President
Joe Guinan is President of The Democracy Collaborative. His focus is on political economy, strategy, and economic system change, and he is co-author (with Martin O’Neill) of The Case for Community Wealth Building (Polity, 2020) and (with Christine Berry) of People Get Ready! Preparing for a Corbyn Government (O/R Books, 2019), which was named one of The Guardian’s best politics books of the year in 2019.
A former journalist, he was previously a program director at the Aspen Institute, a fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, and a consultant to the William & Flora Hewlett Foundation. Born in England with dual Irish and British citizenship, he grew up in British labor movement circles and was educated at Balliol College, Oxford.
A researcher at The Democracy Collaborative at its inception at the University of Maryland, he has served in a number of capacities at the organization, including as vice president and as executive director of the Next System Project when it was launched in 2015.
He writes for an array of progressive outlets and is a frequently cited expert on the new economics in major news media. He lives in Washington, D.C.
Contacts
Joe Guinan
Joe Guinan’s Publications
Most Recent
“What Next for the New Left Party? We Asked Our Contributors,” Novara Media, July 8, 2025
Wait long enough for a bus and two come at once: such is the experience of Britain’s extra-Labour left awaiting leadership in the Starmer era.
“The role of ‘Community’ in Community Wealth Building” (with Neil McInroy), June 17, 2025
The work of communities, community groups, and activists is part of a wider Community Wealth Building theory of change seeking deep system change through economic democracy.
“A Great Trump Crash?” May 27, 2025
Everywhere there are new tripwires being laid by the Trump Administration that could easily serve as the proximate cause or trigger of a financial crisis that could cause a chain reaction ending in a great economic crash.
“Trump and the Crisis: System Change from the Right?” May 2, 2025
The Trump Administration represents a mixture of homegrown old-fashioned American reaction with new elements of a tried-and-tested playbook that has been honed by the radical right in a number of countries where they have taken power around the world.
“Plaid Cymru offers Community Wealth Building plan for Wales,” (with Neil McInroy), April 29, 2025
Making Wales Work is a substantial piece of economic policy thinking, one of very few public policy strategies in Britain recently that contains anything like the tools and interventions necessary to grapple with the scale of the challenges that loom ahead.
“Community Wealth Building to Economic System Change,” (with Neil McInroy), April 16, 2025
If systems are stalemated or in crisis the usual paths forward are reform or revolution. But there is also evolutionary reconstruction – the steady build up over time of institutional alternatives that grow and displace the old.
“Creating a just economy through shared ownership,” NCRC, March 26, 2025
Community Wealth Building is economic system change, but starting at the local level.
“Putting economic democracy into practice,” March 21, 2025
The solution to our current malaise requires building an economy in which ownership and power are widely distributed and broadly held, and substantive economic decision-making belongs to us all and not just the billionaire few.
“Introducing ‘Tracking the Crisis’,” March 9, 2025
The outcome of the last presidential election means that the first major attempt at a rupture with business-as-usual in Washington is now coming from the political right. This is the meaning of Trump and Musk’s current Shock-and-Awe assault on the U.S. administrative state.
“The contours of our systemic crisis,” February 26, 2025
We need to get to grips with the multi-faceted crisis we are facing, which is not just a political or economic or ecological crisis (although it is increasingly all those things) but a crisis of our system of political economy
“Shock and Awe: Trump’s First Hundred Days,” January 24, 2025
Only a few days in, and already we can see the broad shape of what Trump’s Second Term will bring — a radical effort to reshape and repurpose the administrative state.
“The Long Decline and the Polycrisis,” Emergency Election, 2024
The story of the last 40 years — under Democrat and Republican alike, in so-called good times or in bad — is that the outcomes of the system for most Americans have been getting steadily worse in real terms.
“The Dystopian Vision of Project 2025,” in How We Win: Energizing Strategies, Voters, and Agendas, 2024
Project 2025 is important to study because it gets us beyond a cartoon view of our opponents. They are going to take another run at reducing the size of government through dismantling, overhauling, or repurposing the machinery of the administrative state.
