Rutger Bregman

Rutger C. Bregman (born 26 April 1988) is a Dutch popular historian and author. He has published four books on history, philosophy, and economics, including Utopia for Realists: How We Can Build the Ideal World, which has been translated into thirty-two languages. His work has been featured in The Washington Post, The Guardian and the BBC. He has been described by The Guardian as the "Dutch wunderkind of new ideas" and by TED Talks as "one of Europe's most prominent young thinkers". His TED Talk, "Poverty Isn't a Lack of Character; It's a Lack of Cash", was chosen by TED curator Chris Anderson as one of the top ten of 2017.

Bregman earned his Bachelor of Arts in history at Utrecht University in 2009. He earned his Master of Arts in history in 2012, partly at Utrecht and partly at the University of California, Los Angeles. His graduate studies were concentrated on cities, states and citizenship.

Bregman thought of becoming an academic historian, but instead he began working as a journalist. He is the author of Utopia for Realists: The Case for a Universal Basic Income, Open Borders and a Fifteen-Hour Workweek. He writes regularly for the online journal De Correspondent, and was twice nominated for the European Press Prize for his work there. In 2013 he received the annual book award from the think tank Liberales for the most remarkable Dutch-language non-fiction book, The History of Progress. In 2015 he wrote the essay for the Month of Philosophy together with Jesse Frederik. In his student days he was a member of Christian student association SSR-NU.

Utopia for Realists

Utopia for Realists: How We Can Build the Ideal World promotes a more productive and equitable life based on three core ideas which include a universal and unconditional basic income paid to everybody, a short workweek of fifteen hours, and open borders worldwide with the free exchange of citizens between all nations. It was originally written as articles in Dutch for the online journal De Correspondent.

In an interview with the Montreal newspaper Le Devoir in September 2017, Bregman said that "to move forward, a society needs dreams, not nightmares. Yet people are caught in the logic of fear. Whether it is Trump, Brexit or the last elections in Germany, they vote against the future and instead for solutions to replace it, believing the past was better based on a thoroughly mistaken view of the world: the world was worse before … Humanity is improving, conditions of life, work and health too. And it's time to open the windows of our minds to see it."

Other books

Prior to the release of Utopia for Realists, Bregman had already published several books, including History of Progress, for which he was awarded the Belgian Liberales prize for best nonfiction book of 2013.

In 2020, Bregman publishedHumankind: A Hopeful History, where he argues that humans are fundamentally mostly decent, and that more recognition of this view would likely be beneficial to everyone, partly as it would reduce excessive cynicism. For example, if society was less adamant on the view that humans are naturally lazy, there would be less reason to oppose the widespread introduction of poverty mitigation measures like basic income.The book takes a multi-disciplinary approach, drawing from the findings of history, economics, psychology, biology, anthropology and archaeology. Bregman's arguments include the assertion that in the state of nature debate, Rousseau, rather than Hobbes, was more correct about humanity's essential goodness.

His articles have been published in The Guardian, The Washington Post, the BBC, Evonomics, and in The Conversation.

"The Real Lord of the Flies"

In an article for The Guardian, published in May 2020, Bregman describes the true story of a group of schoolboys from Tonga who were shipwrecked on the deserted island of ʻAta with few resources and no adult supervison. Bregman draws a parallel with the classic fiction novel Lord of the Flies; however, he highlights how much the real-life story does not turn out the same way as Lord of the Flies. Bregman was able to track down the captain of the fishing boat who rescued the boys in 1966, Peter Warner, son of Australian businessman Arthur Warner, and also one of the rescued individuals, Mano Totau. He interviewed Warner and got the full story of the boys' ordeal and their rescue; including the fact that Warner hired all of them as crew members for his fishing boat. In the case of the Tongan schoolboys, they immediately came up with a set of rules to govern their conduct and to insure full cooperation. When one boy fell from a height and broke his leg, the others rushed to provide him with medical care; after they were rescued, medical professionals were impressed by the quality of the healed leg.

In his TED Talks presentation, "Poverty Isn't a Lack of Character; It's a Lack of Cash", Bregman argues for a universal basic income as the solution to end poverty.

In January 2019, Bregman took part in a panel debate at the World Economic Forum in Davos, where he criticised the event for its focus on philanthropy rather than tax avoidance and the need for fair taxation. His intervention was widely reported and followed on social media.

According to a 20 February 2019 article in The Guardian, during a February 2019 interview in Amsterdam Fox News anchor and journalist, Tucker Carlson after Davos, Bregman told Carlson that the United States "could easily crack down on tax paradises" if they wanted to and that Fox News would not cover stories about tax evasion by the wealthy. He said that Carlson himself, had been taking "dirty money" for years from the CATO Institute where he was senior fellow and which is "funded by Koch billionaires"—Charles Koch and David Koch. He said that Carlson and other Fox News anchors are "millionaires paid by billionaires"—referring to the Murdochs and, in Carlson's case, the Koch brothers. Bregman told Carlson that "what the Murdochs want you to do [on Fox News] is scapegoat immigrants instead of talking about tax avoidance". Carlson was angered by Bregman's comments. Bregman posted a video of his unaired interview with Carlson on NowThis News on YouTube on 20 February 2019. By July the video had received 2,349,846 views.

The major themes of Bregman's works include basic income, the workweek and open borders.

Basic income

Bregman approvingly cites a 1968 US proposal for a guaranteed minimum income, put forward by President Richard Nixon, among others. He also cites a 1974–1979 Canadian federal government project in Dauphin, Manitoba, that temporarily eradicated poverty. "The most popular study on the effects of basic income took place in Manitoba between 1974 and 1979 where everyone received a “Mincome” (minimum income) of $9,000 a year (by today's standards) from the government, no strings attached. Evelyn Forget, an economist and professor at the University of Manitoba, who looked over the data from the study says there was a 9 percent reduction in working hours among two main groups of citizens. But the reasons why give insight into how basic income can dramatically change the course of someone's life."

• Met de kennis van toen : actuele problemen in het licht van de geschiedenis (With the knowledge of back then : current problems in a historical light). Amsterdam: De Bezige Bij, 2012, ISBN 978-90-2347212-4.
• De geschiedenis van de vooruitgang (The history of progress). Amsterdam, De Bezige Bij, 2013, ISBN 978-90-2347754-9.
• Gratis geld voor iedereen : en nog vijf grote ideeën die de wereld kunnen veranderen. Amsterdam: De Correspondent, 2014, ISBN 978 90 822 5630 7. English translation: Utopia for realists, and how we can get there (2014).
• Waarom vuilnismannen meer verdienen dan bankiers (Why dustmen deserve more than bankers), with Jesse Frederik. Rotterdam: Maand van de Filosofie, 2015, ISBN 9789047706830.
• De meeste mensen deugen, een nieuwe geschiedenis van de mens. Amsterdam: De Correspondent, 2019, ISBN 9789082942187. English translation: Humankind : a new history of human nature (2020).
• Het water komt : een brief aan alle Nederlanders (The water is coming : a letter to all Netherlanders). Amsterdam: De Correspondent, 2020, ISBN 9789083017761.