Utopia for Realists

What if poverty was no longer inevitable, work became voluntary, and borders ceased to limit human potential? In Utopia for Realists, Dutch historian Rutger Bregman argues that it’s time to reclaim utopian thinking—not through naive dreaming, but by grounding bold ideas in evidence, economics, and common sense. He invites you to imagine a world beyond the present status quo, one where prosperity fuels purpose and progress is measured not just by GDP but by genuine well-being.

Bregman’s central claim is that humanity has achieved unprecedented wealth and health—we’ve arrived, in a sense, at the medieval dream of the Land of Plenty—but we’ve lost sight of what comes next. Material abundance has not delivered meaning, equality, or happiness. The time has come, he insists, to direct our collective imagination toward new frontiers: a universal basic income, a shorter workweek, and open borders. These are the pillars of a society that values people over profit and purpose over production.

A Case for New Utopian Thinking

Bregman begins by reclaiming the concept of “utopia.” He reminds us that all progress—from democracy to equal rights to the weekend—was once dismissed as unrealistic. Today, however, we’ve mistaken our comforts for endpoints. Our politics are paralyzed by pragmatism, our economies are obsessed with growth, and our imaginations have been colonized by cynicism. Bregman argues that we must once again dream about the possible, but unlike past utopians, we must base our ideas on real-world data and experiments.

The author identifies a paradox: humanity is thriving materially yet suffering existentially. Despite technological advances, rising GDP, and global peace, depression, loneliness, and inequality are soaring. Bregman challenges readers to rethink what “progress” means. Instead of measuring success by economic expansion, he asks us to consider well-being, leisure, and freedom as the new benchmarks of human development.

From the Land of Plenty to the Land of Purpose

According to Bregman, the Western world is still trapped in the myth of perpetual scarcity, even though we live in abundance. We obsess over productivity, efficiency, and consumerism, while meaningful work and time for reflection have been sacrificed. He draws on classic thinkers like Keynes—who predicted a 15-hour workweek by 2030—and on modern behavioral economics to illustrate that human motivation goes far beyond survival or wages. We want purpose, not busyness.

This is where his proposed utopian reforms come in. A universal basic income would eliminate poverty and empower people to pursue education, entrepreneurship, and creativity. A shorter workweek would distribute jobs more fairly, reduce burnout, and increase happiness. Open borders, the most controversial of his ideas, would not only reduce global inequality but also double world GDP, according to the studies he cites. These are not wild dreams, he insists—they are pragmatic policies supported by decades of research and small-scale trials.

Why Radical Ideas Matter Now More Than Ever

Underlying Bregman’s vision is an appeal to moral courage. Every major social advance began with radicals who refused to accept reality as given. While neoliberalism and short-term politics have robbed society of imaginative ambition, Bregman urges readers to adopt a long-term perspective. He argues that our problems—rising inequality, climate change, stagnant wages—stem not from lack of resources but from lack of vision. Just as Friedman and Hayek patiently nurtured the “utopian” dream of free markets before it became policy orthodoxy, today’s thinkers must champion a new social paradigm for the 21st century.

At its heart, Utopia for Realists is both a history of progress and a toolkit for reimagining reality. It synthesizes lessons from economics, psychology, and political philosophy to show that new systems are not only possible but already being tested—from Canadian basic income experiments to Utah’s success with “Housing First” for the homeless. The task now is to scale these ideas globally.

By blending optimism with practicality, Bregman reframes utopia as a challenge rather than a fantasy: a call to act as though the future is still open. He asks you not simply to hope for a better world—but to work toward one rooted in evidence, empathy, and imagination.

One of Bregman’s most striking arguments is that the simplest solution to poverty is to give people money. Through a wealth of historical evidence and modern experimentation, he dismantles the myth that the poor are poor because they make bad decisions or lack discipline. Instead, he shows that poverty itself causes poor decision-making by draining mental bandwidth—a concept supported by psychologists Eldar Shafir and Sendhil Mullainathan’s research on the “scarcity mindset.”

Evidence from Experiments

Bregman weaves together examples from across the world. In London, a charity named Broadway gave £3,000 to thirteen long-term homeless men—no strings attached. A year later, most had used the money to find housing, enter training, and rebuild their lives, costing far less than traditional welfare services. In rural Kenya, GiveDirectly provided unconditional cash transfers of about $500, dramatically increasing family income, home ownership, and school attendance without fostering dependency.

Perhaps most impressively, Bregman highlights the Mincome experiment in Dauphin, Canada during the 1970s. Every family was guaranteed a basic income, which reduced hospitalizations by 8.5%, strengthened education outcomes, and showed only minor decreases in work hours—mostly among students and new mothers. These programs revealed that when you give people trust and security instead of judgment and bureaucracy, they invest in their own futures.

The Moral and Economic Logic

Bregman argues that today’s welfare systems are humiliating and inefficient. They require endless proof of poverty, creating more paperwork than progress. He cites Utah’s “Housing First” model—where the state literally gives homes to the homeless—as proof that generosity is cheaper than judgment. Providing housing cost $11,000 per person annually compared to $16,000 for policing and healthcare expenses. Compassion, it turns out, is cost-effective.

