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"Be prepared for a mind-opening experience."
-The Christian Century
"Highly readable; excellent for students. . . . A tonic and eye-opener for anyone who wants a politics that works."
-Jane Mansbridge, Adams Professor, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University
"America Beyond Capitalism comes at a critical time in our history-when we all know our system isn't working but we are not sure what can be done about it. This book takes us outside the confines of orthodox thinking, imagines a new way of living together, and then brings that vision back into reality with a set of eminently practical ideas that promise a truly democratic society."
-Howard Zinn, author of A People's History of the United States
"Succeeds brilliantly in taking the Jeffersonian spirit into the last bastion of privilege in America, offering workable solutions for making the American economy one that is truly of, by, and for the people."
-Jeremy Rifkin, author of The European Dream: How Europe's Vision of the Future Is Quietly Eclipsing the American Dream
"The kind of careful, well-researched, and practical alternative progressives have been seeking. And it's more-visionary, hopeful, even inspirational. I highly recommend it."
-Juliet Schor, author of The Overspent American: Why We Want What We Don't Need
"A compelling and convincing story of the future."
-William Greider, author of The Soul of Capitalism: Opening Paths to a Moral Economy
- Sales Rank: #839716 in Books
- Published on: 2006-04-24
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 8.15" h x 1.00" w x 5.15" l, .85 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 336 pages
From Publishers Weekly
Scheduled for publication on the 75th anniversary of the Black Thursday stock market crash, this closely argued treatise from University of Maryland political economist Alperovitz (The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb) claims we are in the midst of another deep economic, social and political crisis. Capitalism, democracy, equality and liberty have disappeared from the United States, he says. Corporations and rich people control the wealth and government; their power destroys liberty and the entrepreneurial freedom necessary for capitalism. Traditional reforms are inadequate. Progressive taxation and social programs only redistribute income; we need to redistribute wealth. Easier voter registration and campaign finances miss the point; federal power must be reallocated to regional governments and local citizens’ associations whose scale makes participatory democracy possible. We need shorter work weeks, stronger labor unions, worker-owned or directed firms, less debt and more respect for the environment. The first six chapters could have been written in the 1970s. The statistics and quotes are current, but there is no discussion of recent global experience with many of the ideas. The remainder of the book combines these ideas into what the author calls "21st century populism" working toward a "Pluralist Commonwealth." The book’s strength lies in its integration of diverse populist issues into a coherent agenda rooted in deep American values from the Declaration of Independence.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
Alperovitz, an academic and political economist, calls on Democrats to "change the system," believing many Americans are searching for new policies as we face large deficits; unemployment; terrorism; and loss of belief in equality, liberty, and democracy. In his view, our unresponsive government, growing inequality, corruption, sprawl, and rising personal debt are reflections of a creative free market system that is no longer completely free or totally creative. Examining the extraordinary income and wealth controlled by elites and major corporations, he suggests that the future requires the development of a more community-centered, democratic market system. The author offers four fundamental suggestions to address current problems, including developing new institutions that hold wealth on behalf of small and large public groups (community-centered enterprises and worker-owned firms), and a regional rather than continental political system to appropriately represent a rapidly growing American population. His well-framed insight will appeal to a more liberal segment of library patrons during this presidential election year. Mary Whaley
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
From the Inside Flap
We can all imagine a future where there’s more to the American way than our current no-holds-barred capitalism, but will that future ever arrive?
In his new book, Gar Alperovitz, the renowned scholar of politics, economics, and history, predicts that we’ve reached a major turning point in history. America Beyond Capitalism argues that the first decade of the twenty-first century–challenged by growing economic inequality, the devaluing of civil liberties, and a government unresponsive to the people–is already producing conditions that will force the United States to undergo historic changes.
There have been five major political realignments in American history, from before the Progressive Era to beyond the New Deal. All have occurred in the face of the argument that major change was impossible. America Beyond Capitalism shows that increasing numbers of citizens are also quietly beginning to take meaningful local and national action that can ultimately give explosive force to a new approach.
The fall of communism and the painful ramifications of a globalized market free-for-all have left many yearning for a realistic alternative. Alperovitz makes clear that capitalism and socialism are academic ideas that have never existed in their purest forms anywhere. Our nameless current system, which is a haphazard one, mostly controlled by the largest corporations, is not the only one possible.