Selected Articles
“Social democracy in the age of austerity and resistance: the radical potential of democratising capital,” Renewal: a journal of social democracy, Vol. 20, No. 4 (2012)
“Returns to Capital: Austerity and the Crisis of European Social Democracy,” The Good Society, Vol. 22, No. 1 (2013)
“Who's afraid of public ownership?” Renewal: a journal of social democracy, Vol. 21, No. 4 (2013)
“Democratising capital at scale: cooperative enterprise and beyond,” (with Thomas M. Hanna) openDemocracy, 7 August 2013
“Privatisation, a very British disease,” (with Thomas M. Hanna) openDemocracy, 5 November, 2013
“Preserving policy space in an independent Scotland,” (with Thomas M. Hanna) openDemocracy, 28 February, 2014
“Owning the problem: Why the left needs a democratic capital strategy,” Juncture (IPPR), Vol. 21, Issue 1 (Summer 2014)
“Bombs away! Air power as panacea,” openDemocracy, 2 October, 2014
“Modern money and the escape from austerity,” Renewal: a journal of social democracy, Vol. 22, No. 3/4 (2014)
“The Next System Project: New Political-Economic Possibilities for the Twenty First Century,” (with Gar Alperovitz and Gus Speth), March 29, 2015
“Bring back the Institute for Workers' Control,” Renewal: a journal of social democracy, Vol. 23, No. 4 (2015)
“Don't believe the Corbyn bashers - the economic case against public ownership is mostly fantasy,” (with Thomas M. Hanna) openDemocracy, 8 September, 2015
“Democracy and decentralisation are their watchwords: for Corbyn and McDonnell, it’s municipal socialism reinvented,” (with Thomas M. Hanna) openDemocracy, 25 March, 2016
“Is another Europe possible?” (with Thomas M. Hanna) openDemocracy, 21 June, 2016
“Systemic Crisis and Systemic Change in the United States in the 21st Century: Framing the challenges of a next system after fossil fuels,” (with Gar Alperovitz, Gus Speth and Ted Howard), September 2016
“If Trump were really to go ‘full heterodox’, amid the current stagnation, downward mobility and spiking mortality, the political rewards could be extraordinary.”
“Trumpocalypse now,” Soundings: A journal of politics and culture, Vol. 2017, Issue 66
“Forbidden fruit: The neglected political economy of Lexit,” (with Thomas M. Hanna) IPPR Progressive Review, Vol. 24, No. 1 (2017)
“Polanyi against the whirlwind,” (with Thomas M. Hanna) Renewal: a journal of social democracy, Vol. 25, No. 1 (2017)
“The Policy Weapon Climate Activists Need,” (with Gar Alperovitz and Thomas M. Hanna) The Nation, April 26, 2017
“Full Corbynism: Constructing a New Left Political Economy Beyond Neoliberalism,” (with Thomas M. Hanna) New Socialist, June 19, 2017
“Lexit: the EU is a neoliberal project, so let’s do something different when we leave it,” (with Thomas M. Hanna) New Statesman, 20 July 2017
“A left-wing Brexit is possible – if we play it right, we could change the whole of society for good,” (with Thomas M. Hanna) The Independent, August 8, 2017
“The institutional turn: Labour’s new political economy,” (with Martin O’Neill) Renewal: a journal of social democracy, Vol. 26, No. 2 (2018)
“Corbynomics: Labour’s institutional turn,” (with Martin O’Neill), Verso, 30 May 2018
“The ‘Preston Model’ and the modern politics of municipal socialism,” (with Thomas M. Hanna and Joe Bilsborough) openDemocracy, 12 June, 2018
“Socialising capital: looking back on the Meidner Plan,” International Journal of Public Policy, Vol. 15, No. 1/2 (2019)
“What a Corbyn Government Would Mean,” (with Christine Berry) Tribune, 16 May, 2019
“Hanging in the balance: the democratic economy after Corbyn,” (with Sarah McKinley) Renewal: a journal of social democracy, Vol. 28, No. 1 (2020)
“Beyond Municipal Protectionism: Community Wealth Building as Local Economic System Change,” (with Sarah McKinley) Stir to Action, March 1, 2020
“Economic Impacts and Strategic Responses to the Covid-19 Crisis,” (with Thomas M. Hanna) The Next System Project, March 27, 2020
“Owning the Future: After COVID-19, a New Era of Community Wealth Building,” (with Neil McInroy et al.), April 20, 2020
“Wales after Covid-19: A nine-point plan for Welsh economic reconstruction and the growth of community wealth,” (with Neil McInroy et al.), May 2020.
