Upon finishing the book Utopia for Realists: How We Can Build the Ideal World (2017) by Rutger Bregman, I felt inspired. He convincingly argued the importance of articulating utopia, of having a clear set of ideals with which to guide our thoughts and actions. This takeaway was enhanced by my recent reading of The 100% Solution: A Plan for Solving Climate Change (2020). In it, Solomon Goldstein-Rose argues that we need to be thinking about the big picture in order to achieve negative emissions by 2050. Otherwise, we will keep chipping away in different directions and never achieve the necessary sweeping changes. The same could be said about the progress of human civilization as a whole.
Bregman holds up the triad of universal basic income, a 15-hour work week, and open borders as a framework for modern utopia. While I agree with Bregman's premise and many of his observations about the world, I feel that there are elements missing from his framework. The following is my attempt to articulate my own framework. Throughout each of the following sections, I encourage you to brainstorm what your utopia would look like.
Pillars of Utopia:
Universal physical and mental health
Environmental sustainability
Economic equality of opportunity
Social harmony
Opportunities for continued progress
Based on what I've learned so far in my life, here are the major elements that I believe this utopia would include, for every human on Earth. Note that when I say "public system" for something, I actually mean a system that is overseen by the government but may have privatized elements to promote innovation and efficiency.
Public sanitation system
Accessible healthy food
Public health system for both prevention and treatment of all kinds of illness
Strict regulations on toxic chemicals in consumer products and the environment
Total electrification of infrastructure
Recycling of all organic and nonorganic materials used
Humane treatment of animals
Wilderness conservation
Progressive taxes on consumption as well as income
Universal basic income
Free public education, including K-12 and community college or vocational-technical certification
Internet access
High-quality public options for child- and elder-care
Streamlined immigration processes across all borders
Fair commerce agreements between different groups / regions (levelled playing fields)
Balance of time spent working and free time
Broad individual freedoms in speech, love, religion, culture, etc.
Strict consequences for injuring or otherwise preventing others from exercising their individual freedoms and civil rights via theft or fraud, violence, or other forms of discrimination
Popular voting (at least, a more representative democracy than the US currently has)
Public funding for science and art
And here are some specific ideas that flesh out the above, which I intend to keep updating as I encounter more good ideas...
Broadly-established proposals:
Provide both in-person and virtual health services
Building more public parks in urban areas
Robust, continuously-updated K-12 curriculum for health education, including mental health
Tax unhealthy foods and drinks
Accessible family planning products and services
Renewable energy generation when possible, supplemented by nuclear energy generation and some biofuels if we need it for some technologies
Extended producer responsibility for consumer goods
Lab-grown meat instead of factory farming
Sustainable soil management practices, specifically for agriculture
Increase taxes on industrial water usage
Employer support of both maternity and paternity leave
Higher taxes on capital gains and estate transfers
School funding not tied to property taxes
Everyone votes on major referendums, and elected officials work on and vote on intermediate legislative steps
Corporate lobbying and/or campaign financing severely curtailed, if allowed at all
Stricter regulations on weapons for civilians
Stronger regulations on use of individuals' data for commercial purposes
Work week shorter than 40 hours
Ability to work virtually some of the time, when virtual work is possible
Investment in K-12 extracurriculars
Strong civil rights protections embedded in institutional policy
Ranked-choice voting (within the popular-vote context)
Stronger United Nations for coordinating the big picture
Additional (less common) proposals which I think would help things run more smoothly:
Mental health checkups like we have physical health checkups
Allow some money spent on physical exercise to be tax exempt
Tax living space above a threshold (e.g. above 500 square feet per person)
Stronger regulations on commercial marketing practices
Government-sponsored retraining in the case of structural unemployment (e.g. when your job gets automated)
Mandatory waiting periods between moving from one country / social system to the next to avoid overwhelming the transitional services, but not having immigration quotas
Parting thoughts
While the specifics of what utopia will look like and how we will get there are unclear, I believe that picking our heads up and articulating what kind of world we want is imperative in fueling and guiding our progress as individuals and as a species.