Despite ending by stating that “to change the world, we need to be unrealistic, unreasonable, and impossible”, this book's title is particularly fitting, as it depicts a far too realistic “utopia”. It tackles major problems like poverty, inequality, too much focus on work, especially of the wrong kind, or the systems that stifle progress, but a good part is dedicated to advocating for a universal, unconditional basic income that’s enough to live on, which concept has been proven to work long ago only to be scuppered by lobbying and politics. And UBI logically leads to a much shorter work week, freeing time not only for leisure and relationships, but also for volunteering, education or art, focusing on beneficial and necessary jobs, like garbage collectors, nurses and teachers, embracing automatization, and eliminating “bullshit jobs”. Also perfectly logical, but somewhat bolder, is pointing out that the jobs that currently bring the most benefits, like lobbyists, bankers, advertisers and many lawyers, tend to actually harm, and asking for penalties for them. Advocating for open borders, which the part about using science and studies to direct development aid can be said to follow from, may currently appear bolder still, but it’s also pointed out that restricting migration is actually a very recent phenomenon.
It starts and ends well enough, stressing how terrible things have been throughout human history, asking to bring back an idea of utopia now that the developed world has mostly become a Land of Plenty, and calling the left to wake up and fight for it, with courage, determination and a clear vision, aiming to make the impossible, inevitable. In between, however, it only briefly touches upon what could and should become the utopian goals of tomorrow, like aiming for what would now be seen as full unemployment, conforming to environmental limits or eliminating the financial system, and doesn’t tackle something like overhauling the concept of the nation state at all. So, again, the concepts advocated here, while necessary, depict what could and should have been the present, the push towards a daring vision of utopia being left for others.