The extraordinary, unprecedented rise of economic prosperity and all its attendant benefits in recent generations cannot be lauded too often and Bregman pays fitting tribute before turning on a sixpence to discuss the problems that have turned our ‘Land of Plenty’ into a ‘dystopia’: anxiety, narcissism, boredom, apathy and – above all – the inability of his generation to come up with a vision of where society should go next (he is 28).īregman’s answer to this sense of purposelessness is to propose three grand schemes, starting with a guaranteed income for all. The book begins with an invigorating summary of the benefits of free trade and globalisation which starts where Johan Norberg’s excellent Progress left off. If you have studied any of these ideas before and are sceptical, Bregman’s analysis is unlikely to convince you, but there is enough original material to give most readers something to think about. Bregman’s passion for the basic income, in particular, is beyond doubt although it sometimes comes at the expense of objectivity. It is good to see them making waves on the centre-left. At least two of these proposals have been of longstanding interest to libertarians. First published in the Netherlands in 2014 and now republished in English with a retina-burning, bright orange jacket, Rutger Bregman’s Utopia for Realists has become an international bestseller thanks to three big ideas: open borders, a basic income and a shorter working week.
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