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A review by rossbm
Utopia for Realists: How We Can Build the Ideal World by Rutger Bregman
3.0
(read as physical book)
What's it about?
It lays out the case for utopian policies: universal basic income, 15 hour work week, and open borders. It is written in a pretty breezy, causal style. It is fairly inspiring. It bashes bankers and celebrates jobs that create "real" value.
What did I think?
The causal style makes it an easy read, but there isn't a lot of substance. There is almost no discussion of how to pay for a universal basic income. Presumably it would be to "soak" the rich, greedy, lazy, bankers.
To be fair, the book isn't polemic, and does try to present nuance, but there isn't much depth. It complains about the $300 million spent to build an underwater cable between New York and London to decrease order execution time. So what? The cable represents progress. If people wanted to pay for it, let them. Are we supposed to celebrate delays in information flow? The cable can be repurposed for other things too.
There's a chapter on GDP, and how it isn't the perfect benchmark. Kind of felt like a straw man argument. Does anyone really think that GDP is the be-all and end-all? It is a useful number, since it is constructed consistently across time and across countries. The unemployment rate gets just as much attention, if not more. But the unemployment is also flawed (not consistent across countries, people dropping out of workforce can decrease it, underemployment, etc..). I wasn't certain what the point of the chapter was.
In the chapter on the 15 hour work week, Bregman makes the point that even with slow productivity growth, by 2050 we could work fewer than 15 hours a week and still enjoy the same living standards as 2000. If the COVID pandemic had taken place in 2000, it would have killed a lot more people and caused a lot more misery. No mRNA vaccines. Teleworking would have been a lot harder. No Netflix, or Zoom call with friends and family. I want to live in a world were things are progressing and getting better. Working less is certainly something to aspire to, but let's be realistic about the costs. We might be giving up a lot of future innovation.
It is making the case for open borders that the lack of substance really becomes apparent. I recently read Open Borders: The Science and Ethics of Immigration by Bryan Caplan. It felt like Bregman just recycled arguments from Caplan's book. However I believe that Open Borders had a lot more substance and made a stronger case, even though it is a comic book! Bregman recycled Caplan's point that if we are worried about immigrants swamping the welfare state, we could impose a waiting period before they get access to welfare programs. How does that square with universal basic income? Are we going to let immigrants starve to death?
I realized that I have bashed the book a lot above. But I still enjoyed it. It talks about Overton's window, and how radical ideas can reframe what solutions are acceptable (Caplan's book also talked about Overton's window). It is good to be inspired, and universal basic income, 15 hour work week, and open borders are all worthy goals.
What's it about?
It lays out the case for utopian policies: universal basic income, 15 hour work week, and open borders. It is written in a pretty breezy, causal style. It is fairly inspiring. It bashes bankers and celebrates jobs that create "real" value.
What did I think?
The causal style makes it an easy read, but there isn't a lot of substance. There is almost no discussion of how to pay for a universal basic income. Presumably it would be to "soak" the rich, greedy, lazy, bankers.
To be fair, the book isn't polemic, and does try to present nuance, but there isn't much depth. It complains about the $300 million spent to build an underwater cable between New York and London to decrease order execution time. So what? The cable represents progress. If people wanted to pay for it, let them. Are we supposed to celebrate delays in information flow? The cable can be repurposed for other things too.
There's a chapter on GDP, and how it isn't the perfect benchmark. Kind of felt like a straw man argument. Does anyone really think that GDP is the be-all and end-all? It is a useful number, since it is constructed consistently across time and across countries. The unemployment rate gets just as much attention, if not more. But the unemployment is also flawed (not consistent across countries, people dropping out of workforce can decrease it, underemployment, etc..). I wasn't certain what the point of the chapter was.
In the chapter on the 15 hour work week, Bregman makes the point that even with slow productivity growth, by 2050 we could work fewer than 15 hours a week and still enjoy the same living standards as 2000. If the COVID pandemic had taken place in 2000, it would have killed a lot more people and caused a lot more misery. No mRNA vaccines. Teleworking would have been a lot harder. No Netflix, or Zoom call with friends and family. I want to live in a world were things are progressing and getting better. Working less is certainly something to aspire to, but let's be realistic about the costs. We might be giving up a lot of future innovation.
It is making the case for open borders that the lack of substance really becomes apparent. I recently read Open Borders: The Science and Ethics of Immigration by Bryan Caplan. It felt like Bregman just recycled arguments from Caplan's book. However I believe that Open Borders had a lot more substance and made a stronger case, even though it is a comic book! Bregman recycled Caplan's point that if we are worried about immigrants swamping the welfare state, we could impose a waiting period before they get access to welfare programs. How does that square with universal basic income? Are we going to let immigrants starve to death?
I realized that I have bashed the book a lot above. But I still enjoyed it. It talks about Overton's window, and how radical ideas can reframe what solutions are acceptable (Caplan's book also talked about Overton's window). It is good to be inspired, and universal basic income, 15 hour work week, and open borders are all worthy goals.