Want to learn the ideas in Utopia For Realists better than ever? Read the world’s #1 book summary of Utopia For Realists by Rutger Bregman here.

Read a brief 1-Page Summary or watch video summaries curated by our expert team. Note: this book guide is not affiliated with or endorsed by the publisher or author, and we always encourage you to purchase and read the full book.

Video Summaries of Utopia For Realists

We’ve scoured the Internet for the very best videos on Utopia For Realists, from high-quality videos summaries to interviews or commentary by Rutger Bregman.

1-Page Summary of Utopia For Realists

Overview

Most of us live in a world where we have access to many things that people did not have just a few decades ago. With this, our standards for what is good and bad are different than they were in the past. For example, most people would think of having an iPhone or being able to travel around the country as something great. So how do you define your utopia? What do you visualize when you imagine a better life?

The problem is that we aren’t even asking basic questions. We are working harder than ever, even though we have more resources and wealth than before. Millions of people live in poverty, when there’s enough money to end it completely.

We need to have big ideas again. We need to imagine a new utopia where we change society and the economy in order for everyone’s lives to be better.

In this article, we’ll learn about why giving people cash is the best way to help them. We’ll also learn how GDP (Gross Domestic Product) is a fundamentally unhelpful measure of progress and what single policy change could make the world twice as rich.

Big Idea #1: Today’s world should be a paradise, but it’s leaving us strangely dissatisfied.

Most of human history was tough. It was poor, nasty, and brutish. People had it bad for centuries until very recently when things started to get better thanks to scientific discoveries and technological advances.

According to historians, the average Italian in 1300 made approximately $1,600. In six centuries’ time after that, they earned about the same amount. This was despite many major inventions and scientific discoveries over those years including Galileo, Newton, the Enlightenment era and printing press.

In the past, there was a lot of economic growth. The average Italian today is 15 times richer than in 1880. There has been an explosion in global wealth since the Industrial Revolution. Things are changing so rapidly that the price of solar power has dropped by 99 percent since 1980.

Because of this, in the last 100 years, billions of people have achieved a level of stability and comfort that would have seemed impossible to our predecessors.

After years of being hungry, people are now more likely to be obese than starving. We’re also safer; for example, the murder rate is lower in Western Europe than it was centuries ago. Smallpox has been eradicated and because fewer people die from disease, life expectancy on the African continent is increasing by four days every week.

In addition, our understanding of technology is at a point where it seems like we’re living in the future. A visitor from the Middle Ages would be amazed by how advanced we are. For example, there’s an implant that helps blind people see again; or robotic legs for paraplegic people to walk on!

We live in a time of great wealth and prosperity. We can afford to do anything we want, but many people are still unhappy. Maybe it’s because they’re not constantly striving for more, or maybe they’ve forgotten how to dream big. They’re too comfortable with their consumer comforts and don’t have any goals anymore. It’s time to think about what progress means again and how we can improve our lives without spending money on material goods like before.

Big Idea #2: Giving free money to people is a remarkably effective way of improving their lives.

Life was difficult for Bernard Omondi. He worked in a stone quarry and earned only $2 a day, barely enough to get by. However, things changed when he received a one-time payment of $500 from GiveDirectly with no conditions attached. He used the money to buy a motorcycle and started earning $6-$9 per day as an independent taxi driver.