Utopia for Realists: And How We Can Get There

by Rutger Bregman

assistance for the poor was again seen as a favor instead of a right. “Personal responsibility” was the new buzzword.

He also marvels at “how people take it for granted that they have a right to preach at you and pray over you as soon as your income falls below a certain level.”

Just as Soviet-era shops employed “three clerks to sell a piece of meat,” we’ll force benefit claimants to perform pointless tasks, even if it bankrupts us.38

“Better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied.”

Unlike the manufacture of a fridge or a car, history lessons and doctor’s checkups can’t simply be made “more efficient.”

Work is the refuge of people who have nothing better to do.

In no time, people forged a radically decentralized monetary system with the country’s 11,000 pubs as its key nodes and basic trust as its underlying mechanism.

The goal of the future is full unemployment, so we can play.

The difficulty lies, not in the new ideas, but in escaping from the old ones.

Cognitive dissonance,” he termed it. When reality clashes with our deepest convictions, we’d rather recalibrate reality than amend our worldview.

Seemingly the only thing they had in common with Keynes was the belief that the ideas of economists and philosophers are stronger forces than the vested interests of business leaders and politicians.

It could easily take a generation, he asserted, before new ideas prevail. For this very reason, we need thinkers who not only are patient, but also have “the courage to be ‘utopian.’”

When I call for a shorter workweek, I’m not pushing for long, lethargic weekends. I’m calling for us to spend more time on the things that truly matter to us.