This simple shift in thinking—seeing poverty as a lack of cash, not a lack of morality—has revolutionary implications. As Bregman writes, eradicating poverty would cost less than a quarter of U.S. military spending. It’s not that we lack the means; it’s that we’ve accepted inequality as natural when it is a political choice. (Notably, economists like Milton Friedman and Martin Luther King Jr. once endorsed the same idea.)

Restoring Dignity through Basic Income

For Bregman, a universal basic income would eliminate the need for shame-based welfare bureaucracies and give everyone the freedom to say no to exploitative work. It’s not about creating laziness—it’s about unleashing creativity and autonomy. The evidence from decades of experiments is clear: when people are trusted with money, they invest in themselves and their communities. The end of poverty, he concludes, is both economically feasible and morally overdue.

Imagine working only 15 hours a week, with ample time for creativity, family, and purpose. In 1930, economist John Maynard Keynes predicted that by 2030, technological progress would make such a lifestyle inevitable. Rutger Bregman argues that Keynes’ prediction was only half wrong: productivity has indeed exploded, but we’ve squandered its benefits chasing consumerism instead of leisure.

How We Worked Ourselves Into Exhaustion

In the early twentieth century, labor movements fought to shorten the workweek—and won. Henry Ford’s five-day workweek once seemed radical but soon became standard as productivity surged. Yet since the 1980s, this progress has stalled. Bregman shows how cultural pressures, gender roles, and capitalism’s obsession with GDP transformed productivity gains into material excess. We could have more time, but instead we have more things.

He points to Kellogg’s 1930s six-hour workday, which not only boosted employment but also doubled worker satisfaction and civic involvement. Similarly, when Britain’s energy crisis in 1974 forced a three-day workweek, productivity dropped only 6%. The lesson: working less doesn’t collapse economies—it revitalizes them.

The Benefits of Working Less

Bregman marshals research showing that shorter workweeks improve well-being, reduce pollution, and increase gender equality. Countries like the Netherlands and Denmark, where people work the fewest hours, also rank highest in happiness and productivity. The shorter the week, the healthier and more cohesive the society.

He warns that the future of automation makes this conversation urgent. As machines take over routine labor, we have a choice: mass unemployment or shared leisure. The moral of history, he says, is clear—each wave of productivity should liberate us, not enslave us.

Redefining the Good Life

Bregman calls on governments to revisit the politics of time: tax overtime, reward care work, and design social systems that prioritize well-being. Free time, he argues, allows people to think, create, and connect—a better foundation for happiness than endless consumption. As Bertrand Russell once wrote, “The road to happiness lies in an organized diminution of work,” and Bregman’s vision updates that wisdom for the 21st century.

Technology, once humanity’s liberator, now threatens to make vast segments of society obsolete. Bregman warns that the Second Machine Age—the era of AI, robotics, and algorithms—is reshaping labor as dramatically as the Industrial Revolution. Yet the real danger, he insists, is not job loss itself but our failure to imagine new purposes for human life beyond employment.

The Great Decoupling

Citing studies from MIT, Bregman notes that since 2000, productivity has soared while wages and job growth have stagnated. Machines now drive cars, read X-rays, and even write journalistic summaries. Entire professions—from radiologists to accountants—face disruption. “Humans are the new horses,” one Nobel laureate warned, recalling how mechanization once wiped out entire species of labor.

Automation and Inequality

Automation doesn’t affect everyone equally. Those at the top—investors, executives, software designers—see astronomical gains, while middle-class jobs vanish. Using examples like Kodak’s collapse and Instagram’s billion-dollar sale (with only 13 employees), Bregman illustrates how modern technology concentrates wealth but not work. Without intervention, he warns, automation will expand the “precariat”—a class of insecure, low-paid workers with no safety net.

What’s the Alternative?

The solution isn’t nostalgia for obsolete jobs but a redefinition of work itself. Bregman echoes thinkers like Oscar Wilde and Karl Marx in calling for “mechanical slavery”—letting machines handle drudgery while humans pursue leisure, learning, and creation. To make this transition humane, we’ll need policies like basic income, reduced hours, and education geared toward meaning rather than mere productivity. “The real question,” he writes, “is not whether robots will take our jobs, but whether we will let them make our lives better.”

Bregman challenges one of capitalism’s deepest myths: that high income reflects high value. In reality, he argues, many of the best-paid professions—finance, corporate law, marketing—merely shift wealth rather than create it. The 1968 garbage collectors’ strike in New York, which paralyzed the city within days, proved that essential workers earn the least while “bullshit jobs” proliferate in offices and banks.

Wealth Creators vs. Wealth Shufflers

Drawing on the economist William Baumol’s theory of “productive vs. unproductive entrepreneurship,” Bregman explains how finance has ballooned into an economy of speculation detached from real value creation. During Ireland’s six-month banking strike of 1970, pubs effectively replaced banks by informally exchanging IOUs, and the economy continued almost unaffected. Meanwhile, 2008 proved how financial excess can destroy value rather than create it.

