We Know What Utopia Is, We Just Won't Fight For It

In Utopia for Realists, Rutger Bregman starts by arguing that we have most of the utopia we ever wanted. In 1820, 88% of the world lived in extreme poverty1; today it's below 10%. More people suffer from obesity than hunger2. We have medical procedures and medications that have turned previously deadly diseases and injuries into nothing more than inconveniences. We have achieved the definition of utopia as set forth by most of humanity that preceded us and now we don't have a new definition to take the place of what we all once wanted. A New Definition of Utopia Bregman spends much of his book defining what utopia could look like, which mostly comes down to a more equitable distribution of wealth and defining success at a country level as something other than the economic product people produce. He talks about basic income3 a lot4. He spends a bunch of time on scarcity and how it takes away the ability to make sound decisions5. Then he takes a hard look at the capitalist obsession…