If we look closely, America Beyond Capitalism suggests, the basic outlines of an achievable and community-sustaining vision are quietly taking shape–a vision that offers far better market-based ways to use our vast wealth to realize equality, democracy, and liberty.
The rapid changes of the early 1960s, a time of explosive ferment and new ideas, seemed to come out of nowhere. So, too, did the modern conservative revolution–which once was seen as a marginal political project. Fundamental change, Alperovitz suggests, is the rule, not the exception, in history, including in our own time, here and now.
Eloquently reasoned, passionately argued, and grounded in a wealth of irrefutable facts and data, America Beyond Capitalism offers anyone who wants to take part in this momentous enterprise a new way to think about–and then get to work to help build–a new future.
Most helpful customer reviews
47 of 49 people found the following review helpful.
Important Book for an Interesting Time
By George Marin
First published prior to the housing collapse, financial crisis, and great recession, this book was originally years ahead of its time. At a time of relative (or perhaps perceived) prosperity, it predicted longer term economic pain and political stagnation (2nd ed.; pp. 6-7); At a time of relative (or perhaps perceived) social tranquility and political lethargy, it anticipated popular upheavals and political realignment (2nd ed.; p. 8 & 236); At a time when inequality was generally ignored or considered an acceptable byproduct of a successful economy, it used the language of 2011's "Occupy Movement" to criticize a system in which "the top 1 percent now garners for itself more income each year than the bottom 100 million Americans combined," (2nd ed; p. 1) and proposed a new model "based on the judgment that greater equality, greater individual economic security, greater amounts of free time, and--upon this basis--the reconstitution of a culture of common responsibility are ultimately required if we are ever to reorient our community and national priorities in general" (2nd ed; p.234); At a time when most were focused solely on political change at the top (replacing President George W. Bush), it explicitly identified as its central argument the belief that the early years of the 21st century would involve a serious debate about systemic questions and that actual events would open the space for a bottom-up movement towards eventual systemic change (2nd ed; p.234); And critically, when such efforts were not seriously considered in mainstream discourse, it identified an expanding set of community wealth building and democratizing initiatives as possible building blocks for the next system (2nd ed; part II).
As we approach 2012, the credibility of the current economic and political system is in tatters. With ever rising inequality, record poverty levels, political gridlock, debt, decaying infrastructure, mass unemployment, and environmental decline, many in the Occupy Movement, the Tea Party, and in between are for the first time considering systemic problems and systemic solutions. In this sense, the re-issue of America Beyond Capitalism is incredibly timely as it presents a rich and detailed analysis of the complex set of challenges facing our country, as well as a vision of, and practical path to achieve, an alternative that is based upon democracy, institutions that build community wealth, decentralization, and liberty. As the author writes in the introduction to the 2nd edition: "We need to know clearly where we are going and where we want to go...America Beyond Capitalism is best thought of as a `tool-box' of practical precedents that can be built upon, along with theoretical work that can perhaps help guide a coherent integration of the parts." (2nd ed; p. xxviii)For everyone considering the future of the current political and economic system and anyone interested in what the next system might or should look like, this "tool-box" belongs on your shelf.
76 of 87 people found the following review helpful.
Amazing! Here is the architecture of "the next system"...
By Irish Rebel
Boy, oh boy, do we need this book? The Left, it seems, has been in headlong retreat - politically, ideologically, and intellectually - for decades now, with the end of the postwar boom, the fall of Communism in the East and the (still unfolding) crisis of Social Democracy in the West, accompanied by a full-blown counterattack by capital. We are all familiar with the results: falling wages, the energy crisis, recession, the collapse of the Bretton Woods system, the "financialization" of capital, the Third World debt crunch, the decline of organized labor, cutbacks in social provision, downsizing and global restructuring, deregulation, privatization, and the sorry tale of a quarter-century's political and ideological swing to the right. What's left of the "official" Left (American liberalism, the rump of the European social democratic movements whose leaderships sold out long ago to become the craven servants of power) is - at best - still splashing away far downstream from where the real action is, seeking a way forward among the muddy puddles of 'tax-and-spend' transfer policies and modest redistribution left behind by the high tide of Keynesianism and the welfare state. The antiglobalization movement may have brought with it some renewed sense of energy and hope that "another world is possible," but often seems to lack any convincing comprehensive vision of what an alternative political-economic system might look like.
