‘Poverty is fundamentally about a lack of cash. Or take the patchwork of courses offered to the poor: Study after study has shown that they cost a lot but achieve little, whether the objective is learning to fish, read or run a business. But at what cost? A Rwandan study estimated that donating one pregnant cow costs around $3,000 (including a milking workshop). “Countless aid organisations and governments are convinced that they know what poor people need, and invest in schools, solar panels, or cattle. GiveDirectly, a charity that does what it says on the tin, found that donations caused a lasting rise in incomes, reduced child hunger, and boosted home ownership and livestock possession. Uganda piloted a scheme where it gave 12,000 16-35 year olds $400 each on condition that they present a business plan and, five years later, found that their incomes had been boosted 50% and their chance of being hired was 60% higher. Antithetical to modern notions of working oneself out of poverty, many pilot schemes have found that simply giving poor people money has staggering effects: a study of 13 homeless men given £3,000 each found their situations radically improved (and proved far cheaper than the estimated £400,000 per year the group were costing the state).
Utopia for realists free#
To start, Bregman posits a radical idea: give poor people free money. ‘The big reason poor people are poor is because they don’t have enough money,’ notes economist Charles Kenny, ‘And it shouldn’t come as a huge surprise that giving them money is a great way to reduce the problem’.” “Already, research has correlated unconditional cash disbursements with reductions in crime, child mortality, malnutrition, teenage pregnancy, and truancy, and with improved school performance, economic growth, and gender equality.
However, where Monbiot focused on the creation of a new narrative, Bregman turns his eye to the plot points within that narrative, meaning that the two works complement one another perfectly. Both are call-to-arms for imagination, vision and hope in an otherwise stagnant political landscape and meditate on similar topics such as inequality and alternative economic metrics. Utopia For Realists shares DNA with George Monbiot’s excellent Out of the Wreckage.
Utopia for realists how to#
He investigates the practicalities of Universal Basic Income, how to solve homelessness, the potential of a fifteen-hour work week, what we do about automation, the scourge of inequality, the flawed metrics by which we evaluate our economies, the relative value of jobs versus the pay they offer, the actual effects of foreign aid, the virtues of open borders, and, finally, the strengths and surprising weaknesses of new ideas. In Utopia For Realists, Rutger Bregman, a historian by trade, takes a look at the realistic, Utopian ideas that we could implement in our societies if only we had the political will. There’s no new dream to replace it because can’t imagine a better world than the one we’ve got.” Precisely when we should be shouldering the historic task of investing this rich, safe, and healthy existence with meaning, we’ve buried utopia instead. “Progress is the realization of Utopias,” he wrote. “According to Oscar Wilde, upon reaching the Land of Plenty, we should once more fix our gazes on the farthest horizon and rehoist the sails. All that’s more than enough reason to pick up his book, methinks. The recording was, however, leaked, and proved to be everything Bregman had said it was. Carlson launched into a swear-laden attack on Bregman and refused to air the interview.
Utopia for realists skin#
Bregman got under Carlson’s skin when he accused right-wing host of being a millionaire funded by billionaires who was part of the problem Bregman was railing against. The second was, in light of the attention from that first incident, when Bregman was invited onto Fox News pundit Tucker Carlson’s show. The first was from his appearance at the World Economic Forum in Davos where he criticised the event’s focus on philanthropy whilst avoiding the issue of taxes and tax avoidance. His book was received to widespread acclaim last year but he may be more well known thanks to two recent viral incidents.
Rutger Bregman has had a good few weeks on the internet.
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