America Beyond Capitalism

Reclaiming our Wealth, Our Liberty, and Our Democracy

By Gar Alperovitz

America Beyond Capitalism cover
Publisher:
The Democracy Collaborative Press and Dollars & Sense
Date of publication:
November 2011—NOW AVAILABLE!
Pages:
370
ISBN:
978-0-9847857-0-4
Price:
$16.95

With a new introduction by the author and a new foreword by James Gustave Speth. As discontent with the economic and political status quo mounts in the wake of the “Great Recession”, America Beyond Capitalism is a book whose time has come. Alperovitz marshals years of research into emerging “new economy” strategies to present a comprehensive picture of practical bottom-up efforts currently underway in thousands of communities across the United States. America Beyond Capitalism is a call to arms, an eminently practical roadmap for laying foundations to change a faltering system that increasingly fails to sustain the great American values of equality, liberty, and meaningful democracy.

Gar Alperovitz is the Lionel R. Bauman Professor of Political Economy at the University of Maryland and co-founder of the Democracy Collaborative. He is the author of numerous books, including Unjust Deserts (with Lew Daly) and Making a Place For Community (with Thad Williamson and David Imbroscio).



  • Foreword to the Second Edition v
  • Introduction to the Second Edition ix
  • Preface to the First Edition xxxix
  • Acknowledgements xlvii
  • Introduction to the First Edition 1
  • Part I: The Pluralist Commonwealth: Equality, Liberty, Democracy 9
    • 1. Equality: Beyond Tax-and-Spend 14
    • 2. Liberty: Money, Time, and Real Freedom of Choice 28
    • 3. Democracy: From the Ground Up 42
    • 4. Democracy: Inequality and Giant Corporations 50
    • 5. Democracy: Is a Continent Too Large? 63
    • 6. The Pluralist Commonwealth 70
  • Part II: The Democratization of Wealth 79
    • 7. A Direct Stake In Economic Life: Worker-Owned Firms 81
    • 8. Enterprising Cities: Right, Left, and Center 90
    • 9. Building Community: Neighborhoods and Nonprofits with a Mission 99
    • 10. State and National Innovators 110
    • 11. Coda: The Democratization of Wealth and the Era of Deepening Fiscal Crisis 119
  • Part III: Local Democracy and Regional Decentralization 123
    • 12. Is Local Democracy Possible in the Global Era? 125
    • 13. Community, the Environment, and the “Nonsexist City” 137
    • 14. The Regional Restructuring of the American Continent 152
  • Part IV: Twenty-First-Century Populism 167
    • 15. The Logic of Long-Term Political Refocusing 169
    • 16. Social Security, Retirement, and Health Care 182
    • 17. A Twenty-Five-Hour Week? 197
    • 18. Beyond Super-Elites and Conspicuous Consumption: Real Ecological Sustainability in the Twenty-First Century 214
    • 19. Coda: Twenty-First-Century Populism 226
  • Part V: Toward a Morally Coherent Politics 229
  • Conclusion: The Challenge of the Era of Technological Abundance 232
  • Notes 241
  • Index 317