A perfect world seems impossible but a provocative new book says it is within our grasp. Its author tells Bryan Appleyard giving everyone a fixed sum can end poverty, cut crime and make healthcare cheaper

Rutger Bregman, a historian, is young and Dutch. These things matter. Opinions and ideas change quite quickly, he says, and Im 28, I have all the time in the world.

And being Dutch? The funny thing is that 15 to 20 years ago in the Netherlands there was this ideology that we were a guide country, a country that should guide other countries give most to development aid and these other things. Now we dont believe that any more.

Being young he can think big thoughts and reasonably expect to see them change the world. Being Dutch he has experienced the most startling case of collapsing postwar liberalism and rising illiberalism in the form of Geert Wilderss far-right Party for Freedom.

That collapse along

Read the original here:

Utopia is coming, with a basic income for all - The Times (subscription)