One of the basic lessons of history is that things can be different. — Rutger Bregman Copy Share Image
“Inequality? The countries with the biggest disparities in wealth are precisely those with the longest workweeks.” — Rutger Bregman Inequality Copy Share Image
“Opening borders to labor would boost wealth by much more–one thousand times more. In numbers: $65,000,000,000,000. In words: sixty-five trillion dollars.” — Rutger Bregman Money Copy Share Image
“If all the developed countries would let in just 3% more immigrants, the world’s poor would have $305 billion more to spend,… — Rutger Bregman Development aid Copy Share Image
Employees have been worrying about the rising tide of automation for 200 years now, and for 200 years employers have been assuring… — Rutger Bregman Automation Copy Share Image
As our farms and factories grew more efficient, they accounted for a shrinking share of our economy. And the more productive agriculture… — Rutger Bregman Agriculture Copy Share Image
While it won't solve all the world's ills - and ideas such as a rent cap and more social housing are necessary… — Rutger Bregman Ideas Copy Share Image
I am part of a broad social movement. Ten years ago, it would have unimaginable for some random Dutch historian to go… — Rutger Bregman Copy Share Image
My aspiration was to write a book that you could still read in 10 years. That's hard. Then you start doubting every… — Rutger Bregman Book Copy Share Image
We'll all remember 2020 as an historic year. And for decades, people will be able to say, remember 2020. Remember when things… — Rutger Bregman Generation Copy Share Image
During the Enlightenment, there were brilliant thinkers who realized that, if you assume most people are naturally selfish and you construct the… — Rutger Bregman Buddhism Copy Share Image
“In fact, it has become increasingly profitable not to innovate. Imagine just how much progress we’ve missed out on because thousands of… — Rutger Bregman Copy Share Image
A world where wages no longer rise still needs consumers. Middle-class purchasing power has been maintained through loans, loans and more loans.… — Rutger Bregman Inequality Copy Share Image
A lot of journalists help us to better understand the world by zooming out and sometimes zooming in on a really important… — Rutger Bregman Copy Share Image
“Take a Somalian toddler. She has a 20% probability of dying before reaching the age of five. Now compare: American frontline soldiers… — Rutger Bregman Civil war Copy Share Image
But I think 'Love, Actually' has a very realistic view of human nature in line with the latest scientific evidence. The opening… — Rutger Bregman Character Copy Share Image
The greatest sin of the academic left is that it has become fundamentally aristocratic, writing in bizarre jargon that makes cliches seem… — Rutger Bregman Copy Share Image
So I think that good journalism helps you to zoom out, to focus on the structural forces that govern our lives. And… — Rutger Bregman Focus Copy Share Image
“Giving away free housing, it turned out, was actually a windfall for the state budget. State economists calculated that a drifter living… — Rutger Bregman Copy Share Image
“Or take school attendance. Everybody seems to have different ideas on how to raise it. We should pay for uniforms. Advance school… — Rutger Bregman Different ideas Copy Share Image
“What we need is a “dashboard” complete with an array of indicators to track the things that make life worthwhile – money… — Rutger Bregman Community service Copy Share Image
“Precisely when we should be shouldering the historic task of investing this rich, safe, and healthy existence with meaning, we’ve buried utopia… — Rutger Bregman Better world Copy Share Image
“When Lehman Brothers collapsed on September 15, 2008, and inaugurated the biggest crisis since the 1930s, there were no real alternatives to… — Rutger Bregman Free speech Copy Share Image
“Borders are the single biggest cause of discrimination in all of world history. Inequality gaps between people living in the same country… — Rutger Bregman Filthy rich Copy Share Image
“This puts the choice in the hands of the poor,” says Michael Faye, founder of GiveDirectly, the organization behind Bernard’s windfall. “And… — Rutger Bregman Poor people Copy Share Image
“It was Joseph Overton, an American lawyer, who first explained the mechanisms of uppercase Politics in the 1990s. He began with a… — Rutger Bregman Good ideas Copy Share Image
“Yet just eighty years ago it still seemed an impossible mission when U.S. President Herbert Hoover was tasked with beating back the… — Rutger Bregman Business Copy Share Image
“The idea that the GDP still serves as an accurate gauge of social welfare is one of the most widespread myths of… — Rutger Bregman Copy Share Image
This is what a crisis does: It makes you question the status quo. That doesn't mean that after a crisis we move… — Rutger Bregman Change Copy Share Image
News reports following a natural disaster are almost always dominated by stories of looting and violence, but in many cases such stories… — Rutger Bregman Copy Share Image
Actually, it is precisely in overworked countries like Japan, England and the US that people watch an absurd amount of television. Up… — Rutger Bregman Copy Share Image
“Today, the richest 8% earn half of all the world’s income,24 and the richest 1% own more than half of all wealth.25… — Rutger Bregman Money Copy Share Image
Around the year 2000, countries such as France, the Netherlands and the US were already five times as wealthy as in 1930.… — Rutger Bregman Boredom Copy Share Image
What the underdog socialist has forgotten is that the story of the left ought to be a narrative of hope and progress. — Rutger Bregman Hope Copy Share Image
I always eat bread and almost always peanut butter and apple syrup, sometimes cheese. I hardly ever ate out as a child.… — Rutger Bregman Copy Share Image
“So in concrete terms, just how much dumber does poverty make you? “Our effects correspond to between 13 and 14 IQ points,”… — Rutger Bregman Copy Share Image
I know that there are many excellent arguments for a universal form of basic income. Since everyone would get it, it would… — Rutger Bregman Dogs Copy Share Image
Believing in the good of humanity is a revolutionary act - it means that we don't need all those managers and CEO's,… — Rutger Bregman Faith Copy Share Image
Even if you don't care about the environment whatsoever, solar panels are really cool, and are an investment because they save money… — Rutger Bregman Climate Copy Share Image
It matters so much that from a very early age we encounter different kinds of different people, because that's what real life… — Rutger Bregman Age Copy Share Image
