MAIN POINTS
(from interviews)

1. People think money comes from production

2. Many don't want women or low income people to have more power

3. People think that GLI is giving away "their" money

4. Idea that you would be rewarding people for doing nothing

5. Mass worship of productivity and the macho idea of being a worker

6. Many jobs depend on poverty, inequality, ill health, violence

7. Economics considered boring

8. Apathy, cynicism, lack of voting; people in survival mode;

9. People think "my ship will come in" (prosperity around the corner)

10. People too poor to participate; no resources to organize

11. Individualist thinking; people don't see we are all connected

12. People and groups compete and lie to survive

13. People want to stay in their comfort zone (no problems)

14. People wonder who will serve them (want slaves, not equality)  

15. Workers pitted against non-workers (jobless or unpaid)

16. People might find it difficult to embrace the universality of GLI;
that the rich would get it too even though it will be taxed back from them

17. Media promoting idea that poor are parasites;
false ideas of how people live from TV

18. Laziness (associated with GLI) considered a cardinal sin

19. Even women don't see the value of their unpaid work

20. False scarcity used to justify poverty

21. Mistrust of government

22. The rich won't allow it (even though there are few rich)

23. Difficult for people to change their values

BARRIERS QUOTES

There's the belief, "I'm going to be supporting all these people who are poor and enable them to sit around, watch TV and get fat. And here I am, working everyday, killing myself just so these layabouts can continue." This is a belief system. Yet it is government policy that is responsible for poverty, not individuals. People's sense of self is usually related to net worth, not self-worth: "I did all these things to get to where I am today. If everybody were given money that I had to work so hard to get, then were does that leave me?" Of course, they forget about the hard unpaid work of women. -Stephanie

The whole idea: "I can get a job, why can't they?" The mentality, we can't have a GLI: "No one will work!" I've said if someone wants to sit around and be lazy, that's great, I'll take the job. -Brenda

The biggest barrier is attitudes. I really think it is that sort of business attitude that people who don't make money aren't really trying hard enough and they deserve what they've got: "I've dragged my self up from nothing, and no reason why you can't." -Samantha

Some people say, that if everyone had some money no one would want to work. I say to them, "Where do you get that information from?" That information comes from capitalism. It has set itself so deeply in our society that people believe they have to work and have to strive for money all the time, and that if you are given money, you become lazy. But there are only a handful of people who control everything. They spend a lot of money brainwashing. -Rachel

People will say that people will be lazy, but I don't think that is in our nature. I think we are born curious, loving and cooperative and all of that stuff slowly gets whacked out of us. Lazy? You have to define the term. Does it mean staying at home and reading a library book instead of being out buying something? That's what gets drilled into us, that we are basically lazy. Even models of managing people say that, but that's not how we are at all. Somehow the majority have bought into that we are greedy and mean. None of that is true. Believing it is some sort of brainwashing. Examine a situation for any length of time.... You'll find it's natural to want to help each other and cooperate. That is what gets the job done. It's in our genes. -Valerie

Why don't women organize? They are afraid of losing what little they have, of being in a worse position than they had before. They are reminded of that daily. It is a whole system of separating people and turning them against one another so they don't want to unite. But at this point if you are fearless or not fearless, you're going to be up against the same thing. So are you going to go out like a mouse, or are you going to start fighting back? -Stephanie

I want to understand GLI on the economic end-how in a cash society it would work. It seems to me GLI would change the whole of economics completely, and why would anyone go for it who is in a position of power? I want to see how it would work in a larger macroeconomic scale. That's my stumbling block. Three quarters of the country would have an interest in this. There needs to be more education about the power we have. I don't know how we could convince those in power to do it. Whereas, if there is a real grassroots movement -because we do want a major shift in how the economy runs.   It's not just a simple change, it's a revolutionary change in how our economy works. Could there be a referendum on the GLI? The push can really only come from the grassroots cause there is a huge number of people who would be interested in it.   -Sol

"Us and them" mentality is ingrained in our culture, when in fact we are all one big organism. Quantum physics has shown this is not [a figure of speech], we are actually all one. This is a natural law. The more we separate, the more violence we get. -Valerie

[Unions are not advocating for GLI.] You are calling yourself labour, but you are excluding the majority of people who actually labour! Yes, women would have more time to organize if they have a GLI, and that's why we'll probably never get it. They talk about ending poverty and ending child poverty. If they really wanted to, they could, and they damn well know it. -Brenda

Because of all the propaganda of service and service provision, of customers and clients, it is hard for people to get their head around the idea: "Yes, as a person, I can do something." -Stephanie

Placing myself in a class is very difficult. There is a certain amount of [class] fluidity, so it's hard to create a firm class consciousness, although most people don't move up. Usually, if you are poor, you stay poor. It's hard to work on [GLI] when there is a perception of [class] fluidity, even though it's not realistic for everyone. The idea that you can rise to a higher class through education was part of my cultural upbringing. -Sol