There is evidence that we are in the midst of a systemic crisis, not simply an economic and political crisis. The current system is characterized by stagnant wages, endemic poverty, looming ecological crises, and growing inequality.
How can these outcomes be changed, starting in our own communities?
Ultimately the question is how to develop a “next systemâ€â€”beyond traditional corporate capitalism and state socialism—and how to develop practical and meaningful stages of development that lay groundwork for a longer term historic transformation. They are questions both of theory and of immediate practice—e.g. politics, institution-building, strategy at all levels from neighborhood and community to state, region and nation.
Political economist and historian Gar Alperovitz will explore these questions, sketching outlines of a system that builds on promising experiments in cooperative, community, and larger forms of democratic ownership.
