"A major contribution to changing the parameters of political debate. It helps move beyond the pseudo-alternatives of the political mainstream and begin to work for the kind of change we can believe in." —John P Clark, Professor of Philosophy at Loyola University, New Orleans

Financial collapse and crisis; disgust at bankers' greed; the devastating effects of yawning inequality: all these and more have led to widespread dissatisfaction and disenchantment with capitalism. People are crying out for an alternative but are continually told that one does not exist.

Richard Swift examines the past shortcomings and present health of not one but many other paths to changing the world, including socialism, social democracy, anarchism, ecology, and degrowth.

In this fully updated new edition he argues that our current centralized but beleaguered 'thin democracy' is vulnerable to corruption by big money and by crude populism and patriotism. A sane alternative is based on a democratically controlled commonwealth, and a 'thick democracy' populated with many nodes of popular power rooted in both the economy and civil society.

Combining the practical with the visionary, he shows that finding alternatives to capitalism is no longer an academic issue for the left—it is an urgent planetary necessity.

Richard Swift is a journalist and activist who works in print and radio. He was for more than two decades an editor of the New Internationalist magazine. He has written a number of books on themes as diverse as mosquitoes and street gangs. His current interests include forms of radical democracy and ecological degrowth alternatives.