Rutger Bregman is a Dutch historian, who recently published some interesting and rather inspirational books in the Dutch language. Several of these have been translated now. The two main books I am referring to are:
- Bregman (2017), Utopia for Realists: and how we can get there, Bloomsbury, translated by Elizabeth Manton, originally published as Gratis geld door iedereen: en nog vijf grote ideeen die de wereld kunnen veranderen, published by The Correspondent in 2014.
- Bregman (2020), Humankind: A Hopeful History, Bloomsbury, originally published as De meeste mensen deugen: Een nieuwe geschiedenis van de mens, published by The Correspondent in 2019.
In these books Bregman defends a very positive view of humankind and the human ability to overcome adversity through collaboration. Especially Bregman (2020) argues that human sociality is at the foundation of any human society in history and that there is overwhelming evidence that people are very cooperative in actions and thoughts. This seems to contradict the prevailing viewpoint that people are competitive and individualistic, a perspective that lies at the foundation of our neoliberal, global economy. But Bregman systematically and forcefully argues against this stereotype of humankind and demolishes the standard arguments in favour of the neoliberal perspective.
That humans are individualistic competitors, or “monads” as Herbert Simon referred to this in his 1991 paper in the Journal of Economic Perspectives, has been well-accepted and defended through social experiments. Bregman explores all of the main studies of the monadic viewpoint and finds these severely wanting. Indeed, in most cases, the outcomes of these studies have been misrepresented. Furthermore, Bregman shows that the authors of these studies misrepresented the results themselves for their own (academic) career.
Bregman concludes that the monadic perspective is a complete misrepresentation of human nature. This is one of the main problems with neoliberal capitalism: The monadic viewpoint provides the very foundation of our global economy and it is simply wrong…
It can be argued that the current ongoing crisis in the neoliberal global economy and world order is mainly due to this misrepresentation of humankind. The monadic perspective provides the neoliberal logic for the austerity that is already ongoing for 40 years and the work ethic that forces people into bullshit jobs (Graeber, as also discussed by Bregman). The global economy has to be considered to be already in a de facto depression since the Dotcom bubble burst in 2000, although that has been hidden well by the various authorities and media through the misrepresentation of economic performance data. The Great Financial Panic of 2008 only exacerbated this condition, resulting in 12 further years of depressed economic performance. The Coronacrisis of 2020 will move everything in overdrive and prolong the ongoing depression even further.
A positive perspective based on recognised human sociality and cooperativeness would provide the foundation of a much friendlier society and economy. Bregman adds his voice to those that call for a return to smaller societies and physical platforms for human interaction (such as neighbourhoods, cities and counties) such as John Romer, George Monbiot and Paul Mason. This should then be placed in the context of a global economy that is founded on largely automated global supply chains and global online social networks. As such “post-capitalism” looks very much like a matrix economy. It could also turn out to be a virtual society as depicted in the Matrix movie…
Rutger Bregman is also known as the rebel who was invited to the World economic Forum in Davos in 2019 and upset several meetings of the big wigs of the global economy. In particular, Bregman (2017) defends the idea that a Universal Basic Income (UBI) is a very worthwhile concept to support the introduction and implementation of the matrix economy. The positive viewpoint of humankind implies that UBI would not destroy entrepreneurial innovation and creativity, but would rather liberate people to pursue such ideals.
It certainly would be worthwhile to change our minds and to take us away from the neoliberal monadic viewpoint. UBI could indeed be a good beginning to create a new, more functional global economy.