have a right to share in their collective wealth.

Halldóra Mogensen talks about universal basic income. 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. Her hope is to 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