Utopia for Realists: And How We Can Get There

In this last full chapter, Bregman’s reference to Robert P. Carroll’s When Prophecy Failed (a 1979 classic work of social psychology) marks a noteworthy contrast with the general thrust of his argument up to this point. He has generally described modern society as technocratic, busying itself with minor fixes because it lacks the imagination or impetus to envision a broader future. Mrs. Martin’s club of flying saucer enthusiasts were thoroughgoing utopians who believed that a perfect world would arrive at a particular time and place. Rather than make do with things as they were, they made tremendous efforts to keep their dream alive, denying everything that common sense placed in front of their noses. However, the comparison aptly ties together Bregman’s point that despite the very real advantages of the Land of Plenty, several aspects of modern life are more akin to a dystopia or doomsday cult. Far more poverty exists than is either necessary or morally acceptable, people work more hours for less purchasing power, and the treatment of migrants from the Global South rages from cruel indifference to outright sadism. The perception that humanity has reached its pinnacle reframes these problems either as externalities beyond anyone’s control or as perfectly solvable with the right amount of data, funding, and implementation. This perception does not depend on twisting one’s views to believe that an imaginary spaceship is still on its way but rather on walking toward the doomed Earth left in the spaceship’s wake with the conviction that it could not be any different. Neoliberalism, to which Bregman subtly alludes in previous chapters but fully explores here, is a fitting example of a seemingly all-powerful system that actually arose quite recently, came to prominence by contingency, and will inevitably decline. Milton Friedman was skilled at popularizing economic ideas at a time when the public valued the expertise of an economist more than at any time before or since. As a result, his message of economics as a perfect science for ordering society fell upon a receptive audience, especially when the collapse of communism appeared to vindicate free market capitalism as the last and best system for all of humanity. Neoliberalism forgot how it sprang up in a particular context and came to believe its own doctrine of universality, and thus sooner or later the contradictions between its premises and global conditions will become untenable. However, exploiting that moment will be possible only when people have the ideas for replacing it, and Bregman is therefore laying the groundwork for a moment that will come but where no single result is preordained. This chapter thus merges the ideas in the book’s three major themes: The Potential for Positive-Sum Gains, The Contingency of History, and The Dangers of Inequality.