A review of Mike Beggs, Ben Burgis, and Bhaskar Sunkara, The Blueprint: How Socialism Can Work in the Real World (London/New York: Verso, 2026).
Intro
The Blueprint: How Socialism Can Work in the Real World is a new Verso book from the Jacobin orbit. Apart from Jacobin founder Bhaskar Sunkara himself, it has been authored by Jacobin contributors Mike Beggs, a political economist from Australia, and Ben Burgis, philosopher and podcaster (Give Them an Argument).
In the autonomist and anarchist circles I mainly move in, Jacobin isn’t held in very high regard. Admittedly, the “reformism” critique is a little knee-jerk, and I’m not among those leading the pack. I’d like to think that I’ve never been a sectarian leftist both due to biographical reasons (I grew up in a highly conservative area where splitting a high-school left consisting of four people didn’t make much sense) and ideological ones (the German autonomist movement of the 1980s, which I politically came of age in, made no clear distinction between anarchists and Marxists). I am also happy about left-wing parties enjoying electoral success and have favorably reported about the resurgence of the Communist Party in my home country Austria (both before and after Elke Kahr was elected mayor in Graz, the country’s second-biggest city). I even helped campaign for longtime comrades in Innsbruck who brought the party from zero into the city council and whose efforts I greatly admire.
With all that said, I am no Jacobin apologist either, and reviewing The Blueprint ought to serve as a challenge to present non-knee-jerk reasons.
Efficient Socialism
The general line of argument that The Blueprint follows is about thus: Capitalism is not the end of history, there is something better, namely socialism; socialist models so far haven’t worked very well, so we will outline a better model; if that model is not socialist enough for you, tough luck, because the world is not going to get more socialist than this.
The model the authors propose is summarized as follows:
“Our model seeks to combine individual choice with collective democratic decision-making at multiple levels while recognizing the difficulties of coordinating a complex division of labor to meet everyone’s needs and wants. For us, efficiency is a socialist virtue alongside equality, security, and freedom, because it is the key to liberating the most important resource of all: our time.”
Let’s not dwell on efficiency as a socialist virtue, even if there’s probably a discussion to be had. It’s easy to appreciate free time and, on a purely everyday level, I’m notorious for advocating efficiency, so any critique from my side would be rather hypocritical.
So, let’s return to the book instead, which is divided into eleven chapters ranging from “The Return of Politics” to “Civilizational Progress”. The order is in tune with the general argument: We learn about socialist failures, get to read proposals for a better socialist future, and are eventually treated to a preemptive defense against possible critiques stretching over two chapters, one dedicated to critiques from the right, one to critiques from the left. The authors formulate eighteen possible objections before replying to them. While they probably deserve credit for taking counterarguments seriously and engaging with critics in a civil manner, this rhetorical move is also a little cheeky since it allows you to frame the critical questions in the exact way you’d like to answer them and leave out those you don’t want to answer at all. But, hey, it’s their book and hence their choice of rhetorical devices.
Reformist Socialism
A few words on the Jacobin critique I’m most familiar with, namely, that this is a “reformist” project.
Perhaps the most confusing part about this critique is that it suggests that the reformist agenda wasn’t obvious. But it is very obvious, not least in The Blueprint. The authors’ socialist model revolves around concepts such as an “expansive welfare state”, “democratic firms”, and, indeed, a “market socialist system”. Consider the following passage:
“If we are serious about transcending capitalism, we have no choice but to wrestle with how to reconcile democratic control and social ownership with the logic of market coordination. This is how we ensure that socialism offers not only shoes for all but shoes that fit.”
No fitting shoes without market coordination. A lesson to be learned. About the reformism in more general strides:
“The three authors of this book have spent much of their lives advocating for reforms that benefit working people in the here and now. We understand that while history sometimes takes giant strides forward, social progress more often involves daily push-and-pull struggles for short-term gains.”
Now, arguably there is a difference between “social progress” and “giant strides forward”, and I have a soft spot for those who think nothing less than the latter will do. With that said, I grant the authors of The Blueprint that they don’t consider critiques of the state worth their time. Again, it’s their book, and putting this critique down in one sentence probably seemed highly efficient to them:
“The question is not whether we use the state under socialism, but what kind of state we create: who controls it, what it is asked to do, and whose interests it is structurally organized to serve.”
