Utopia for Realists: A Guide to Constructing a Better Future

bigfoot: Instead of orinal sin the author points out the possibility that humans are basically good and help each other survive. The author points out if humans did not have this inborn trsit, our species could not have survived to this poont.

United States on Aug 19, 2023

esandresmx: Es evidente que los líderes de izquierda actuales han leído este libro y tratan de implementarlo en lugares como Chile y Mexico. Recomendable para entender el mundo actual.

Mexico on Aug 08, 2023

Don: The book presents an interesting history of work and incomes for rich and poor, discussion of economic ideas of the 19th and 20th century, and a thoughtful review of what we know about people's preferences regarding work and leisure activities. The cover illustrates his three prescriptions. I find the arguments strongest for a universal basic income. He has no policy mechanism for how to get to the 15-hour workweek, nor any real details on how that would work out. The open borders proposal does not fully deal with winners and losers and seems like a political non-starter these days. Still, the book makes you think.

Canada on Oct 19, 2022

Marcelo Soares Souza: Um Livro mais do que necessário nestes tempos. O Autor lastreado por sólida pesquisa traz diversas possibilidades de novas utopias, utopias reais e possíveis. Como diria Eduardo Galeano “A utopia está lá no horizonte. Me aproximo dois passos, ela se afasta dois passos. Caminho dez passos e o horizonte corre dez passos. Por mais que eu caminhe, jamais alcançarei. Para que serve a utopia? Serve para isso: para que eu não deixe de caminhar.”

Brazil on Sep 19, 2022

Aidon M.: I think more people and politicians should read this. i enjoyed this book, anyone who thinks they know should read it. you will quickly see how the 425 billion/yr estimates given by the toronto sun and cohorts are scare tactics. If you're a citizen, age of majority, making under x amount, you get income supplement.
Implementing a basic income guarantee would pay for itself 4 fold within canada. This was tested in the 70s in Manitoba Canada, a side effect of basic income guarantee was a 10% across the board reduction in all healthcare, mental and physical. Ontario was running a trial that Ford cancelled, it was showing such good results they wanted to extend it to gather more data. Just imagine a 10% reduction in healthcare, that's 10s of billions of dollars a year for the nation.

Im sick of having my home and vehicles broken into because someone needs meth, stole for meth and now has a criminal record so cant get a good job and feel the only alternative is to continue using meth and continue stealing to get it. pick any drug, prostitution, whatever, doesnt matter if we like it or hate it the fact is its out there. there's single parents working 2-3 jobs and kids not...

Canada on Nov 04, 2021

Sunny: Utopia is an ideal place in which everything is perfect and everyone is happy. The term was coined by Sir Thomas More in his book Utopia (written 1516) describing a fictional island society in the south Atlantic Ocean. This book is neither about that island nor is it a fictional story of an utopian country. Instead the author Rutger Bregman lays out realistic strategies of how we collectively can improve our life quality. This includes a basic income guarantee to eradicate poverty, shifting towards 15 hours work-week to increase work satisfaction and opening national borders in order to decrease inequality. Rutger’s ideas are very relevant, especially at this moment with a pandemic that has had a devastating impact on people’s lives. We need to re-examine the current political-, economical- and societal structures and align these to our future needs. Do we want to continue to live in an society in which 8 of the worlds population has a wealth corresponding to 3.5 billion people? Do we want to live in a society in which we work longer hours on work which does not provide any meaningful value to our lives? These are very essential topics covered in this book.

Japan on Dec 13, 2020

Immer: Rutger Bregman’s Utopia For Realists or How We Can Build a Better World is an exercise in Social Pioneering. Perhaps a better word for realists would be idealists. That said, the book is a very easy to read book that surprisingly (or not) makes quite a bit of sense. I feel that Bregman taps into a bit of S I Hayakawa’s mind set that “people are questioning the appropriateness of nineteenth-century (eighteenth-century,medieval, or Stone Age) institutions to twentieth-century conditions. They are progressively more alarmed at the dangers arising from old-fashioned nationalism in a world that has become, technologically and economically, one world;...”

Bregman’s premise is that it is possible for us to build a better world, with three major premises: Universal Basic Income; a 15 hour work week; open borders. Of the three, the universal basic income (ubi) is perhaps, the most attainable for the present. From Bregman, “We live in a world where the going rule seems to be that the more vital your occupation (cleaning, nursing, teaching) the lower you rate in the GDP. As the Nobel Laureate James Tobin said back in 1984, “We are throwing more and more of our resources,...

United States on May 22, 2019

David WinebergDavid Wineberg: 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....

United States on Mar 14, 2017