Beyond Capitalism: Building Democratic Alternatives for Today and the Future

Capitalism as a global system barely allows the needs of the majority of the world's population to be met. Whether from an industrialized country such as the US or from South Africa, the need for an alternative can be felt all over the world. It is clear nowadays that, due to the non-democratic nature and inadequacies of capitalism, another system must take its place. Such a process has already begun through the cooperative movement, which this book examines along with other initiatives. Featuring essays by international scholars and activists from various spheres of the anti-capitalist left, the work features many examples from the north and the south, to cover both the historically-advanced and late capitalist economies. It discusses such initiatives as participatory economics, the Mondragon experience, worker cooperatives in Europe and Latin America, solidarity economy in South Africa, and more. Written in an accessible manner, Beyond Capitalism will be an invaluable resource for any student of social movements and political thought and for anyone looking for alternative to today's ongoing systemic crises.

Table of Contents:
Introduction Part I - Some Prospects for a Democratic Economy 1 - The Challenge of a Democratic Economy (José Brendan Macdonald) 2 - The Parecon Proposal (Michael Albert) 3 - Economic Democracy Through Prout, the Progressive Utilization Theory (Dada Maheshvarananda) 4 - Anarchy in Action: Especifismo and Working-Class Organizing (Jeff Shantz) 5 - An Economy for the Common Good with Social Currencies (Heloisa Primavera ) Part II - Specific Cases for a Better World / From the Global North 6 - Innovation, the Cooperative Movement, and Self-Management: From the Technical School to the Centers of Research and Development and the University in the Trajectory of the Mondragón Experience (Alessandra Azevedo and Leda Gitahy) 7 - Worker Occupations and Worker Cooperatives - Examining Lessons from the 1970s and 1980s (Gregor Gall) 8 - From Direct Action to Workers Assemblies: Unions and the G20 Protests in Toronto (Jeff Shantz) 9 - The Emerging Paradoxical Possibility of a Democratic Economy (Gar Alperovitz) / From the Global South 10 - The Social Economy in Venezuela: Between the Will and the Possibility (Juan Carlos Monedero) 11 - Argentine Worker Cooperatives in Civil Society: A Challenge to Capital-Labor Relations ( Peter Ranis) 12 - Challenging the Globalised Agro-Food Complex: Farming Cooperatives and the Emerging Solidarity Economy Alternative in South Africa (Vishwas Satgar)

About the Author :
Jeffrey Shantz teaches human rights and community advocacy at Kwantlen Polytechnic University in Vancouver, Canada. A rank and file union and antipoverty organizer and scholar, he focuses on worker self-activity and the connections between ecology and labor organizing. He is the author and editor of eleven books, including Organizing Anarchy: Direct Action and Insurgency (Berghahn Books, 2012) and Green Syndicalism (Syracuse University Press, 2012). José Brendan Macdonald is Professor Emeritus at the Universidade Federal da Paraiba, Joao Pessoa, Brazil, where he founded the Incubator of Solidarity Enterprises. He has written extensively on solidarity economics.

Review :
Beyond Capitalism makes clear that this is a pivotal moment for all of humanity, when many of us in peril of being crushed by the heels of the capitalist beast are awakening fitfully from our hypnopompic state. Beyond Capitalism functions in this context like a generous dose of academic smelling salts. This important volume lays bare the profligate use of lies and deceptions by the capitalist class, and reminds us that in standing idle we risk being suffocated by our own past. The dark vein of animosity shown by the transnational capitalist class towards 99 percent of the world’s population is pulsating with an ignominious fury. In addition to comprising a set of clear, innovative and well-researched essays that offer alternatives to the social universe of capital, Beyond Capitalism is a call to action. These essays are illuminated by the search for a new society. As the hyper-capitalism we call neoliberalism drives us ever closer to the precipice, we need to hope and think about new and democratic ways of organizing our economic and political life. More than thinking, we need to begin to build the alternatives that can sustain us through the struggle for transformation. This volume shows us some of the imaginative projects that are already underway. This book is admirable in that it examines a wide range of radical proposals and projects being carried out on almost every continent...Readers who are interested in particular topics addressed in the book may find some of the essays valuable. Perhaps others will be inspired by the diversity of visionary proposals and concrete practical examples that may represent the seeds of a new society just taking root.