The only context in which the reformism critique of Jacobin makes sense is when you compare the content to the packaging. In other words, you are asking for the critique if you choose “The Case for Radical Politics” as a subtitle, as Bhaskar Sunkara did for his 2019 Socialist Manifesto. In The Blueprint, there are few such claims, even if the call for a “radically more democratic and egalitarian future” pops up. Clearly, there is little radical potential in reformism. Like, if we are stuck in market realism what can be uprooted? You can’t have your cake and eat it, too.
The above also explains my reaction to the first time I saw Bhaskar Sunkara speak. It was in 2019, with Jacobin being touted in Europe as a new hot thing from the US, “socialism for millennials” and the like. But when Sunkara appeared at the Socialist Forum in Stockholm in order to praise the Swedish welfare state of the 1970s, I couldn’t help but wonder why some fellow from across the pond had to be flown in to tell the audience what any social-democratic think tank in the country was happy to tell them anyway. Then again, I guess everyone likes a stamp of foreign approval.
Interestingly (characteristically?) enough, the distinction between social democracy and socialism remains very vague in The Blueprint, even when the authors answer their own rhetorical “Why not stop at social democracy?” question. They seem to believe that the following applies to “a fully socialist economy”: “Instead of being owned by a class of capitalists separate from the class of workers, the means of production have been socialized.” It’s a very economist distinction but, okay, maybe it works within the market socialist framework.
Gutsy Socialism
What I don’t mind is the authors calling their model a “blueprint”, even though blueprints are pretty much no-go in my circles, as no one is supposed to prescribe another one’s future. Fair enough, but we shouldn’t get caught up in terminological quibbles. It’s easy to agree with the authors’ opening remarks:
“Those of us who call ourselves socialists must be able to offer not only a thoroughgoing critique of capitalism – one rooted in the lives and struggles of ordinary people – but also a vision of what should replace it. … Without that, opposition to capitalism risks amounting to little more than an abstract moral protest.“
Presenting your ideas with conviction is a good starting point. But enough of the smearing honey around their mouths, as we German-speakers say. Criticism is more entertaining.
Critical Socialism
There is no point in arguing with the authors that “something better is possible”. The problem, of course, is that neoliberal capitalism doesn’t set a very high standard. What would we think of humankind if we insisted that nothing better was possible? Here are four points to illustrate why I believe the “better” in The Blueprint isn’t necessarily good enough.
Internationalism
The, in my opinion, single biggest analytical flaw in The Blueprint is brushing over the realities of global capitalism. On over 400 pages of modeling the socialist society of the future, there is hardly anything on imperialism and unequal exchange, and absolutely nothing on world-systems theory and value transfer. Instead, under another rhetorical question that asks whether “inequality at the international level” could remain after the “triumph of socialism”, we are treated to the following metaphor:
“We should … resist a fatalistic picture of development as a dinner party with a fixed number of seats at the table, which are occupied in perpetuity by the first arrivals. In the postwar period, late industrializers such as South Korea and Taiwan, and more recently Communist Party-led China and Vietnam, transformed themselves from poor societies into industrial powers. … The banquet table can be expanded and rearranged.”
Rearranged? Sure. Expanded? Questionable. In global capitalism, the development of the core has always been dependent on the periphery. That’s the whole fucking point. This is the context in which the Nordic welfare states were created, which the Blueprint authors deem “the most just and livable societies humans have so far built”. Even if that was true (I don’t know), the notion that this model can be expanded globally is false. In fact, the Nordic welfare states have largely been dismantled since the 1990s because the geopolitical framework that made them possible has changed.
Today, there are serious competitors to European dominance and wealth, and inter-imperialist rivalry is a key feature of our times. Under such circumstances, any socialism in the core countries will remain depended on poverty in the countries of the periphery. For socialism to expand globally, we need fundamental shifts in the global political order.
“Socialism in one country” was a disastrous Stalinist doctrine, and it won’t fare much better in democratic colors. The following conclusion is simply naive:
“By helping accelerate development elsewhere, a socialist society would be building not only fairer terms of exchange but also the social stability and prosperity that make international cooperation possible. Higher wages and rising standards of living abroad also mean larger markets for socialist industry, more secure supply chains, and more opportunities to share in technological advances.”
Any materialist analysis will tell you that if this was true, we would have long reached global socialism by now.
