"I'm always concerned about, more than anything else, the waste of human potential. ... So much intelligence is wasted from poverty. People who simply don't have the time, the space to use their imaginations. They can't be creative, because to be creative requires that, for a little while at least, you let go of the basic concerns of staying alive—you can't really be creative if survival is the primary topic on your mind. And so I've been thinking about that for a long time, thinking how do we utilize the cumulative intelligence and creativity of people? And recently I heard of ... a very simple idea, ... which is: give everyone some money every week. No matter how rich they are, how poor they are, just make sure that there's a basic income level beyond which people don't fall. ... I like the idea that it says we believe that all people are potentially creative and that they should be given the chance to express that."
January 1, 1970