Review of “Utopia for Realists”

Book review by AlexanderTheWake

Utopia for Realists

by Bregman, Rutger

Bloomsbury Publishing PLC, 2017.

"Let’s start with a little history lesson: In the past everything was Worse. For roughly 99% of the world's history 99% of humanity was poor, hungry, dirty, afraid, stupid, sick, and ugly."

              —Rutgar Bregman, Utopia for Realists[1]

It’s often said that you can tell everything about a book from its first sentence or two, and this book is no different. From the start you are immediately made well aware that 99% of what you are about to read is reductionist, unjustifiable, out of context, purposefully misleading, immature, and unrealistic. Progress-obsessed neo-liberals are not new, you can find them and their books plastered on the walls of any chain bookshop. So what makes Utopia for Realists stand out among the regular cult classics of technophilia? The premise of Utopia for Realists is as such: Utopia is not a society, but a framework—a framework of infinite progress (Rutger Bregman apparently does not possess the self-awareness to realize the paradoxicality of such a framework)—and that such a framework can be realized by giving away money, opening borders, and implementing a 15-hour work week with complimentary UBI. At first, this pipedream may seem enticing, even realistic, but a further examination of Bregman’s utopian framework will reveal the many flaws present.

One of Bregman's more immature views is that poverty can be solved by giving away money with no strings attached; this idea lies halfway between a third-way socialists' perspective and that of an 8-year-old girl, whose liberal parents just informed of homelessness. Even ignoring the absurdity of this idea, it directly contradicts his views that poverty and suffering are systemic. Surely a systemic problem requires a systemic solution rather than a band-aid slapped on it?

Nevertheless, he marches on, and sets a precedent that he follows throughout the book. He provides sources to back up his claims, but the claims cannot be extrapolated to wider society. For example, he cites (and cherry-picks) a recent study where 13 homeless Londoners were given £3,000 each for free. By the end of the study these Londoners were no longer homeless, and on their way to full employment. However, this study does not account for differences in cities with high crime rates or drug usage as opposed to first world capitals like London. If such a study were replicated in, say, San Francisco or Portland, the results of such a study would compromise his argument once researchers find out that they're funding overdoses instead of rehabilitation. Perhaps this is also why he omitted other consequences of governmental interference in the economy, such as the 1930 financial crisis in Germany, the Great Depression, the 2008 financial crash, etc, etc. It’s widely accepted that the path of a society cannot be subject to rational control. Proposed social solutions always carry with them unforeseen consequences that can often be more drastic than the problem they attempt to solve.

This book consists of two harmful ideas promoted by Bregman: the first, and more blatant, is his shameless promotion of the myth of progress, as has already been explained. The more subtle, yet no less dangerous, idea is that the perfect society can be planned in advance, completely ignoring all historic precedents that show the opposite. Chaos theory highlights this well: each change gives way to even more drastic consequences and as such the predicate of the rational planning is constantly subject to change, making society unpredictable. The great military theorist Clausewitz’ term of friction[2] also has important application here: society is not driven by a single individual with a clear goal, rather it is driven by a set of individuals and systems with conflicting goals and motivations, when opposed these create friction making even the predictable, uncertain.

Bregman repeatedly cites poverty as the number one cause and indicator of depression, unfulfillment, stress—the whole portfolio of mental ailments—but in routine, he again directly contradicts this, citing that lack of recreation time is the primary cause of vacuity and unfulfillment among the middle-class (as if consuming mass media and playing sports is all that composes a fulfilling life). On the contrary, excessive recreation (as his proposed UBI would cause) would lead to even greater levels of unfulfillment and boredom than are currently present in our society. Recreation is all well and good up to a certain point.  The problem is humans don’t need only recreation to live fulfilling lives, they need purposeful work. As Kaczynski succinctly outlines in what he terms the “power process, ”[3] humans have specific biologically-derived requirements for fulfillment: meaningful work in pursuit of vital goals directly related to their survival; obtaining these goals through a serious amount of effort; being successful in attaining these; and, for a portion of society, having autonomy in attaining these goals. The problems that Bregman attributes to poverty can be more rationally explained by way of deprivation of the power process. The modern man is subject to live his whole life on tracks laid down by the system, he is deprived of both autonomy and work that is life-or-death (i.e, ultimately purposeful). To cope, man partakes in “surrogate activities”[4] (these are the very recreational activities Bregman endorses), which are unfulfilling in comparison to life-and-death survival goals. UBI would thus in fact have the polar opposite effect than that which Bregman supposedly intends, making life even more unfulfilling, depriving humans of the power process even more than modern society does currently. Tellingly, it seems class is a negligible indicator of psychological malaise, as the top and bottom 1% have on average the same level of stress—the only common denominator being industrial society as shown by the virtual absence of suicide and stress in hunter gatherer societies where the mean income is roughly 0.

“Thus the pygmies stand before us as one of the most natural of human races, as people who live exclusively in accord with nature and without any violation of their organism. In this they show an unusually sturdy naturalness and heartiness, an unparalleled cheerfulness and freedom from care."

—Paul Schebesta, “Bambuti-Pygmäen vom Ituri” (1938) p. 73

So much for that opening statement from Bergman.  

Bregman’s argument for UBI and a 15-hour workweek is simple: it will give human beings more “freedom” and time to participate in recreational activities (again, as though that's all that composes a fulfilling existence) whilst increasing efficiency by reducing burnout. To back up these claims, he cites a tech firm that instituted a 15-hour work week, in which efficiency allegedly increased. Sure, this may be the case in a few high-tech firms, and in the region of, as David Graeber coined, “Bullshit Jobs” (Jobs that contribute little to nothing to the survival of humanity), but this is certainly not applicable to jobs such as farming, construction, oil drilling, etc., (jobs where physical labor is required under extreme time constraints); in such cases, all that would ensue is starvation, housing crises, and rising costs of living and so on. Is Bregman's worldview so entitled that he believes a worldwide workday of 3 hours would have no negative consequences? As for his argument for UBI, it's somehow more laughable, especially since the historic precedent he bases it off is a plan that President Nixon attempted to implement in the '70s. Luckily for Bregman, Nixon's attempt to implement UBI was so catastrophic it failed before it could get off the ground—before it could prove him wrong.

Bregman's incompetence as an economist and sociologist and the danger of his ideas is a shame, given that his writing is generally accessible and, for its faults, can even be enjoyable. Luckily for us, it's unlikely Bregmans' fantasy “utopia'' will be realized any time soon, or ever, if not for the disastrous economic implications they have for the near term, then for the inability of a society to ever consciously plan its own development in the long-term.

___________

NOTES:

[1] Bregman, Rutger, Utopia for Realists, Bloomsbury Publishing PLC, 2017, p. 1.

[2] Carl von Clausewitz, On War; Book 1 (1832) p. 119-121.

[3] Theodore Kaczynski, “Industrial Society and Its Future” (1995), paragraph. 33-37.

[4] Theodore Kaczynski, “Industrial Society and Its Future” (1995), paragraph. 38-41.

Copyright 2023 by AlexanderTheWake. All rights reserved. This is published with the permission of the copyright owner.