Utopia for Realists is Rutger Bregman's look at what utopia could be like if we started to dream again. Early on he claims that the real crisis today isn't hunger or poverty, but that we lack the imagination to come up with a new vision for utopia in our fantastic world, and then fight for it¹. Then he tries to give us a push so that we start to fight for a new utopia by showing us where our world does still have faults.

From pushing to basic income, to housing first policies, to blaming workers for being unemployed when there are 100 applicants for a single position, Bregman highlights many of the ways our thinking fails us. We think that we know how to spend money intended for the poor better than they could ever spend it, but countless studies show that we'd be better of giving the salaries of the support workers to the poor instead of making them fill out endless forms proving their worth².

Should you read Utopia for Realists?

While Bregman does a great job highlighting the problems, and some solutions, I don't think he gives the reader a good path forward to improve the world they inhabit. How to Stand Up to a Dictator or Take Back the Fight did a much better job showing readers how they could organize to affect change. It's going to take more than the lone wolf fighting, we need to organize and embark on a long campaign to shame politicians enough that they finally give in and make a positive change.

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Footnotes

¹ Utopia for Realists Pg 11

² Utopia for Realists Pg 31