Translator: Ellen Maloney
Reviewer: Denise RQ Hello. I remember, when I was three years old, back in my nursery class, we were singing this song,
or at least, trying to sing a song. Some of you might have heard
of it actually. It's about a wise man who builds
his house upon the rock, and a foolish man
who builds his house upon the sand. When the rains came down,
and the floods came up, it was the house on the rock
that stood firm. Looking back now, I see
there's a clear message to this song. And that is that the best way to allow
all of us to flourish as much as possible is to provide us with firm foundations
from which to build our lives. In the song, these foundations
were a physical rock from which the wise man built his house. Now I see these foundations as financial. That is, enough money
to cover our basic necessities; a roof over our head, food on our table,
heat and light for our home, before we earn extra money
through paid employment. That's the idea I want
to share with you today: that we shouldn't have to work
just to survive. I know what you're thinking. It was emphatically articulated
by a so-called "social media troll" last time we did this, back in November, and that is, "Why should I listen
to some posh bloke, with a ridiculous double-barreled name, and a center parting in his hair, tell me about why we shouldn't
have to work to survive?" Well, they were right. That haircut? Absolutely terrible. (Laughter) But for those of you
who are skeptical about this idea, I invite you to consider this with me. Because if work is just about survival, just about putting food on our table, just about getting a roof over our head, or even just about struggling to make it
to the end of the month, week, or even day then it's very difficult
for any of us to look beyond that. For it is only when we can look
past the question of, "What do I need to do today to survive?" that we can ask ourselves, "What do I want to do to live?" This isn't my idea. It's not something I've read in a book,
or a theory, or anything like that. The benefits of it
can be seen all around us. Take this university, right here. Hundreds of thousands of students, many of you will be sitting
in this room today, a part of a vibrant community
of student-led organizations; societies, social enterprises,
start-ups, voluntary organizations, all kinds of things. TEDx University of Edinburgh
being one example. Another example, as Alistair said earlier,
is The Buchanan Institute, Edinburgh's first student-led think-tank, which I, and a few others,
helped to set up back in January. None of us do these things
because we have to, but because we love doing them. And for many of us,
they almost become like full-time jobs. People ask us, "Do you get paid to do it?" We don't, for the most part. And I speak for myself,
but I also did it because I could. You see, I was lucky. I had enough money through a combination
of student loans and allowances to cover my basic necessities so that I didn't need to work. I stress this because in reality, if I was having to work 30 hours,
20 hours, even 15 hours a week, on top of my studies to cover my basic necessities
of being here, then there's no way I would have had
the time and energy necessary to set up The Buchanan Institute. Many people will say,
"That's all well and good these voluntary student
organizations, they're very nice, but where's the money going to come from? Who's going to make the money
so that we can pay for this situation where nobody needs to work to survive?" Well, the most entrepreneurial
and innovative people in our society also benefited from a situation where they didn't need to work
just to survive. Take for example, Steve Jobs. Back in 1976, he co-founded Apple whilst working
with his friend Steve Wozniak in his parents' garage. Job's wasn't rich. But he had a roof over his head, he had food on his table, he had all the appliances
and tools he needed so that he could focus his time and energy on creating the first
Apple prototype in 1976. You see, if Steve Jobs
had to work in a minimum wage job, 50 hours, 40 hours a week, just to pay for his basic necessities, then he wouldn't have been
the founder of Apple. We may never have heard
of iPhones or iPods. But let me take you to the Namibian
village of Otjivero, Omitara. For it is here
where an organization called, "The Basic Income Earth Network" conducted
a simple yet groundbreaking experiment. They provided every single
Namibian villager in this village with a basic income,
enough to cover their basic subsistence. The skeptical among us
- and I was talking to a few today - would say, "These Namibians! if they're given enough to survive on,
then they're going to be lazy. They're not going to work.
They'll sit on their asses all day." Well actually, the opposite happened. The percentage of those involved
in income generating activities rose in that year from 44% to 55%. This is what happened: freed
from reliance on low-paid labor, just to cover their survival, the villagers could choose
what they did with their lives and decide how they earned extra money
for themselves and their families. For many, this was starting up
their own small businesses. Becoming dressmakers,
brick makers, or bread bakers. People have said, "That's all well
and good, but that's Namibia. That's a developing country.
