Utopias are a breeding ground for discord, violence, even genocide. P14<\/p>\n
If you\u2019re not following the blueprint of a docile, content citizen, the powers that be are happy to whip you into shape. Their tools of choice? Control, surveillance, and repression. P16<\/p>\n
I\u2019m heartened by our dissatisfaction, because dissatisfaction is a world away from indifference. The widespread nostalgia, the yearning for a past that never really was, suggests that we still have ideals, even if we have buried them alive. P19<\/p>\n
According to the renowned economist Albert Hirschman, utopias are initially attacked on three grounds: futility (it\u2019s not possible), danger (the risks are too great), and perversity (it will degenerate into dystopia). P42<\/p>\n
In the end, only a fraction of our prosperity is due to our own exertions. We, the inhabitants of the Land of Plenty, are rich thanks to the institutions, the knowledge, and the social capital amassed for us by our forebears. This wealth belongs to us all. P46<\/p>\n
That a president as recent and as conservative as Richard Nixon once sought to implement a basic income seems to have evaporated from the collective memory. P94<\/p>\n
If you were the GDP , your ideal citizen would be a compulsive gambler with cancer who\u2019s going through a drawn-out divorce that he copes with by popping fistfuls of Prozac and going berserk on Black Friday. P106<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Utopias are a breeding ground for discord, violence, even genocide. P14 If you\u2019re not following the blueprint of a docile, content citizen, the powers that be are happy to whip<\/p>\n