Utopia for Realists: How We Can Build the Ideal World

IMHO the largest problem we face in the Americas is income equality. Let Fox News scream \”class war\”, the rich have been waging war against the middle class since Reagan. This book touches on this but mostly talks about universal basic income (I\’m on board!), a shorter work week (although 15 hrs/wk seems too low) and open borders (I\’m having a hard time wrapping my brain around it). Other ideas include taxing capital instead of labor and a transaction tax on Wall Street. But let\’s face it, change cannot come until we remove the money from politics, taking power away from the insanely wealthy, corporations and special interest groups.

Utopia For Realists is a Left manifesto. It explores three policies guaranteed to enrage right wingers: a guaranteed income, a shorter work week and open borders. Rutger Bregman does it with splendid panache. The book is a totally positive, upbeat read – most unusual for a defensive, defeatist Left. The studies and the facts are all there. Deny them at your peril, he seems to say. To appreciate and enjoy Utopia For Realists, you must buy into the initial premise that our problem is we can’t come up with anything better than the way things are now. We have run out of goals. We have run out of ideas. We are all about cutting back, servicing less, and ignoring various elephants in the room, like automation overloading us with leisure time. Western society is so wealthy in historic terms that we don’t realize we have reached Utopia. Even at our worst, we are infinitely better off than our forebears. What we need now is a new Utopia to aim for. Guaranteed income sounds impossibly expensive, but everywhere it has been tried – dozens of places – it has worked spectacularly. For one thing, every dollar spent saves three in less supervision of beneficiaries (eg. Police and court services, pointless workshops, training sessions and reports on everyone all the time). For another, the poor don’t drink away the income; they hang onto it dearly, measuring it out only as needed for the biggest impact. Poverty is not an attitude; it is a shortage of cash. Two hundred years ago, we worked 70 hour weeks with no days off. And we were miserable. Today, we can be miserable with 40 hour weeks, two days off and 2-5 weeks’ vacation. Soon, we must face the reality of 15 hour weeks, because artificial intelligence will pick up where automated looms, assembly lines and robots have left off. We can massage it into a Utopia, or let it destroy our fabric. Our choice, but we need to start acting now. Borders prevent development and trade. Mexicans used to return from the USA at the rate of 85%. Now they have to stay put. Finding new markets or even just work is enlarged with a larger territory. Artificially compartmentalizing everyone is stultifying. Economically, politically, and socially. Passports and visas – a totally artificial construct recently invented, benefitting no one. Bregman doesn’t get into the self-imposed need for growth, though he does criticize the concepts of GNP/GDP. He says governing by numbers is the last resort of a country that no longer knows what it wants, a country with no vision of utopia. He ends with sound advice for the Left: stop caving to right wing dogma. You have access to dramatic facts. Use them. There are gigantic, proven solutions waiting to be implemented if only someone would sponsor them. He points out that the accepted issues of the day, like voting by women, same sex marriage and abolition of slavery were outrageously radical and completely unacceptable just a few years ago. So be impossible and have a thick skin. David Wineberg

I loved this book so much I bought two copies. Actually I bought two copies because the different packaging led me to believe they were two different books the author wrote on the same topic. No matter. I found plenty of people who wanted to read the book so now there are two more in circulation. Here is why you will want to read this book: You admit that things look pretty dark now and our future looks pretty bleak? Well what you need, my friends, is a dose of hope to wipe away that despair. Utopian thought provides that hope and shines a light upon some possible future pathways. At any rate when things fall completely apart we better be ready with some bright ideas about how to make the world whole again. This book is filled with some challenging ideas that are presented with such clarity you are likely to go out and win some brew pub arguments with your new found audacity. It also felt good to read. It was also a fast and easy read – despite how challenging some of the concepts were. I chalk this up to some great writing. And great it must be because this book was originally written in Dutch and survived the translation intact. Purchase two copies: one for yourself and one for your comrade in arms. Another world in possible!

An interesting outlook on changes we may need in a society with fewer jobs and greater income disparity. Whilst an interesting read it doesn\’t put forward concrete plans. It feels disjointed. Perhaps because it is a translation.

finished this book inspired and hopeful. very informative and considered. ends with discussion of how the ideas of a few people can change the world, tho it might take time. patience needed or a horrendous crisis that forces change.

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