Books: Utopia for Realists: and How We Can Get There

Life & Times Books Utopia for Realists: and How We Can Get there is a great malaise at large. Inequality ADDRESS FOR CORRESPONDENCE There has reached preposterous levels; those in Dougal Jeffries Rutger Bregman work are often stressed and lack a sense of Brillwater House, Constantine, Falmouth TR11 5AH, Bloomsbury Publishing, 2017, HB, 336pp, purpose; relative poverty and unemployment UK. £16.99, 978-1408890264 remain stubbornly persistent; and the E-mail: [email protected] shadow of increasing automation looms over us, threatening a huge number of jobs He also makes a plea for a rebalancing of across the economy. Bregman’s aim is our educational system so that the teaching not to predict the future, but, ‘to fling open of values, rather than of ‘competencies’, the windows of our minds’, by positing an becomes central (does this ring any bells alternative model to the ruthless capitalism in the medical establishment?). Turning to and materialism of today. less developed economies, he advocates Central to his vision is the introduction of direct gifts of money for the poor to use as a Universal Basic Income (UBI), combined they choose, rather than the patronising with a shorter working week. He devotes and often ineffective aid programmes much of the book to describing various beloved by Western governments; and he A NEW SOURCE OF HOPE historical attempts to put such a system makes a bold plea — which in Brexit Britain is unlikely to meet with much sympathy — Some might say that the title of this book has in place, from the Speenhamland system, for the opening of borders, to the benefit of an oxymoronic quality: can a realist believe named after an English village where this both poor and rich countries. that a Utopia is achievable? By the end of the form of poor relief was introduced in the If you are happy with the status quo, argument I remained uncertain, but there is early 19th century, via several small-scale don’t bother with this book. But if you no doubting the author’s command of his experiments in North America, to Richard feel that things really could be better but evidence or his degree of commitment to Nixon’s Family Assistance Plan, launched you’re short of inspiration, then read it. You his cause. Bregman is described as ‘one of to Congress in 1970 but rescinded at the may find some of the ideas it contains of Europe’s most prominent young thinkers’, last minute because of sabotage by certain doubtful practicality, but you will certainly and this book became a bestseller in his right-wing advisers. He pays particular be stimulated and entertained. native Netherlands when first published in attention to controlled experiments, and the 2014. The translation by Elizabeth Manton is evidence for the positive results of nearly all Dougal Jeffries, easy to read, and maintains what I assume of them is convincing. Along the way, the Retired GP, Cornwall. to be the sharp and witty style of the original. myth of the ‘undeserving poor’ is effectively The author begins by characterising demolished, and the iniquities of our current DOI: https://doi.org/10.3399/bjgp17X691493 current developed economies as lands of welfare model (as exemplified in the UK system of disability benefit assessments) plenty, akin to the legendary Cockaigne REFERENCE of medieval imagination, in which hunger, are laid bare. In the Netherlands the idea of the UBI is being widely discussed, and I see 1. Kassam A. Ontario plans to launch universal pestilence, and destitution have been to basic income trial run this summer.Guardian all intents and purposes abolished. Our in the Guardian that the Canadian province 2017; 24 Apr: https://www.theguardian.com/ life expectancy, health, and wealth are of Ontario is just about to launch another world/2017/apr/24/canada-basic-income-trial- unprecedented in human history, and yet experimental programme.1 ontario-summer (accessed 11 May 2017). British Journal of General Practice, July 2017 319.

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