Utopia for Realists: And How We Can Get There

The book’s title proposes a reconciliation between two great rival schools of political theory. As Rutger Bregman notes, people have had visions of a perfect, “utopian” world for centuries, but the 20th century witnessed major attempts to implement practical schemes for changing the world, especially in the field of international politics. The catalyst for these efforts was World War I (1914-1918), which killed millions and traumatized millions more. The horrors of that conflict spurred a campaign to ensure that such destruction never happened again, eventually culminating in the formation of the League of Nations in 1920. The League was intended to abolish war by providing a forum for diplomacy, encouraging trade as an alternative to fighting, and securing homelands for nationalities (with the notable exception of colonized peoples in Asia and Africa) based on the assumption that multinational empires were most prone to aggression. The League had some successes, but its failures proved more conspicuous, especially its inability to check the rise of hyperaggressive regimes in Japan, Italy, and Nazi Germany. When the outbreak of World War II effectively put an end to the League, a group of scholars calling themselves “realists” issued a fundamental challenge to the very idea of radical change. According to the realists, human nature was unchangeable, and human beings would always struggle to gain power over one another. In practice, utopian ideals would thus mainly serve to advance the interests of a privileged group: Liberal countries like the US and Great Britain promoted free trade because it would help their exports, and the Soviet Union preached revolution mainly to strengthen the Communist Party’s grip on power. For the realists, the only way to improve society was to come to grips with the inherent limits of life and pursue only moderate, pragmatic measures.

Both idealism and realism are pure concepts of thought that are difficult to sustain consistently amid the complexities and nuances of life, but they have established themselves as the twin extremes between which more moderate conceptions take root. The main idea that links the two is gradualism: Making step-by-step progress toward an ideal without undertaking radical measures that might upend the system one is trying to improve. Bregman is not opposed to gradualism, and he concedes that many of his bold ideas should begin with fairly modest first steps. His complaint is that gradualism has become so fully ingrained in the political consciousness that it has become an end unto itself. Without a sense of the ideal it is pursuing, gradualism breaks down into tinkering, small fixes designed to improve the working of existing systems and thereby losing sight of the structural flaws that require fundamental change, even if that change is not pursued all at once. Utopia without realism is just a castle in the sky. Realism without utopia is a recipe for inaction. In this book, Bregman attempts to propose ideas that join the two by proposing ambitious goals with actionable steps that humans can take to build a better future on Earth.