America the Possible : Manifesto for a New Economy

by James Gustave Speth

• ISBN13: 9780300180763
• ISBN10: 0300180764
• Format: Trade Book
• Copyright: 2012-09-25
• Publisher: Yale University Press

Summary

In this third volume of his award-winning American Crisis series, James Gustave Speth makes his boldest and most ambitious contribution yet. He looks unsparingly at the sea of troubles in which the United States now finds itself, charts a course through the discouragement and despair commonly felt today, and envisions what he calls America the Possible, an attractive and plausible future that we can still realize. The book identifies a dozen features of the American political economythe country's basic operating systemwhere transformative change is essential. It spells out the specific changes that are needed to move toward a new political economyone in which the true priority is to sustain people and planet. Supported by a compelling "theory of change" that explains how system change can come to America, the book also presents a vision of political, social, and economic life in a renewed America. Speth envisions a future that will be well worth fighting for. In short, this is a book about the American future and the strong possibility that we yet have it in ourselves to use our freedom and our democracy in powerful ways to create something fine, a reborn America, for our children and grandchildren.

Author Biography

James Gustave Speth is Professor of Law at Vermont Law School. Previously he was Sara Shallenberger Brown Professor and Dean of the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, Yale University. He lives in Strafford, VT.

Table of Contents

Preface	p. ix
Manifesto	p. 1
A Nation in Trouble	p. 19
Society at the Breaking Point	p. 21
The Weight of the World	p. 40
Running Out of Planet	p. 52
In the Beauty of the Morning	p. 67
America the Possible	p. 69
Transformations	p. 89
A Sustaining Post-Growth Economy	p. 91
System Changes	p. 103
Writhing Free of an Old Skin	p. 153
Realizing Democracy	p. 157
The Movement	p. 186
Notes	p. 199
Index	p. 237
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