He contrasts this with jobs like teaching, nursing, or sanitation—fields that genuinely sustain society but remain undervalued. Countries that pay teachers well, such as Finland, consistently perform better in well-being and innovation, proving that true prosperity rests on social, not speculative, capital.

The Bullshit Job Epidemic

Bregman borrows anthropologist David Graeber’s concept of “bullshit jobs” to describe meaningless bureaucratic roles that even workers themselves admit add no real value. Surveys reveal that up to 37% of British workers feel their jobs are pointless. This misallocation of human intelligence—and the prestige and pay that come with it—prevents genuine innovation. Bregman concludes that taxing financial transactions, rewarding care work, and reforming education around ethics rather than efficiency would make labor more purposeful and just.

For Bregman, one of the most transformative and yet taboo ideas is open borders. He argues that freedom of movement is the single most powerful tool for reducing global poverty. Economists estimate that open migration could double global GDP—adding up to $65 trillion in wealth. Yet political fear and moral inertia keep humanity locked in what he calls “apartheid on a global scale.”

Borders and Inequality

Bregman shows how geography, not effort, determines destiny. A Mexican laborer earns twice as much in the United States as in Mexico for the same work, while a Nigerian with identical skills makes eight times less than an American. This “location bonus” is the greatest source of inequality in human history. By blocking people, not goods or capital, rich countries perpetuate poverty.

He debunks common myths about immigration: migrants don’t steal jobs, depress wages, or drain welfare—they often create new demand and even out-contribute natives in taxes. For example, when 70 million Mexicans crossed into the U.S. during the 1960s, 85% eventually returned home. Only after border militarization made crossing harder did illegal residency surge.

A Moral and Economic Imperative

Ethically, Bregman likens closed borders to feudal privilege—an accident of birth dictating access to opportunity. Historically, until World War I, borders were nearly open; passports were rare. The author envisions a world that restores that freedom, at least partially—starting with modest increases in migration quotas. Even a 3% rise in cross-border labor could multiply global wealth more than all foreign aid combined.

For Bregman, migration isn’t a threat to prosperity—it’s its engine. Just as trade and technology fueled past eras of progress, human mobility will define the next. His challenge is simple but profound: will we choose compassion and cooperation over fear and nationalism?

In one of his most powerful chapters, Bregman dismantles the tyranny of the GDP. The measure invented in the 1930s to fight the Great Depression now distorts our definition of success. GDP counts pollution, crime, and even war as economic growth while ignoring unpaid work, education, and environmental health. The result: a society chasing numbers instead of nurturing lives.

The Hidden Costs of Growth

From oil spills that boost cleanup spending to prisons that inflate employment, GDP rewards destruction and neglects care. It ignores the value of parenting, volunteering, and community—all vital to real prosperity. As Robert Kennedy once lamented, “It measures everything, except that which makes life worthwhile.”

Bregman calls for “new figures for a new era.” Models like the Genuine Progress Indicator and Bhutan’s Gross National Happiness attempt to integrate environmental and social factors. But he cautions against simplistic joy metrics—unhappiness can drive progress too. Instead, he envisions a dashboard of indicators for time, knowledge, health, community, and equality.

Value Beyond Efficiency

Echoing William Baumol’s “cost disease” insight, Bregman notes that as economies automate, sectors like education and healthcare will consume more resources—not because they’re inefficient but because they’re human. The more we mechanize production, the more we should invest in care and creativity. If robots make factories richer, schools and hospitals deserve a bigger share of the wealth. True progress means learning to value what can’t be measured—our time, relationships, and the joy of making a difference.

In his final chapter, Bregman explains how big ideas actually reshape society—and why it often takes crises to make the impossible inevitable. Using Leon Festinger’s research on cognitive dissonance, Solomon Asch’s conformity experiments, and the history of neoliberalism, he shows that beliefs—when patiently nurtured—become policies, realities, and eventual common sense.

The Power (and Peril) of Belief

People rarely change their minds rationally, Bregman notes. Instead, they cling tighter to existing beliefs until overwhelming evidence—or a crisis—forces a paradigm shift. The 2008 financial meltdown could have sparked reform, yet society reverted to austerity because no alternate framework was ready. Neoliberalism triumphed not through conspiracy but through preparation: Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman kept their “utopian” ideas alive until a crisis made them viable.

Becoming Utopians Again

Bregman argues that progress depends on people willing to imagine beyond pragmatism. The neoliberals of the 1940s once seemed radical, yet their persistence reshaped global policy. In the same way, today’s visionaries—advocating basic income, shorter workweeks, and open borders—must plant the intellectual seeds for the next transformation. As he quotes Oscar Wilde: “Progress is the realization of Utopias.”

Bregman closes with an appeal to courage and curiosity. Utopian thinking isn’t about predicting the future—it’s about expanding it. Every society, he reminds us, was built twice: first in imagination, then in reality. If we dare to dream rationally, the next utopia could be real sooner than we think.