The veteran British journalist Peter Ford has reported from all over the globe (more recently, with The Christian Science Monitor, but also The Economist, Financial Times, and BBC). He once made a sweeping statement, something like, "There is more than enough for everybody on the planet to live without want. We just haven't decided how to share it out." "How to share it out." That phrase haunts me to this day. After reading Utopia for Realists by Rutger Bregman, I was heartened to see a path forward out of social and economic conventions that unceasingly create a slow-burn hell on earth for too many.
That global wealth is not being "shared out" is starkly shown by Bregman's observation: "Just 62 people--the richest people on Earth--own more than the poorest half of the whole world. That's right, a mere 62 people are richer than 3.5 billion put together." Should give one pause about our pathological economic fundamentalism run amok.
Idea #1: Universal Basic Income. Bregman says it’s time to accept we live in the Land of Plenty and, yes, we can afford to take care of the "least among us," looking at them through the “eyes of Christ,” as it were.
Related to universal basic income is homelessness. As Bregman notes, Utah determined the answer to homelessness was simple: free apartments for all in need (Finland came to a similar conclusion). Housing First obviously complements universal basic income.
Idea #2: Open Borders. Open borders worked splendidly for most of history until after World War I. Until then, borders were no more than lines on a map. Passports, a country or two excepted, were unknown. The economic benefits are many and documented. But after the trauma of WWI, nativist demagoguery took over. Sound familiar?
Economist John Maynard Keynes in 1930 projected by the year 2030, the productive capacity of Western countries would allow 15-hour work weeks. We’ll get there Bregman argues by junking the jobs that are not really full-time or essential. Many are no more than contrived "paper-shuffling, database updating" jobs. Or as David Graebner, an anthropologist at the London School of Economics, says, "bullshit jobs." Call out bullshit jobs for what they are. Let’s be honest and have Idea #3: a more realistic 15 Hour Work Week.
In sum, Bregman offers a compelling rationale for a realistic utopia, once we let go of economic fundamentalism. Then adopting three simple, if radical, ideas #1`, #2, & #3, we will unmask the utopia that really is here.
Utopia for Realists by Rutger Bregman, English translation by Ellizabeth Manton, The Correspondent, 2016, ISBN: 978-90-822-5639-0Image credit: abebooks.com
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