There’s a rhetorical commitment to political democracy, but it amounts to nothing if we don’t democratize everything and allow people to have a direct say in the things that affect their lives. This is not a problem we can fix just by voting every two years, and democracy shouldn’t end at the ballot

Matthew Brown, TDC fellow and leader of the Preston, UK, city council, writes that Preston shows what a real alternative to neoliberalism looks like.

Labor movements must pursue a social and economic vision that can address the deep structural inequalities these pandemic years have exposed. Preston gives a glimpse of the exciting possibilities that collaboration with unions could achieve.

Democracy Collaborative co-founder Gar Alperovitz talks about how the democratic economy is coming into being during an October 2021 interview with Andrew Van Wagner, who has interviewed a number of leading thinkers for his Substack newsletter. In the interview, Alperovitz points out that elements

Current proposals to “build Black wealth and narrow the racial wealth gap” are superficial repairs to a rotted foundation. What we need is a radical redistribution of economic and political power.

Early in 2020, the board of the U.S. Solidarity Economy Network (USSEN) called on like-minded organizations that were engaged in economic justice and systems change work to gather at a Resist and Build summit at the Highlander Research and Education Center in New Market, Tennessee. But then came

Bold policies could have saved America’s largest generic drug plant, but it’s never too late to start putting communities first.

At its heart, the Preston Model is a reaction against globalization, on a Legoland scale. … As national politics comes to seem ever-more removed from our lives, the Left especially is retreating to a local level, where they can still hold power. … Preston was the site of the last battle fought

In a soon-to-be-released study commissioned by the Democracy Collaborative, economist Michael Shuman puts the losses associated with the shut-down in the hundreds of millions of dollars in a state, West Virginia, that already has the sixth highest poverty rate in the country. Schuman estimates that

A group called Our Revolution — founded by Sen. Bernie Sanders to push for progressive political issues — is joining with United Steelworkers Local 8-957, The Democracy Collaborative, Social Security Works and other organizations to send a letter to Biden on Wednesday urging him to intervene in the

The Democracy Collaborative staff in 2021 worked together to craft this statement of seven values that reflect what we expect of each other and what drives our work. Community: We work together to advance aligned and cohesive goals while embracing personal autonomy. We make space for fun, enjoy our

A political party needs a vision that is attuned to the deep social and economic crises we face—not least of which are regional disparities, racial injustice, intergenerational inequality and climate change

The following statement is issued in reaction to the trial verdict in the death of George Floyd: Today we are relieved that a measure of justice was served in the trial of the Minneapolis police officer in the murder of George Floyd. Yet, as we absorb the verdict of the trial, we still must grapple

For decades, we have been sold a myth of private health. It is a myth that our health is largely a product of individual choices and personal responsibilities. It is a myth that our healthcare is a service that private corporations can provide, and for which we must pay to survive. But the COVID-19

The pharmaceutical industry is enjoying new popularity with the American public after delivering effective Covid-19 vaccines at record speed, according to new polling from Data for Progress. But that doesn’t mean voters have lost their interest in bringing down prescription drug costs, the same

The former CEO of a leading UK economic think tank will be central in helping build capacity to offer powerful new technical assistance to cities and local authorities pursuing community wealth building strategies.

For many people, the pandemic has ripped off the sunglasses that masked the true colors of our political economy. The question now is whether we will settle for a superficial and ephemeral recovery of the old system or use our capacity to build a new system.

The Next System Project is an initiative of the Democracy Collaborative, which has long been showcasing the best research and strategic thinking about “visions, models and pathways that point to a ‘next system’ radically different in fundamental ways from the failed systems of the past and present

Resolution by Rep. Ayanna Pressley continues a decades-long movement fight for economic justice For Immediate Release Contact: Isaiah J. Poole, Vice President of Communications; 202-559-1473 ext 3012, ipoole@democracycollaborative.org Washington DC – Following the introduction of the federal jobs

We are rapidly approaching—if we haven’t already passed—climate tipping points with reinforcing feedback loops that would lead to an unrecognizable and terrifying world. Even if the climate crisis were somehow brought under control, our current growth-oriented economic juggernaut will bring us face

As we ready ourselves to reconstruct our economy, we must strive to make the recovery the starting point for a new birth of community, with an economy centered on the collective well-being of people and planet.