“Only bold state intervention will save us from a future owned by corporate giants,” (with Martin O’Neill) The Guardian, 6 July, 2020
“After Trump, before Biden: What’s next for the American left?” Renewal, a journal of social democracy, 10 November, 2020
“The Unbearable Lightness of Keir,” Tribune, 19 February, 2021
“Left Behind: How Labour Abandoned Economic Populism to the Tories,” Tribune, 4 March, 2021
“The ‘third way’ may have worked for New Labour, but it is impossible now,” (with Martin O'Neill) The Guardian, 13 May 2021
“Blairism Reheated,” Tribune, 29 September, 2021
“A Left for a Time of Crisis,” Tribune, 12 October 2021
“The Corruption Behind Starmer’s Rise Has Finally Been Exposed,” Novara Media, 14 November, 2023
“Port Talbot’s Betrayal Shows Britain’s Lack of Direction,” Tribune, 23 January, 2024
“Jamie Driscoll’s Challenge to Labour Is the Shape of Things to Come,” (with Martin O’Neill) Tribune, 30 April, 2024
“No Substitute for State Power: A response to Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò’s Giant Steps,” (with Martin O’Neill) Boston Review, June 17, 2024
“No, We Haven’t Run Out of Money,” (with Howard Reed) Tribune, 3 July, 2024
Media Coverage
“Preston, Jeremy Corbyn’s model town,” The Economist, October 19, 2017
“The Guardian view on Corbynomics: more creativity please,” The Guardian, 27 May, 2018
“Why Labour is obsessed with Greek politics,” The Economist, June 30, 2018
“The brains behind Corbynomics,” The Economist, May 9, 2019
“Corbynomics would change Britain—but not in the way most people think,” The Economist, May 17, 2019
“The new left economics: how a network of thinkers is transforming capitalism,” Andy Beckett, The Guardian, 25 June 2019
“Labour hands out ‘manual for power’,” Evening Standard, 8 July, 2019
“Jeremy Corbyn’s inner circles: The key people and groups that shape Labour’s policy,” Financial Times, 3 September 2019
“A Labour government would radically transform Britain,” The Economist, October 31, 2019
“What would millennial socialists do with power?” The Economist, November 28, 2019
“Best politics books of 2019,” Gaby Hinsliff, The Guardian, 30 November, 2019
“Labour’s left wing is trying a new strategy to gain influence,” The Economist, August 20, 2020
“This is the future for Kamala Harris: unless she solves this economic mystery, Trump wins,” Aditya Chakrabortty, The Guardian, 10 October, 2024
“Redneck Gone Green with Joe Guinan,” Democracy at Work, March 24, 2025
“Will Chinese pandas be next for deportation?” Linda Pentz Gunter, Morning Star, April 1, 2025
“Keeping track of Trump: Democracy Collaborative launches a news aggregator,” Anca Voinea, Co-op News, May 1, 2025
“Happy Birthday, Mr President: Trump’s special day to coincide with a day of protests,” Paul Little, New Zealand Listener, June 8, 2025
Book Chapters
Economics for the Many, ed. John McDonnell, Verso, 2019
Futures of Socialism: The Pandemic and the Post-Corbyn Era, ed. Grace Blakeley, Verso, 2020
How We Win: Energizing Strategies, Voters, and Agendas, ed. Charles Derber et al, Routledge, 2024
