Review: Utopia for Realists

Rutger Bregman (Utopia for Realists) makes compelling arguments for the redistribution of the unprecedented wealth of the contemporary world.

Rutger Bregman (Utopia for Realists) makes compelling arguments for the redistribution of the unprecedented wealth of the contemporary world. Bregman collects and presents economic research showing that redistributive, egalitarian measures — such as a guaranteed basic income, a 15 hour work week, a net wealth tax, or open borders — actually increase overall prosperity. Programs to alleviate poverty prevent higher social spending on law enforcement or medical bills, and people who benefit, especially as children, are far more likely to be healthy, functioning, and productive members of society later on.

Utopia for Realists offers social advocacy via intellectual history and a survey of contemporary economic research. Showing that a concept seemingly as basic as GNP (now GDP) was developed to measure national production for World War I, or that passports were not used rigorously until that time, shows how our prejudices about measuring national prosperity or the sanctity of borders are relatively new (historically speaking), and thus are not inevitable. There are indeed other ways to measure the value of human activity or how stringently to monitor the movement of human beings — in an era when goods, services, information, and capital are assumed to flow freely through the global economy.

Bregman defines utopia as a land of plenty. And, for all its faults, the contemporary world offers a far…