Blue Tent’s Eoin Higgins features the work and mission of The Democracy Collaborative in his piece “The Democracy Collaborative Is On a 30-Year-Plan for Changing the Economy”. “There’s a lot of worker ownership and community development in different parts of the state,” said Alperovitz. “Our goal is

Our message about how we must respond to the 2017 Charlottesville tragedy is even more relevant after the attack on the US Capitol by Donald Trump supporters.

“The Democracy Collaborative, with its 20-plus years of work, attracted the world’s best and highly motivated participants from every discipline as well as multiple onsite projects and initiatives. Perhaps the most stimulating experiences during hours of confinement can be found by clicking onto

TDC and union members have agreed to a package of protections that goes well beyond the baseline severance provisions for layoffs agreed to in TDC’s union contract.

Democracy Collaborative vice president Joe Guinan, who is also a contributing editor at Renewal, talks to Florence Sutcliffe-Braithwaite about the outcome of the US election, the unfolding crises of COVID-19, the openings for a transformative political economy and the strategies he would like to see

This week expect to see political pundits once again coalesce, based on a superficial reading of the electorate, around the narrative that the election results are a mandate for center-rightism, a cautionary tale against progressive aspirations for a dramatic reshaping of our market-based political

The strain that the COVID-19 pandemic is placing on our entire healthcare system is threatening to decimate the primary care sector—the doctor’s offices and medical facilities that are the very foundation of any healthcare system. Just when Americans most need consistent and equitable access to high

The Democracy Collaborative (and their vision of a post-COVID world), the New Economy Coalition and the Democracy at Work Institute […] are pointing the way toward a revived democracy, based on democratized ownership. Yes, socialism. When Republicans try to scare our communities into believing

“As we plan for a process of rebuilding our society and restarting our economies post-COVID-19, we must try to make this the starting point for a profound transformation of our economic system to one that—by design—fosters community, democracy, sustainability, health and wellbeing. The actions we

[Community wealth building] must realise its potential to develop institutions and build a new ecosystem rooted in participation and ownership by the community that will ensure a power base for long-term sustainability. To do so the movement needs to be properly resourced and supported, both in

Part of the politics are in the conversation because once we start calculating what is owed, we begin to realise that only a complete transformation could accomplish it. For Ron Daniels of the National African American Reparations Commission and Ronald Galvin of the Democracy Collaborative, the

R&D has increas­ing­ly been direct­ed towards pri­vate inter­ests and pri­vate prof­it, result­ing in reduced pub­lic spend­ing on R&D as a per­cent­age of GDP and a reori­en­ta­tion of R&D spend­ing (both pub­lic and pri­vate) towards max­i­miz­ing prof­its, rather than align­ment with press­ing

In an article by Jon Stone, a Community-Wealth.org report is highlighted. “Ministers are being urged by policy experts to set a target to spend 2 per cent of the UK’s GDP on public R&D investment over the next 10 years, a huge increase aimed to fill gaps left by the private sector. The researchers

In an article in Red Pepper, Joe Guinan of The Democracy Collaborative argues that “following major defeats, the left on both sides of the Atlantic must urgently get stuck into community organising, movement building and political education.” It’s time to get concrete and specific about political

“Moving forward on Scotland’s path to recovery will prove challenging and require bold action, as we navigate this multitude of intertwined crises. Out of this crisis, a new economic vision is needed to build a more equitable, sustainable, and democratic system. As the Scottish Government prepares

A statement released Thursday by a group that includes Next System Project director Dana Brown calls for redesigning our pharmaceutical sector so that it is accountable to the public to meet public health needs, rather than to the profit demands of corporate shareholders. “Medicines were long

America owes Black folks. The modern-day prophet Ta-Nahesi Coates, drawing on the wisdom and generations-old fight of Black freedom fighters such as Mother Callie House, James Forman, Randall Robinson, and the Malcolm X grassroots movement, cogently made the case in his seminal article, “The Case

In early July, the Democracy Collaborative, in partnership with the Anchor Collaborative Network, hosted a week-long Community Wealth Summit focused on leading institutions, government agencies and nonprofits in examining the economic recovery through a racial equity and community wealth building

Johanna Bozuwa, co-manager of the climate and energy program at The Democracy Collaborative, discussed the recent leak of the DNC platform on climate with Dharna Noor. “It is good to see commitments from the DNC platform to unionized jobs, investment in public and affordable housing, and commitments

Next System Project research director Thomas Hanna, in an interview with Paul Jay for TheAnalysis.news, discusses the growing global opposition to privatization of public services. “All across the world …people are reacting against the deficiencies of privatization and austerity and neoliberalism

We add our voices to the growing chorus of those insisting that without justice there can be no peace. This moment causes us to redouble our commitment to the fundamental belief that we must bring about deep systemic change.

