Utopia for Realists: And How We Can Get There

“The real crisis of our times, of my generation, is not that we don’t have it good, or even that we might be worse off later on. No, the real crisis is that we can’t come up with anything better.”

Rutger Bregman refers to Francis Fukuyama’s conception of the “end of history,” which is not literally an end to historical development but rather an end to meaningful ideological debate, if all the important questions have presumably been answered. Fukuyama notes that such an era would be a “very sad time” since there would be no need to take great risks or do anything other than maintain a presumably perfect system.

“We need a new lodestar, a new map of the world that once again includes a distant, uncharted continent—‘Utopia.’ By this I don’t mean the rigid blueprints that utopian fanatics try to shove down our throats with their theocracies or their five-year plans […] what we need are alternative horizons that spark the imagination.”

Bregman clarifies that by “utopia,” he does not mean a template for a perfect society, but rather an attitude of refusing to take present realities for granted and instead envisioning a very different future—without losing sight of the practical difficulties associated with achieving it. Belief in the potential for improvement is more important than any specific idea coming to fruition.

“In the final report on the Namibian experiment, a bishop offered this neat biblical explanation. ‘Look in depth at Exodus 16,’ he wrote, ‘the people of Israel in the long journey out of slavery, they received manna from heaven. But,’ he continued, ‘it did not make them lazy; instead, it enabled them to be on the move.’”

One of the most enduring tropes in political culture is that assisting the poor will make them lazy and dependent. Facts are often insufficient to displace such deeply rooted ideas—but stories can, and the story of the Jewish Exodus in the Hebrew Bible provides a powerful example of an enslaved people who received help that they may not have worked for or deserved but nonetheless needed to escape from a desperate situation.

“We’re saddled with a welfare state from a bygone era when the breadwinners were mostly men and people spent their whole lives working at the same company. The pension system and employment protection rules are still keyed to those fortunate enough to have a steady job, public assistance is rooted in the misconception that we can rely on the economy to generate enough jobs, and welfare benefits are often not a trampoline, but a trap.”

Typically, a society can more easily attribute problems to individual failings than to structural deficiencies, in no small part because it excuses society as a whole from any sense of collective responsibility. Consequently, society attributes the very real failures of the welfare system to the laziness of its recipients rather than to the fact that the welfare system itself is a vestige of a long-gone economic era. Because the era of the sole breadwinner is seen as a lost golden age worth restoring, neither policymakers nor the public have come to grips with its disappearance and have paid insufficient heed to those who cannot possibly succeed by trying to revive those roles.

“Questions like what’s for dinner? and How will I make it to the end of the week? tax a crucial capacity. ‘Mental bandwidth,’ Shafir and Mullainathan call it. ‘If you want to understand the poor, imagine yourself with your mind elsewhere,’ they write. ‘Self-control feels like a challenge. You are distracted and easily perturbed. And this happens every day.’ This is how scarcity—whether of time or of money—leads to unwise decisions. There’s a key distinction though between people with busy lives and those living in poverty: You can’t take a break from poverty.”

Bregman presents many examples of how purported causes of poverty are in fact consequences of it. Foremost among them is the idea that people are poor because they make bad decisions on everything from where to live and whom to associate with, to using drugs or engaging in other illegal activities. Based on Shafir and Mullainathan’s research, Bregman concludes that poor decisions stem from poverty, which enforces a relentless series of short-term calculations, often with narrow options and painful tradeoffs for each choice, rather than a simple right-or-wrong dichotomy.

“People living in unequal societies spend more time worrying about how others see them. This undercuts the quality of relationships (manifested in a distrust of strangers and status anxiety, for example). The resulting stress, in turn, is a major determinant of illness and chronic health problems.”

People commonly dismiss inequality as natural in a society that allows citizens to exercise their talents freely. This may be true to some degree, but the more unequal a society becomes, the less easily people can rise in accordance with their merit. People on the bottom of the social ladder realize this and suffer physically and psychologically as a result.