The west is different; it won't work." Well for them we can say, "Canada". In 1976, the Canadian government
conducted a similar experiment in the town of Dauphin, Manitoba. Every single person who lived in that town
no longer had to work just to survive. It was called, "The town without poverty". Once again, people didn't stop working. The only groups of people who worked
slightly less in that year were mothers, and some fathers,
with newborn babies. And some teenagers who relieved from the pressures
of earning money for their families, could now go back to school. But something else happened. Relieved from the daily mental
and physical stresses of having to work to survive, the 'town without poverty'
became a healthier one. They actually, in that year, saved 13%
on their overall healthcare costs. Something in the UK,
with strains on NHS budgets, we could perhaps think about. So what about the UK? Could we try something similar here? Well actually, yes! An organization called
"The Citizen's Income Trust" have shown that by simply reorganizing
our existing tax and benefits system, we could provide every single UK adult
with nearly 3,700 pounds a year. This is without hardly
spending an extra penny. How? Well first of all, this basic income would replace means-tested benefits
that we would no longer need, whilst ensuring that no-one was worse off. But also it would replace
the personal tax allowance that we get to a certain
level of our income. So rather than paying tax
and then getting money back in a personal tax allowance
from the government, you would have this tax-free cash lump sum
called, "a basic income" in it's place. Then what if people say,
"Well what if the rich get it? The rich don't need it. It wouldn't work." Then we can say, "In this country we have something called 'the basic state pension'
for all pensioners. "The basic state income"
is the same thing, but for all adults. And the Swiss?
Well, they could go further. Much further. In 2016, they will hold
a popular referendum to decide whether to introduce
a basic annual income to every Swiss citizen
of nearly 21,000 pounds a year. Fully-funded, fully-costed. Sounds good. So, I want to ask you. Let's imagine
that you woke up in Switzerland the morning after that referendum passed and you found yourself
with a guarantee of 21,000 pounds a year. Put your hands up, how many of you,
would stop working completely? There's actually nobody. Not one person. It's not actually surprising.
Some of you might work a bit less. Spend more time with the family,
spend more time doing leisure. Some of you might realise
that you hate your job, and you're going to use
that basic income as a platform to go and do something
that you really want to do. It isn't surprising
because as many of us know, work doesn't have to be
just about surviving. It can be about following our passions, fulfilling out dreams, or, as I have been so lucky to do
during this whole TEDx process, meet, and work with,
and build lifelong friendships. About six months ago,
I was at the hospital, just after my sister had given birth to her son and my nephew called Raffi. I remember, standing there,
holding this little thing in my arms and thinking, "Don't drop him." (Laughter) Then I thought,
these questions about the future, and how to be OK in the future, and what kind of society
we can live in in the future, aren't just for our generation
sitting here. They're for the ones behind us. The ones being born or yet to be born. And when he grows up and if he ever gets around to
and wants to ask his uncle for advice about work and life,
- which is wishful thinking- I'd like to tell him, and be that uncle
that tells him something similar to what you might tell your kids
and probably do. "Raffi, don't just work
because you need to. Do it so that every day, you wake up doing something
you are really passionate about, with the people that you love." My nephew will probably have
the opportunity to do this. He may never have to work just to survive. And people have said to me,
"So Johnny, in that case, why do you care? Why do you care whether or not people
should have to work to survive? Because it's not enough. It's not enough that my nephew
has this opportunity. It's not enough that I had
this opportunity. It's not enough that many people I know,
and many of us in this room, probably had this opportunity. In fact, it's not enough
until every single person, every single one of us in this room, in this country, or even in this world, can at least wake up every single morning and genuinely ask themselves, not "What do I need to do today
just to survive?", but "What do I want to do to live?" Thank you very much. Have a great day
and enjoy the rest of the talks. (Applause)
Funny, the actual bible verses he refers to are very boot-strappy. The wise man is wise because he made the effort to find a suitable rock and then had to carve a foundation into that rock.
Christians and Republicans will hate this.