The global spread of Covid-19 has shone a bright spotlight on both the vital need for reliable high-speed internet and the inadequacies of the for-profit, corporate model in delivering it. This paper, the first of four modules on democratic public ownership in the United Kingdom and the US, explores

The COVID-19 crisis has demonstrated that public services and the people who operate them are truly the foundation of healthy and resilient societies, This book explores a growing international (re)municipalization movement that is helping redefine public ownership for the 21st century.

Joe Guinan and Sarah McKinley of The Democracy Collaborative discuss community wealth building and the need for a new way to determine the true value of local and regional economies beyond the common but distorted GDP and profit/loss metrics. They reflect on the total local public balance sheet as

We are in a period of breakdown, in which all that is wrong with the current system is now being laid bare. Rather than rebuild what we now clearly see should never have been, we must lead the construction out of this crisis of something new.

Advocates of the Preston model in the United Kingdom are engaged in a conversation on how their experience wh community wealth building can inspire similar interventions in Kigoma, a city of some 235,000 in northwestern Tanzania.

Download and read the report below. Introduction: Framing the long crisis For many Americans, the first years of the Trump presidency have brought into focus some of the large-scale challenges facing the country: the early onset of climate change (and intensifying natural disasters such as fires

The current global economic system extracts a terrible price from children and families everywhere, even in many of the world’s richest countries, and especially in the United States. Indeed, the United States, whose leaders, both Republican and Democrat, proclaim its “exceptionalism” at every

The Democracy Collaborative is excited to have partnered with openDemocracy and Commonwealth Publishing to produce a free e-Book, New Thinking for the British Economy, whose 14 essays will be available in pamphlet form at The World Transformed, a three day festival of ideas and organizing in

Executive summary The next financial crisis is all but inevitable. While its exact timing and severity cannot be predicted, both the accelerating frequency of crises in recent decades and the continued consolidation of the banking sector in an increasingly financialized economy suggest that we

Ted Howard’s remarks to the Environmental Funders Network in Cambridge, England, on February 2nd, 2018. These prepared remarks have been lightly edited for publication. Good afternoon. I want to begin by thanking the conference organizers for extending an invitation to address you during your

Download and share the PDF below. Introduction Consumerism is the major cause of global warming and wrecking the planet for future generations. It is driven by a growth economy that favors the ever-expanding consumption of the already very affluent and has allowed the gap between the richest and

A personal introduction In the interest of full transparency, this essay is personal. When it comes to journalism, I’ve been on a career-long search for an effective, sustainable alternative to corporate mono-speak. In all that time, regular people have never had more communications capacity than we

Introduction The US economy’s deep systemic inequalities of income, wealth, power, and opportunity are part of global inequality trends, but US-style capitalism and public policy make inequalities more acute. Their observable and felt harm to our civic and economic life is corroborated by research

Systemic Crisis and Systemic Change in the United States in the 21st Century This new working paper from The Next System Project was prepared as an invited contribution to the “After Fossil Fuels: The New Economy” conference taking place in Oberlin, Ohio from October 6-8, 2016. In the paper, Next

Drawing on a decade’s worth of conversations with key leaders in the growing field, from cooperative developers and community activists to impact investors and social enterprise innovators, this book of interviews from the Democracy Collaborative dives into the front lines of the movement to build community wealth.

Keane Bhatt of the Next System Project conducts an interview with historian and economic activist Jessica Gordon Nembhard, which is republished here by Yes! Magazine. Keane Bhatt, The Next System Project: Thank you for speaking with us. I was really excited to talk to you, because it seems that your

This book from political economist and historian Gar Alperovitz, the co-founder of the Democracy Collaborative, outlines how we can democratize wealth and build a community sustaining economy from the ground up.

This report draws upon practical experience accumulated over the years in many areas and proposes a strategic approach to integrate, expand, and coordinate a powerful array of activities focused on promoting community wealth building in the nation’s distressed communities. Or, to put it more simply