“‘Tory men and liberal policies,’ Nixon remarked, ‘are what have changed the world.’ The president wanted to make history. He saw himself presented with the rare, historical chance to cast out the old system, raise up millions of working people and win a decisive victory in the War on Poverty. In short, Nixon saw basic income as the ultimate marriage of conservative and progressive politics.”

Nixon was a self-described “law and order” president and a scourge of the political Left, but he overcame his lack of charisma via a shrewd ability to build a coalition by embracing issues across the political spectrum. He took up the War on Poverty, along with other seemingly liberal causes, largely as part of a political calculation. His conservative allies always regarded him as preferable to a thoroughgoing liberal; some liberals could be persuaded to support him, and the great mass of independents might be willing to see him as a pragmatist who got things done. As tarnished as his reputation ultimately became, he won reelection in 1974 with 49 states.

“Critics of Speenhamland had acquired towering authority, with everyone from left to right relegating it to history’s failures. Far into the twentieth century, eminent thinkers such as Jeremy Bentham, Alexis de Tocqueville, John Stuart Mill, Friedrich Hayek, and above all, Karl Polanyi would denounce it. Speenhamland was the textbook example of a government program that had, with the best of intentions, paved the road to hell.”

Most people do not have the luxury to study history in depth, and this also holds true for government officials, who have myriad responsibilities. They accordingly tend to absorb history in short, punchy lessons. For example, Western politicians still cite “Munich,” the 1938 conference that awarded parts of Czechoslovakia to Hitler, as a watchword against appeasement. Speenhamland similarly became a stand-in for the folly of welfare, but the narrative served the interests of the powerful rather than summarizing the facts of the case.

“All around the world, economists began to play a dominant role in politics. Most were educated in the United States, the cradle of the GDP, where practitioners pursued a new, scientific brand of economics revolving around models, equations, and numbers. Lots and lots of numbers.”

Social scientists have proposed a concept called “path dependency” whereby progress is confined by previous innovations to which people have become accustomed. A classic example is the keyboard with QWERTY across the top left, which was designed for typewriters but has passed over to personal computers because even though it was less efficient, it was familiar. Likewise, the concept of GDP emerged from the US as a manufacturing colossus, where finished goods were the ultimate markers of economic and military power. Industries and fields of study grew up with GDP as their key variable, and thus they have stuck with it even though a vastly different economy renders it far less useful than more modern concepts.

“What we need is a ‘dashboard’ complete with an array of indicators to track the things that make life worthwhile—money and growth, obviously, but also community service, jobs, knowledge, social cohesion. And, of course, the scarcest good of all: time.”

Those responsible for collecting vast amounts of social data understandably focus on the quantifiable and measurable. While these are important, some of the most crucial aspects of social life are inherently abstract, and tackling them requires at least as much imagination and philosophical insight as raw data and analysis.

“There are strong indicators that in a modern knowledge economy, even forty hours a week is too much. Research suggests that someone who is constantly drawing on their creative abilities can, on average, be productive for no more than six hours a day. It’s no coincidence that the world’s wealthiest countries, those with a large creative classes and highly educated populations, have also shaved the most time off their workweeks.”

The 40-hour work week was a welcome and necessary corrective to the horrors of early industrialization, but it best suits mechanical work that depends on maximal output of a concrete product. As the economy has evolved to favor different skill sets in many sectors, labor laws have not caught up, and now workers are facing high levels of discontentment and burnout. The factory owners of the past learned that less can be more, but so far that lesson has escaped contemporary captains of industry.

“All the evidence points to the fact that we can’t do without a sizable daily dose of unemployment. Working less provides the bandwidth for other things that are also important to us, like family, community involvement, and recreation. Not coincidentally, the countries with the shortest workweeks also have the largest number of volunteers and the most social capital.”

