What Then Must We Do?: Straight Talk about the Next American Revolution

Gar Alperovitz

Chelsea Green Publishing, 2013 - Business & Economics - 205 pages

Never before have so many Americans been more frustrated with our economic system, more fearful that it is failing, or more open to fresh ideas about a new one. The seeds of a new movement demanding change are forming.

But just what is this thing called a new economy, and how might it take shape in America? In What Then Must We Do? Gar Alperovitz speaks directly to the reader about where we find ourselves in history, why the time is right for a new-economy movement to coalesce, what it means to build a new system to replace the crumbling one, and how we might begin. He also suggests what the next system might look like--and where we can see its outlines, like an image slowly emerging in the developing trays of a photographer's darkroom, already taking shape.

He proposes a possible next system that is not corporate capitalism, not state socialism, but something else entirely--and something entirely American.

Alperovitz calls for an evolution, not a revolution, out of the old system and into the new. That new system would democratize the ownership of wealth, strengthen communities in diverse ways, and be governed by policies and institutions sophisticated enough to manage a large-scale, powerful economy.

For the growing group of Americans pacing at the edge of confidence in the old system, or already among its detractors, What Then Must We Do? offers an elegant solution for moving from anger to strategy.

Contents

• How to Detect a System Problem Without Really Trying: 1
• Flies Number Two and Three in the Traditional Theory: 11
• The Fading Power of Traditional Politics: 17
• SySTEMS OLd ANd NEW: 23
• CHECKERBOARd EMERGENT: 49
• Everyday Socialism All the Time AmericanStyle 12 Checkerboard Strategies and Beyond 58: 58
• HOT SPOTS BANKING HEALTH CARE: 73
• Public Enterprise Redux II: 104
• The Emerging Historical Context: 113
• Two Dogs That Are Unlikely to Bark Again: 119
• The Logic of Our Time in History: 130
• The Prehistory of the Next American Revolution: 139
• Afterword: 148
• Acknowledgments: 157
• Index: 197

About the author

Gar Alperovitz, Lionel R. Bauman Professor of Political Economy at the University of Maryland, is cofounder of The Democracy Collaborative. He is a former fellow of the Institute of Politics at Harvard and of King's College at Cambridge University, where he received his PhD in political economy. He has served as a legislative director in the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate, and as a special assistant in the Department of State. Earlier he was president of the Center for Community Economic Development, Codirector of The Cambridge Institute, and president of the Center for the Study of Public Policy. Dr. Alperovitz's numerous articles have appeared in publications ranging from The New York Times and The Washington Post to The Journal of Economic Issues, Foreign Policy, Diplomatic History, and other academic and popular journals. His previous books are America Beyond Capitalism (a new edition of which appeared in 2011), The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb, published in 1995, the 2002 book, Making a Place for Community: Local Democracy in a Global Era (with Thad Williamson and David Imbroscio), and the 2008 book Unjust Deserts (with Lew Daly).

Bibliographic information

• Title: What Then Must We Do?: Straight Talk about the Next American Revolution
• Author: Gar Alperovitz
• Publisher: Chelsea Green Publishing, 2013
• ISBN: 1603585044, 9781603585040
• Length: 205 pages
• Subjects: Business & Economics / Economic Conditions; Business & Economics / Economics / Macroeconomics; Business & Economics / Economics / Theory; Political Science / Political Economy; Political Science / Political Ideologies / Capitalism; Political Science / Political Ideologies / Democracy; Political Science / Public Policy / Economic Policy; Political Science / Public Policy / General