Into this valley of ashes steps Gar Alperovitz with a vital new progressive vision and a realistic politics of how to get there. Better known as a historian and author of the definitive book on the decision to use the atomic bomb, Alperovitz is also a distinguished political-economist, and this is obviously where his heart really lies. A veteran of the Civil Rights and Antiwar movements who also spent considerable time in the halls of power on Capitol Hill (nearly averting the Vietnam War single-handedly when he almost succeeded in getting his boss, Senator Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin, to amend the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution!), he was a prime mover in attempts to protect rustbelt communities from the terrible effects of industrial decline through the development of viable economic alternatives. The initial fight for worker-ownership in the Steel industry was lost, but in the process Alperovitz began to ponder the lessons and to develop a more coherent and systematic alternative political-economic model for the long haul.
Alperovitz eschews the all-too-common habit of progressive writers of lapsing into a litany of complaint, though at the same time his unsparing eye ranges over the deteriorating trends with regard to liberty, wealth ownership and equality, social mobility, working time, environmental protection and democratic participation. His accounts of the growing fiscal crisis - with even the most conservative estimates showing a deteriorating fiscal environment in which the projected federal deficit for the coming decade is $5 trillion, or as much as $7.5 trillion if the surplus in the Social Security Trust Fund is set aside - and of the coming crises in retirement and health care and the "squeeze" on the middle class are devastating in their implications, both for traditional progressive strategies of 'tax-and-spend' and for the social health of the nation as a whole. Without another way forward, the U.S. in the coming decades will face a crumbling economic and social infrastructure and an even more starkly polarized society of "haves" and "have-nots," lorded over by a now even more egregious version of the "super-elites" who did so well out of the corporate hogwallow and looting spree of the 1990s.
Against this grim canvas, however, Alperovitz paints the picture of a veritable explosion of institutional innovations at the grass-roots level in which worker-owned firms, community development corporations, land trusts, public pension funds and municipal enterprises are proliferating on the ground, accompanied by an ever-more sophisticated academic literature pointing to the way in which new principles of wealth-ownership can be used to benefit small and large publics over time. The implications of Alperovitz's argument are immense: just as capitalism itself was a sixteenth-century development of institutions that had grown up in the cracks and interstices of the old feudal order, so it is that the economic institutions and arrangements of the next economic system will, in all probability, come from late capitalist innovations.
This book, then, is an absolute gem - laying out, in broad brush-strokes (though supported on every page by a wealth of data and analysis), what might seem ludicrous if it wasn't so well-reasoned and tightly-argued: that we are beginning to approach the point where we will have the institutional and political basis for the transformation of American capitalism into a system truly capable of sustaining liberty, equality, democracy, community and environmental sustainability. Add to this the possibility of a knock-on effect that breaks the "iron triangles" of corporate and elite power behind the recent resurgence of militarism and imperialist adventurism in the United States, and we may just have the recipe for a wholesale rejuvenation and reanimation of the political Left as a force capable of - and with a programmatic agenda for - system-wide political-economic change. Much will depend on the widespread dissemination of the powerful and original ideas at the core of this careful but vastly ambitious book.
As Alperovitz himself acknowledges, his book is intended as the beginning of a serious conversation about long-term change, not the end. Where actual experiments with alternative economic institutions have been attempted on the ground, they have been closely studied and a rich academic and activist literature has built up. This is only a start. We need the equivalent of Che Guevara's "two, three, many Vietnams," a rich proliferation of real-world experiments with new economic models and institutions. We need to reanimate the idea of an alternative political economy for the twenty-first century, based on values of justice, equality, democracy, solidarity and sustainability. The capitalists and their usual pack of running dogs and apologists will no doubt scorn and resist each and every one of our attempts along the way: in return, as Alperovitz shows by the shining example of his deeply moral vision, we need only the simple determination that, whatever else may happen, they shall not impoverish our imaginations too.
31 of 36 people found the following review helpful.