Capitalism has both benefits and drawbacks, and one of its drawbacks is that it tends to connect one’s value to one’s work. In addition to assigning various levels of status based on income and other perks, a job is meant to say something significant about who a person is. That is not necessarily bad, but it becomes harmful if it swallows up the other facets of one’s identity, such as relationships to friends, family, and community. Those connections are no less important—and often more so—but receive less attention because they are less profitable.

“Bizarrely, it’s precisely the jobs that shift money around—creating next to nothing of tangible value—that net the best salaries. It’s a fascinating, paradoxical state of affairs. How is it possible that all of those agents of prosperity—the teachers, the police officers, the nurses—are paid so poorly, while the unimportant, superfluous, and even destructive shifters do so well?”

Going back at least as far as Karl Marx, many thinkers have criticized the capitalist economy for rewarding the owners of capital (defined as any productive asset—whether human, machine, or ideational) far more lucratively than those who actually produce things of value. There are several reasons for this, chief among them technological developments that make production more efficient and therefore decrease the value of the individual producer relative to output. Meanwhile, a complex society can generate forms of demand unheard-of in past eras, creating lucrative opportunities for those with skill sets that attain value in a certain place and time even if they are not directly necessary for human thriving.

“We should be posing a different question altogether: which knowledge and skills do we want our children to have in 2030? Then, instead of anticipating and adapting, we’d be focusing on steering and creating.”

Educators and scholars often talk about a “school to work pipeline,” so that students are prepared to enter the workforce upon graduation. While this link is obviously necessary in some respects, schools tend to overvalue certain skills as crucial for job success, even though not every student is able or willing to find jobs in the most relevant fields, and the hierarchy of skills can change on a dime. Bregman calls for an educational system that centers more around morality, creativity, and adaptability, so that students have the meta-skills to deal with the more fundamental challenges of adult life rather than hope to match their skills to a specific career.

“In the age of the chip, the box, and Internet retail, being just fractionally better than the […] rest means you’ve not only won the battle, you’ve won the war. Economists call this phenomenon the ‘winner-take-all society.’ From small accountancy firms that are undercut by tax software to corner bookshops struggling to hold their own against online megastores—in one sector after another the giants have grown even as the world has shrunk.”

Ideally, globalization would bring remote villages into a global marketplace where all would have a fair chance of success. In reality, however, the power to link a vast supply chain is the provenance of a handful of massive corporations, which are more likely to bring the global marketplace to the rural village instead.

“Anyone who wants to continue plucking the fruits of progress will have to come up with a more radical solution. Just as we adapted to the First Machine Age through a revolution in education and welfare, so the Second Machine Age calls for drastic measures. Measures like a shorter workweek and universal basic income.”

The great challenges to early industrialization are relatively well known, but they have become ossified into history lessons with little relevance to a markedly different world and economy. Bregman emphasizes that history always is and should be subject to disruption—that the people of today are no less capable of working to improve their fortunes than the laborers of the past.

“The randomistas don’t think in terms of models. They don’t believe humans are rational actors. Instead, they assume we are quixotic creatures, sometimes foolish and sometimes astute, and by turns afraid, altruistic, and self-centered.”

Social scientists can most easily imagine human beings as operating in a basically similar way, especially a way simple enough to simulate in theoretical models. That has value, but to tackle a thorny political question such as evaluating the effectiveness of foreign aid, social scientists must heed the extraordinary variance in the human condition with respect to history, culture, and circumstance. The “randomistas” may not have the tools to design comprehensive strategies, but their eye for nuance is a useful corrective to simplistic calls for more money or awareness as sufficient solutions to serious global problems.

“Imagine there was a single measure that could wipe out all poverty everywhere, raising everybody in Africa above our Western poverty line, and in the process put a few extra months’ salary in our pockets too. Just imagine. Would we take that measure? No. of course not. After all, this measure has been around for years. It’s the best plan that never happened. I’m talking about open borders.”

The term “open borders” is often used as a cudgel in political debates, to suggest that one’s opponent is opening the country to a horde of violent criminals. Even to raise the term is sure to invoke severe criticism, but here Bregman shows how the hysteria surrounding the term obscures its potential benefits. It most likely cannot be practiced in full, but it should be a moral ideal rather than the nightmare scenario that many portray it as being.

