"Democratizing wealth and building a community-sustaining economy from the ground up"--Jacket

Part 1: The system problem. How to detect a system problem without really trying ; But hasn't what we normally call politics done what needs to be done in the past? ; Flies number two and three in the traditional theory of politics ; The fading power of traditional politics. -- Part 2: Systems old and new: evolutionary reconstruction. A note about systems and history and prehistory and also about just plain useful change ; An initial way to think about system change ; Quiet democratization everywhere ; Worker ownership redux ; Cultural and ideological hegemony, Utopia--and us. -- Part 3: "Checkerboard": Emergent municipal and state possibilities. How the conservatives buried Adam Smith and what it might mean for us ; Everyday socialism, all the time, American-style ; Checkerboard strategies, and beyond. -- Part 4: How spots: Banking, health care, and crisis transformations. Banking ; Health care ; Beyond countervailing power ; Bigger possibilities and precedents for something, one day, possibly even more interesting. -- Part 5: Narrow-minded efficiency, public enterprise, and all that. Public enterprise Redux I And just a bit more on the use and misuse of "efficiency talk" ; Public enterprise Redux II Airline foolishness and endless growth. -- Part 6: The emerging historical era. The emerging historical context And why it's critical to your theory of change and your strategy ; Two dogs that are unlikely to bark again ; Stagnation and punctuated stagnation ; The logic of our time in history And what that means for the next American system. -- Part 7: Conclusion. The prehistory of the next American revolution Toward a community-sustaining system

"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 economy--and, if we act upon it, a new system--are forming. What is that next system? It's not corporate capitalism, not state socialism, but something else--something entirely American. In What Then Must We Do?, Gar Alperovitz speaks directly to the reader about why the time is right for a revolutionary new economy movement, what it means to democratize the ownership of wealth, what it will take to build a new system to replace the decaying one--and how to strengthen our communities through cooperatives, worker-owned companies, neighborhood corporations, small and medium-size independent businesses, and publicly owned enterprises. 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 evolutionary, common-sense solution for moving from despair and anger to strategy and action."--Publisher's website