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mattycakesbooks's review against another edition
5.0
A pretty perfect book for the despair of the Trump era -- Alperovitz offers some reason for hope when it comes to future change, and also offers a few things that we progressives can begin to participate in and strengthen that are more or less under the broader political radar. Read if, especially if you're feeling really down about the state of the capitalist world.
eitaneverett's review against another edition
4.0
More of a three and a half rather than a four- interesting ideas and well worth reading, but the case for why we would want some of the alternative structures postured was not delved into as much as would have been helpful. If you agree with some of the basic goals then this is a really good examination of practical methods of trying to get there, but it is not meant to persuade anyone of those basic goals.
lizmart88's review against another edition
2.0
Made it about 75% through before I had to take it back to the library.
While I enjoyed some aspects of this book, I found it far too one sided for my taste. He presents facts, and everything is true in the strictest sense, but it seemed to me to be mostly presented out of context, with just enough detail to support his conclusions. Overall, it felt more like leftist propaganda than a true recipe for what to do.
With that said, I did appreciate some of the ideas and suggestions about how to change the world, especially given our current presidential administration. His call for movement building was spot on, and many other prescriptions for change.
While I enjoyed some aspects of this book, I found it far too one sided for my taste. He presents facts, and everything is true in the strictest sense, but it seemed to me to be mostly presented out of context, with just enough detail to support his conclusions. Overall, it felt more like leftist propaganda than a true recipe for what to do.
With that said, I did appreciate some of the ideas and suggestions about how to change the world, especially given our current presidential administration. His call for movement building was spot on, and many other prescriptions for change.
stevereally's review against another edition
2.0
Some worthwhile ideas and facts obscured by a highly ineffective writing style. This was a careless purchase, and I regret it.
kkstauffers's review against another edition
3.0
If you took out all of the parts where he says "we'll get to that later" or "we will come back to that" this book would be 30% shorter. He beats around the bush so much that when he is presenting his genuinely interesting content, it's almost hard to concentrate. That said, the research he presents is very compelling.
Some notable quotes:
"The most recent estimate is that a mere 400 individuals in the United States now own more wealth than the bottom 180 million Americans taken together--a degree of wealth concentration that is accurately, not rhetorically, properly designated medieval" (27).
"In a very profound sense, the struggle is also about changing the dominant ideological patterns--about cracking through the dominant cultural and ideological hegemony" (47).
"Once we recognize that government is now inevitably involved in many, many economic development issues, a very different question becomes obvious: Couldn't such involvement help support the developing movement toward democratized businesses as well?" (54).
At the end of the day, I loved the call of action. We are all the Founding Fathers and we can do so much better than they did in the 1700s.
Some notable quotes:
"The most recent estimate is that a mere 400 individuals in the United States now own more wealth than the bottom 180 million Americans taken together--a degree of wealth concentration that is accurately, not rhetorically, properly designated medieval" (27).
"In a very profound sense, the struggle is also about changing the dominant ideological patterns--about cracking through the dominant cultural and ideological hegemony" (47).
"Once we recognize that government is now inevitably involved in many, many economic development issues, a very different question becomes obvious: Couldn't such involvement help support the developing movement toward democratized businesses as well?" (54).
At the end of the day, I loved the call of action. We are all the Founding Fathers and we can do so much better than they did in the 1700s.
bil's review
2.0
There were a lot of good seeds of ideas in here that I'm sure will root in my brain, but I found the style this was written in to be extremely distracting.
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