“No wonder, then, that millions of people have come knocking on the gates of the Land of Plenty. In Developed countries, employees are expected to be flexible. If you want a job, you have to follow the money. But when ultra-flexible labor heads our way from the world’s developing countries, we suddenly see them as economic freeloaders. Those seeking asylum are allowed to stay only if they have reason to fear persecution at home based on their religion or birth. If you think about it, It’s downright bizarre.”

Many have noted the perverse incentives driving the immigration systems in places like the US and European Union. Free trade agreements accelerate the interconnectedness of a country’s economies with its neighbors, often making it valuable for workers in one place to pursue employment opportunities in another. Nevertheless, one must be comfortable enough to apply for a visa and travel at one’s leisure or desperate enough to make a perilous journey to apply in person and plea for asylum—and the latter are far less likely to secure entry, even though they are more likely to suffer because of free trade policies and more in need of employment opportunities on the other side of the border.

“Perhaps in a century or so, we’ll look back on these boundaries the way we look back on slavery and apartheid today. One thing is certain however: if we want to make the world a better place, there’s no getting around migration. Even just cracking the door would help. If all the developed countries would let in just 3% more immigrants, the world’s poor would have $305 billion more to spend, say scientists at the world bank. That’s the combined total of all development aid—times three.”

Many radical proposals compare themselves to abolitionism or the anti-apartheid movement, and thus Bregman’s (repeatedly) invoking that comparison is a touchstone for debate. Regardless, the immigration system imposes terrible cruelty yet endures because of its familiarity and the perceived lack of viable alternatives. Open (or at least more open) borders may present new problems or ultimately be discredited, but trying something new—rather than sticking with a dreadful status quo—has value.

“It’s when our political, ideological, or religious ideas are at stake that we get the most stubborn. We tend to dig in our heels when someone challenges our opinions about criminal punishment, premarital sex, or global warning. These are ideas to which people tend to get attached, and that makes it difficult to let them go. Doing so affects our sense of identity and position in social groups—in our churches or families or circles or friends.”

Ample evidence supports the contention that facts contrary to one’s deeply held opinions tend to reinforce those opinions rather than challenge them. This phenomenon often involves simply discrediting the source as unreliable to provide instant proof of the information’s unreliability. Concepts of right and wrong are determined socially as well as by factual evidence (the extent of each depending on the case), and thus those who desire to be right often seek affirmation through others instead of seeking objective truth.

“The word ‘crisis’ comes from ancient Greek and literally means to ‘separate’ or ‘sieve.’ A crisis then, should be a moment of truth, the juncture at which a fundamental choice is made. But it almost seems that back in 2008 we were unable to make that choice. When we suddenly found ourselves facing the collapse of the entire banking sector, there were no real alternatives available, all we could do was keep plodding down the same path.”

People do not automatically learn lessons from even the greatest traumas. A generation after defeat in Vietnam, the US pursued another round of wars against a vaguely defined ideological enemy while effectively waging war against the entire population. The financial shocks of 2008 should have led to bipartisan calls for major reform.

“Though we still have a right and left, neither side seems to have a very clear plan for the future. In an ironic twist of fate, the neoliberalist brainchild of two men who devoutly believed in the power of ideas has now put a lockdown on the development of new ones. It would seem that we have arrived at the ‘end of history’ with liberal democracy as the last stop and the ‘free consumer’ as the terminus of our species.”

Neoliberalism captured the right and left of the political spectrum because of its insistence that politics itself is not fundamentally important. Governments exist solely to oversee the implementation of objective economic laws to settle all major social questions and leave people with nothing to do but perform routine maintenance. Neoliberalism worked partly by absolving leaders of responsibility, given that they could blame all negative externalities on the iron laws of economics. This is ironic given that neoliberalism took root as a challenge to the tired conventional wisdom of Keynesianism.