What Comes Next: Proposals for a Different Society, by Thad Williamson
Preface by Gar Alperovitz
President, National Center for Economic and Security Alternatives

By now it is a commonplace that Americans have lost trust in some of the nation's most important institutions: Public belief in the democratic nature of government --and in the integrity of business leaders, unions, the media, health-care providers, educational leaders, and religious leaders-- has declined dramatically since the early 1960s. Observers on both left and right have suggested that below the apparent media calm a subterranean "crisis of confidence" is underway --or even, plausibly, the beginnings of a "delegitimation crisis." At the same time, economic growth, although positive as of this writing, has been slower in the past quarter century than in the postwar era --and sharply increased income inequality has accompanied slower growth. With certain exceptions, ecological problems have also generally worsened in the past quarter century.

In the early years of the postwar era an outside observer might have expected that this confluence of problems and political disillusionment would fuel a significant politics of reform and of renewed social movements. Instead, social movements remain generally weak and national politics remains substantially stalemated, impervious and often hostile to new ideas for reform --especially ideas for progressive reform.

Plentiful (if low paying and insecure) jobs may be the explanation -- at least for the time being. However, standing back from the current "moment" of politics to reflect upon other historical eras characterized by stalemate and loss of belief, one might also expect the emerging context to begin to generate a deeper "rethinking" of long term vision and strategy: With traditional pathways blocked, the alternative is a continuation of current failing strategies and the abandonment of traditional progressive values.

It is not often realized that such a rethinking effort is not only underway, but that there has been a massive outpouring of new ideas, new visions, new conceptions of long-term political-economic goals, and in general the emergence of a rich and diverse literature which is laying intellectual groundwork for what might plausibly one day give rise to a renewal of positive strategic development. Just below the surface of media attention one finds responses to the main features of the new era we have entered: The decay of the welfare state, the collapse of Soviet-style socialism, the accelerating process of economic globalization, a diminution of effective nation-state sovereignty, growing ecological crises around the world, increasing inequality both within and between nations, racial, gender and ethnic conflicts. Progressive political-economic and ecological writers have been stimulated (indeed, forced!) to begin to articulate an alternative vision of politics, economics, and community life for the new century. There is also a broader academic literature, and a sophisticated dialogue which transcends traditional political positions among some of the nation's leading political theorists, economists, and sociologists. (See, for instance, The Good Society, the journal of the Committee on the Political Economy of the Good Society, University of Maryland at College Park. ) The trajectory of current institutional difficulties has also engendered new debate amongst thoughtful conservative intellectuals. Inevitably, some visions are partial; others attempt to be comprehensive; some are aimed at producing immediate political results; others look to long-term prospects.

Thad Williamson's bibliography is an attempt to capture, contextualize, and bring into dialogue a careful selection from several diverse strands of progressive thought. The central question posed in this literature concerns the nature of a coherent alternative to the dominant political and economic systems of the twentieth century: corporate capitalism and state socialism. And, too, how (or if) it might be possible to make meaningful progress towards realizing such a vision. It should be obvious that the writers here assembled do not agree that "history is over"--that traditional capitalism has triumphed, that it is the be-all and end-all of all history. At one level, the writers implicitly ask of those who think the current moment of history represents all that there will ever be: Do you truly believe that the systems which happen to exist just now will last forever? At another level, they stand in the tradition of those who throughout history have "made history"--i.e., the people like, say, the early American revolutionaries, who at the outset seemed to be without significant support but who somehow represented something new, something powerful. In recent years societies from the former Soviet Union to South Africa have learned that the apparent stability of existing institutional patterns is rarely the end of history --and nations as different as France, India, China, Mexico, and many many others know this from their own developmental history.

This is not to say that the various forms of capitalism which currently dominate national development will inevitably be replaced by some future alternative system. It is simply to suggest extreme caution --and the danger of mistaking the seeming solidity of current power for (often implicit) theories of historical inevitability which subtly transform what is into what always must be: What the future may hold, quite simply, is unknown.

If there is ever to be serious movement in the direction of more equitable, democratic and ecologically sustainable political-economic systems, there will clearly also have to be: a sense of shared values upon which to base future social and institutional life; a proximate, defensible, and coherent, even if necessarily incomplete, vision of how a system of political, economic, and social institutions designed to support such values might function in the real world; a sense of immediate strategies and policy steps which might plausibly move over time in the appropriate direction; and, finally, communities of people joined together to make things happen. Williamson's main goal in the following pages is not to summarize the full range of thought on all these issues; rather it is to highlight and evaluate key presentations which contribute to the discussion of the structure of a long term alternative. The summaries, accordingly, mainly focus on ideas pertaining to the second and third of the above requirements --i.e., the nature of new institutions which might ultimately fulfill such values as liberty, equality, democracy, community, and ecological rationality; and proximate steps which might be taken to build institutions which can nurture such values.

This bibliography represents one of a series of practical and theoretical undertakings at the National Center for Economic and Security Alternatives. The perspective and analytical stance are informed by ideas which have been developed over the last ten years in seminars and research efforts--and by surveys of "on-the-ground" institutional development. The bibliography is intended to serve as an introductory guide to the emerging literature and also as a discussion and evaluation of the particular strengths, weaknesses, and overall contributions of each writer from the perspective of this overall effort.

A central assumption in what follows is that a democratic alternative for the new century must emerge from a democratic process: no one thinker or group can possibly have "all the answers." Our hope is that this attempt to begin to catalogue and evaluate the growing number of serious alternative proposals will contribute to a further democratization of intellectual and political work--and to a far-ranging and ever deepening dialogue about what the future might become: We desperately need our own modern form of Federalist debate about the constitution of society in the new century. Finally, and above all, we hope this bibliography will help readers develop their personal understanding--and, too, their own visions, theories and practical strategies for positive long-term change.