It might be odd for an anarchist sympathizer to say, but a little more Marx wouldn’t have hurt The Blueprint, as the authors also reveal an odd moralistic stance. With regard to the quote above, they add: “And even beyond these pragmatic points, we certainly think a socialist polity would have a moral duty to help export its egalitarian gains abroad.” How well have moral duties served us? “First comes food, then morality.” (It sounds better in German, but Bertolt Brecht’s point remains valid nonetheless.)
Institutionalization
I believe that the Blueprint authors also underestimate the detrimental effects of bureaucratic institutions. They shall be forgiven for their romantic notions of the Nordic welfare states (I addressed this tendency among US socialists in a 2017 Truthout interview), but let’s look, for example, at the “powerful unions” of the Nordic countries that the authors identify as a cornerstone of “the most just and livable societies humans have so far built”. Now, it might not come as a surprise that, as a former general secretary of the syndicalist SAC, the radical counterpart to Sweden’s social-democratic Trade Union Confederation LO, I am inclined to question this, but few honest observers would disagree with the assessment that the power of the Swedish unions is reliant on their full integration into the political and economic status quo. Do they contribute in any way to the advance of socialism? No, quite the opposite. They comply with the propertied class, they sanction legal restrictions on industrial action, they promote political careerism, and they are active opponents of workers’ power. Similar tendencies can be seen all across the co-opted institutions – tenants’ associations, popular education facilities, consumer societies – of what once was a powerful workers’ movement indeed. All of this might still look good on paper, but the reality is very different.
Technocracy
Granted, the socialist/social-democratic society lined out in The Blueprint promises a better life than the one offered by neoliberalism. However, it also strikes me as rather technocratic and dull. The authors seem to believe they have realism on their side, and perhaps they are right. Some kind of market socialism seems doable, roller coaster rides to a money-free people’s mall, genderqueer-themed subway cars, and free-for-all vegan ice cream parlors do not. But perhaps this is where a cultural divide comes into play, both intellectually and socially.
With no intention to instigate a culture war, the authors appear comfortable in the Anglo-analytical tradition, citing thinkers from John Locke to John Rawls to Ben Burgis’s special buddy Christopher Hitchens. Now, even if I have not read any Friedrich Nietzsche, Paul Feyerabend, or Gilles Deleuze in thirty years (philosophy as a pastime is long gone), I would still chose them over the above lot any day of the week.
On a social level, I do prefer things a little more edgy: pirate utopias, spiritual communes, ecosocialist hideouts, maroon villages, and, of course, the cream-of-the-crop showcase of alternative living, that is, the straight-edge squat.
Okay, I was getting a little facetious here, and the objections to the above are obvious: While the listed experiments might be neat, none of them can provide a viable model for mass societies. That is, without doubt, correct. Still, I trust that people get my point about the kind of societies we want to live in. And without being facetious at all: The problem with any technocratic model is that it’s not very lenient toward dissidents. What will become of the outcasts, freethinkers, and unperturbed rebels in the socialist society proposed by the Blueprint authors? I am sure that the authors themselves would welcome them as important critical elements of any society, but will the bureaucrats who will, inevitably, administer their model think the same? I am not sure, and it’s concerning.
Realism
This is more of a technical point (no pun intended), but even if we agree with the premise of The Blueprint, think the model is top-notch, and go support socialist party candidates, we must not dispose of radical visionaries, that is, people who talk about the abolition of nation-states, borders, money, and the police force, about complete disarmament, total liberation, and, yes, the bloody revolution. Fixing pot holes and providing affordable housing is fantastic, but can our ambitions be a little higher than that, please? Even if you only see it as a moral compass, a critical measure stock, or a challenge to technocracy, a little utopia won’t hurt. Most times, you need to think big even to achieve little. And if you don’t, big will never come.
If you like happy endings, a compromise might be possible: In the best of all worlds, the Blueprint model and lifelong renegades will complement each other to create a world that is both just and exciting. Win-win.
The End
The Blueprint is by no means a bad book. It makes very concrete suggestions for a sensible future, it is well-written, and it certainly qualifies as “relevant”. Hell, perhaps my unwillingness to subscribe to it fully can be put down to stubbornness or dogma – you know, some folks miss the expiration date and hold on to their anarchist teenage self even in their 50ies. Then again, maybe these folks aren’t stubborn but principled? I suppose it’s all a matter of perspective. No one should take themselves too seriously.
Gabriel Kuhn
(October 30, 2026)