Just Finished Reading: Utopia for Realists and How We Can Get There by Rutger Bregman (FP: 2014)

The Poor, so it is said, are always with us. Throughout the entirety of human history some have been rich, some have been comfortable and many have been poor. It seems that such a state of affairs is inevitable no matter what the economic system is in place (poverty existed LONG before Capitalism so it might be partially responsible for prolonging or enabling it but it certainly didn’t create it). But what if something COULD be done about it. Something that hasn’t been tried before? After all what is the REAL cause of Poverty? Actually, when the think about it the cause is kind of obvious. Poverty is caused by a lack of money. That’s it. So the solution is also kind of obvious. Give poor people money. But not in the way we usually do – through a begrudging slight redistribution of wealth with countless conditions attached, forms to fill in, investigations to be put up with, rules to follow, sanctions to apply and everything that follows in a so-called Welfare State. No, none of that. You just give poor people a regular amount of money to bring them above the poverty line in whatever country they live in – no strings, no forms, no rules, no intrusive monitoring. That is the radical idea the author proposes. Ludicrous I hear you say. How could that possibly work? How can it be afforded? What about people taking the money and spending the rest of their lives with their feet up stoned or drunk or watching daytime TV (which is essentially the same thing)? All good questions but, apparently, only a very small percentage (around 4-6%) actually reduce their working hours. The rest work as much or more. But what about costs? How on earth do you pay for it?

Well, there have been small scale studies across the world from Canada to India to Africa and they all come back with the same results. Raising people out of poverty lowers crime levels, health levels increase, children stay longer in school, drug consumption – both legal and illegal – drops, law courts are used less, welfare agencies see a significant drop in case referrals and so on. When all of this is taken into account a lot of the cost of a basic income actual starts to pay for itself. That’s not just its advocates making things up out of thin air. They have the stats to prove it. It sounds crazy, it might actually BE crazy, but it seems to work. Imagine the fallout…. The END of Poverty….. It’s almost too bizarre to think about. To be honest I did struggle with the idea even with the facts staring me in the face. From the micro studies carried out so far it works. Of course it would take a HUGE leap of faith for any government on the planet to put it into action but imagine 50 years ago proposing the idea of Gay Marriage or 200 years ago proposing Universal Suffrage – including WOMEN. You’d be called mad, delusional, and UTOPIAN. Then, when it actually happens, everyone looks around and wonders what all the fuss was about…..

About half the book looks at the issue of poverty and backs up the idea of basic income. But not just to eliminate the scourge of poverty. The author recognises that, if automation continues on its present track, that true mass unemployment is coming for our children and especially our grandchildren. We can do something about that too – we can slow down the march of the machines (highly unlikely), we can create new jobs that machines can’t do (yet), we can create bullshit jobs just to employ people (and perpetuate the angst so many people feel at the end of a pointless working week) or we can pay people not to work – without pointless rules and penalties. We’re going to have to do something…. And soon. Just as you’re getting used to that idea the author drops another bomb of an idea – open borders. As you can imagine – especially in this age of walls – that’s even more controversial than basic income. But, rather surprisingly he manages to sell it quite well indeed. Did you know, for instance, that there was serious opposition to the very idea of passports before the First World War….? Weird, huh? Something I’m going to have to investigate I think!

I haven’t really done this highly provocative book the justice it deserves. I went into it a confirmed sceptic but now I’m not so sure. It’s definitely made me think about things differently and has most definitely made me challenged some of my assumptions which I discovered are not as ‘obvious’ as I thought. Definitely one for those who aren’t afraid of truly radical ideas whose time might just be around the corner. Highly recommended.   

Translated from the Dutch by Elizabeth Manton.