From branddenotes.blogspot.com: America Towards Cooperativism
By J.P. Franks
If I were to propose a way to put the United States, and the rest of the world, on a path towards a sustainable economy and a liveable, humane, and vibrant society, I would begin like this: First, I would nationalize the media, revising the constitution to institute the media as a democratically-controlled, de jure fourth branch of government. I'd then turn to the nationalization of the banks, energy companies, and all other natural monopolies, creating a democratic governing structure for nationalized industries equally responsive to their workers and the public at large. Then I'd cut the military by 80% or so, re-purposing "defense" companies with government contracts to build a sustainable energy infrastructure, and a sustainable agriculture system. Maybe then I'd focus on democratizing university governing structures while increasing funding both to eliminate tuition fees and to equip them to produce far more graduates with advanced degrees to form the core of a massive increase in adult education nation- and worldwide. Oh, and then there's the matter of instituting maximum work weeks and work-sharing requirements, to both increase free time and eliminate unemployment.
Unfortunately, taking a flight of fancy such as this soon puts one in the position of a Wiley E. Coyote, pausing and looking down to realize that he has left the ground beneath him a while ago, and is now hundreds of meters above the floor of a canyon. As one plummets down, reality becomes clear: the next presidential election will be between a Mormon private equity capitalist and a milquetoast reformer with the daring of an ostrich and a big crush on financiers. There. Is. No. Hope.
But then comes a book written by someone with over half a century's worth of experience with social change, to say: "those who say that nothing can be done because reactionaries control everything simply do not recall or do not know how impossible the world felt before the 'unexpected' explosions of the 1960s." Well - that is me. "Those who tell me the opposition to change, now, is so great that nothing can be done would do well to read just a bit about what it was like before the civil rights movement was a movement." Touché! OK, old man - whaddya got?
For one, he's no googly-eyed optimist, ignorant of just how screwed we currently are: "[c]ontributing to both the relative and absolute trends during much of the final quarter of the twentieth century was the fact that hourly wages of the bottom 60 percent did not rise as fast as inflation - with the result that the real income each person earned, hour by hour, was actually lower in 1995 than in 1973. For very large numbers of Americans, the only reason total family income rose - very modestly - was that people worked longer hours and/or spouses (mainly wives) went to work in increasing numbers. ... [M]any would have been better off if the economy had simply stood still at the 1973 level."
Check. But what to do about it?
That's coming. But first, Alperovitz demonstrates that the recognition that our economy is structured in an absolutely insane way is not exclusive to the Left. In fact, some of the most interesting parts of the book lay out the thoughts of older conservative economists and political theorists, which demonstrate that many of the core values of the Left may be shared more broadly than one might think. For instance:
"The 'Chicago school' conservative economist Henry C. Simons analyzed the underlying logic of [concentrated corporate] power and came to the conclusion that 'regulatory strategies' involved the worst of all solutions. Even public ownership was better, he felt - even from the perspective of free-market economic theory. At least it provided for public disclosure of information and open oversight. The state, Simons proposed, 'should face the necessity of actually taking over, owning, and managing directly ... industries in which it is impossible to maintain effectively competitive conditions.' Likely candidates included railroads, 'utilities, oil extraction, life insurance, etc.' For similar reasons Simons suggested that it might make sense for metropolitan governments to 'acquire much or most of the land in their areas.'"
Sure hasn't hurt Singapore.
But this is just one of the interesting asides in the book. The heart of the book is a revealing, surprising, and heartening description of how much progress has already been made, under the radar, in a staggering variety of cooperative, municipal and employee-owned enterprises. To provide just one example:
"In general, ESOPs [employee stock ownership plan-having companies] have been found to be as productive or more productive than comparable non-ESOP firms. Annual sales growth, on average, is also greater in ESOP than in non-ESOP firms. When ESOPs are structured to include greater participation, however, the advantages of worker ownership increase substantially. Studies [...] all confirm that combining worker ownership with employee participation commonly produces greater productivity gains, in some cases over 50 percent."
And this is just one example of hundreds that Alperovitz provides of a country experiencing the development of a substantial cooperative sector within an otherwise dog-eat-dog capitalist economy. As opposed to my flight of revolutionary fancy above, Alperovitz's vision is a piecemeal, ground-up process of continual development and improvement. His idea, it seems, is that the cooperative sector can grow to such an extent that its existence, and viability, will become apparent on a national level. And, when the next economic crash comes (just give the financial sector a little more time), the idea of cooperativism will be prominent enough that it will form the paradigm the federal government will have to turn to in reforming and rebuilding the economy.
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