If you’re tired of hearing that social inequality is just a necessary consequence of the laws of economy at work, you can regain your faith in a better world by reading Rutger Bregman’s book Utopia for realists, and how we can get there. It is worth noting at once that Bregman does not think he represents the political left, but rather considers himself to belong to the political right.
Bregman's book explains how a basic income - free money for all - promotes well-being and pays for itself, for example by increasing the level of formal education of low-income children and reducing their police contact.
However, when basic income experiments have gone well, its political opponents have always managed to convince policymakers at the last moment that it is employment, i.e. hard work, that is the only way to lift the poor out of poverty. At the same time, there is little discussion on the fact that in an automated world, there is not work for everyone. Moreover, this sounds like forcing people to do poorly paid physical work that does not guarantee an adequate livelihood.
Bregman refers to e.g. to the French economist Thomas Piketty, who has warned of a return to a society in which a small minority lives a good life with their capital, while in paid employment, the overwhelming majority is doomed to at least relative misery.
As a medicine against this kind of segregation of income groups, progressive capital duty could work. Here, at last, we have a utopia. As Bregman points out, utopias are essential to development. At one point, we just buried utopias and sacrificed ourselves on the altar of economic growth and efficiency. Bregman even equates our performance society with its efficiency goals with the absurd five-year plans of the former Soviet Union. The good life shrinks into a spreadsheet.
Efficiency is, in fact, another concept that is being criticized by Bregman. He points out that, as factories and computers become more efficient, it would perhaps be possible to afford care and training less efficiently, with more workers, in smaller teaching groups. Public sector services provide great hidden benefits.
Furthermore, Bregman points out that GDP only measures subjectively selected things. If we only look at the figures related to the economy and efficiency and make decisions based on them only, is something essential missing? Admittedly, Bregman is also cautious about, for example, the Sustainable Economic Welfare Index (ISEW), which includes factors such as pollution, crime and inequality. Simple figures can hide more than reveal.
One of Bregman’s ideas is that society should finally reward people according to their real contribution: the salaries of garbage drivers, police, and teachers would rise, while the salary curves of lobbyists and bankers would turn negative. If your work causes social harm, you would have to pay for it.
Rutger Bregman: Utopia for realists, and how we can get there. 2014.
Comments