Political Action SP11
Summary of Authors' Essential Points
Alperovitz
Wealth: Alperovitz refers to Kevin Phillips who establishes that wealth “’…reaches beyond its own realm’ to control political power and government at all levels”. <ref> Alperovitz, Gar. America Beyond Capitalism: Reclaiming Our Wealth Our Liberty, and Our Democracy. John Wiley & Sons, Inc:New Jersey, 2005 (2)</ref> In the United States wealth is concentrated in the upper class allowing the top 10% of the population to control and manage 80% of the country’s wealth. Wealth comes in many forms, of either money or property and how this is owned and controlled is the real center of power in our political economy.<ref> Alperovitz, Gar. America Beyond Capitalism: Reclaiming Our Wealth Our Liberty, and Our Democracy. John Wiley & Sons, Inc:New Jersey, 2005 (5)</ref> Current trends demonstrate “…that the ownership of wealth must benefit the vast majority directly”. <ref> Alperovitz, Gar. America Beyond Capitalism: Reclaiming Our Wealth Our Liberty, and Our Democracy. John Wiley & Sons, Inc:New Jersey, 2005 (5)</ref>
Liberty: Liberty in itself is not what is needed in this day and age but “equal liberty”. ‘Equal liberty’ is “…and idea that also reaches beyond legal and constitutional protections to consider the capacities and real-world conditions of the vast majority”.<ref> Alperovitz, Gar. America Beyond Capitalism: Reclaiming Our Wealth Our Liberty, and Our Democracy. John Wiley & Sons, Inc:New Jersey, 2005 (39)</ref> In order for such liberties to function, they require 3 inputs from society:
1) “First, liberty requires institutional and structural support for individual economic security to replace that which at least in theory was once provided by entrepreneurial property.
2) Second, it requires support for the community-wide conditions needed to nurture the intermediate associations and civil society organizations that are essential to sustaining a culture supportive of liberty.
3) Third, it requires greater amounts of equitably distributed free time (without which little real freedom of choice is possible) and support for individual development (without which the capacities needed to exercise real freedom must inevitably be limited).”<ref> Alperovitz, Gar. America Beyond Capitalism: Reclaiming Our Wealth Our Liberty, and Our Democracy. John Wiley & Sons, Inc:New Jersey, 2005 (40-41)</ref>
Democracy: Alperovitz raises the idea of democracy, by examining it on a small scale and a large scale. He begs the question: “It is possible to have Democracy with a Big D in the system as a whole of you do not have real democracy with a small d at the level where people live, work, and raise families in their local communities”. <ref> Alperovitz, Gar. America Beyond Capitalism: Reclaiming Our Wealth Our Liberty, and Our Democracy. John Wiley & Sons, Inc:New Jersey, 2005 (43)</ref> Without local level democracy, society wide democracy cannot function effectively. He also stipulates that for meaningful democracy to exist, it requires a level of greater equality amongst the citizens. Currently our economic system arranges society in an intentionally unequal stratification. <ref> Alperovitz, Gar. America Beyond Capitalism: Reclaiming Our Wealth Our Liberty, and Our Democracy. John Wiley & Sons, Inc:New Jersey, 2005 (51)</ref>
Alperovitz's Ideals
Alperovitz discusses several suggestions to evolve the system’s current political-economic developments: “First, that there is now way to achieve movement toward greater equality without developing new institutions that hold wealth on behalf of small and large publics. Second, that there is no way to rebuild Democracy with a big D in the system as a whole without nurturing the conditions of democracy with a small d in everyday life—including the economic institutions that allow and sustain greater stability of local community life…[Also] that there is no way to achieve a meaningful individual liberty in the modern era without individual economic security and greater amounts of free time—and that neither of these, in turn, is possible without a change in the ownership of wealth and the income flows it permits”. <ref> Alperovitz, Gar. America Beyond Capitalism: Reclaiming Our Wealth Our Liberty, and Our Democracy. John Wiley & Sons, Inc:New Jersey, 2005 (233-234)</ref>
Reforms
In his concluding remarks Alperovitz leans towards Pluralist Commonwealth Models by stating that: “The Pluralist Commonwealth model holds, beyond this, the democratic control of large economic enterprise—a central problem confronting all political-economic systems—can never be achieved without transforming and making public the ownership of large-scale wealth and without developing a new culture—and further, that this can only be done by building on the four key elements. Without local democracy; there can be no culture of democratic practice; without security and time, there can be only a weak citizenry; without decentralization, it is difficult to mobilize democratic practice and accountability; and without major and far-reaching new forms of wealth holding, there can never be adequate support for the conditions and policies needed to build a more egalitarian and free democratic culture. Finally the model is based on the judgment that greater equality, greater individual economic security, greater amounts of free time, and –upon this basis—the reconstitution of a culture of common responsibility are ultimately required if we are ever to reorient our community and national priorities in general”. <ref> Alperovitz, Gar. America Beyond Capitalism: Reclaiming Our Wealth Our Liberty, and Our Democracy. John Wiley & Sons, Inc:New Jersey, 2005 (234)</ref>
Alperovitz also discusses that reform needs to happen in a “step-by-step nonviolent change” and like revolution the process will reorient the development of different institutional structures to replace traditional corporate formations over time. <ref> Alperovitz, Gar. America Beyond Capitalism: Reclaiming Our Wealth Our Liberty, and Our Democracy. John Wiley & Sons, Inc:New Jersey, 2005 (235)</ref> Alperovitz calls this conjunktur, which “designates a coming together at one movement in time of diverse trends to create new, unforeseen, and often dramatic opportunities for change”. <ref> Alperovitz, Gar. America Beyond Capitalism: Reclaiming Our Wealth Our Liberty, and Our Democracy. John Wiley & Sons, Inc:New Jersey, 2005 (237)</ref>
Domhoff
Yates
Bowles, Edwards & Roosevelt
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References
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