Society

There are no such thing as low-skilled jobs, there are only low-opportunity jobs where people are treated as commodities. We don't train them.. we don't give them autonomy… we don't give them any financial upside… yet when they fail to be creative, and fail to do more than the job requires, we say they just aren't very clever or capable…. Guess what; if you put someone in leg-irons, they will have a hard time running.

Management theorist & author who revolutionized strategic thinking

You cannot say you support a values based human rights agenda and have your defense industry dictate the terms of your relationships between states to the extent that you won't criticize states who you sell weapons to. People see this for what it is, they recognise the internal and external inconsistencies and are tired of it.

UN Human Rights Chief & International Justice Advocate

In my experience, unless you are directly affected by a human rights abuse, you are unlikely to give it a second thought. How many times do you draw breath a day? It's about 22,000 times – you don't think about it until you can't. That's exactly how most people view human rights- they are generally apathetic and may express some concern or sympathy when they hear about something on the news, but they don't mobilise unless it affects them directly.

UN Human Rights Chief & International Justice Advocate

I'll hope I have helped be more generative and less extractive, through my own actions, and through my support of others. We live in a world where we're constantly battling these forces and we need to ensure we're more generative than extractive — of each other, of our planet — I believe we can do it.

Founder of Kickstarter, crowdfunding platform pioneer

I believe businesses need to move away from having profit as their primary reason for existing, that's why we built Kickstarter as a public benefit corporation and encoded our mission into our fiduciary responsibility. Profit primacy can be replaced by mission primacy.

Founder of Kickstarter, crowdfunding platform pioneer

The internet has a natural pressure to bubble us up and vulcanise society, it makes it less comfortable for us to be around people who think differently, and more comfortable to be around people who think the same as us.

We now have religion based not on theology but on sociology. In principle, that's not a bad thing, but when your sociology has decided that the point of studying society is to change it (which was Marx's dictem), you've got a problem.

We have a very parasitic ideology; it operates like a virus. To stop a virus, you have to understand how it attaches to cells... you have to create an immune response via a vaccine... or by having the disease and fighting it.

Critical theories give proposed solutions to legitimate problems that could not possibly be more open to manipulation and grift. The manipulators and grifters have filled the vacuum to the point where they're only ones who can benefit.

You can go and build a schoolhouse in any village or community, but it will do nothing without impassioned and brilliant teachers. In many ways, the teacher is more important than the building because a good teacher can teach anywhere.

Director of the Blavatnik School of Government at Oxford University

Polarisation presents as a spectrum where people go from disagreeing with each other, to disliking each other and eventually to dehumanising each other. We know that the most important thing it takes to prevent dehumanisation is systemic, regular face to face interaction with the people that might otherwise be dehumanised.

Director of the Blavatnik School of Government at Oxford University

We live in a deeply connected world, and if we want stability and prosperity in our connected world, we have to look after the weakest links as well as the strongest parts.

British Labour Politician & Former Foreign Secretary

If you don't give people legal routes to hope, they will find illegal routes and put themselves in the hands of criminals. That's the reality. We have record numbers of refugees and displaced people, and so for criminal gangs this is a business which is at scale.

British Labour Politician & Former Foreign Secretary

When you empower people economically, your social programmes go further. The idea that there is a stark separation between a social program that's sustainable and economic program that's a luxury doesn't fit the reality. When you join economic empowerment to social protection, you get double the benefit.

British Labour Politician & Former Foreign Secretary

The displacement that people face is now over generations not just years. The old model was to keep people alive until they go home. That model is broken, less than 3% of the world's refugees went home last year.

British Labour Politician & Former Foreign Secretary

In the midst of a global health and economic crisis, in the midst of a racial justice uprising, and in the absence of effective government, business leaders must take a stand on issues that matter to society and to their stakeholders!

Co-Founder of Bridgewater Associates & Pioneer in Radical Transparency