The Future of American Progressivism: An Initiative for Political and Economic Reform - Softcover

West, Cornel; Unger, Roberto Mangabeira

3.57

56 ratings by Goodreads

9780807043271: The Future of American Progressivism: An Initiative for Political and Economic Reform

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0807043273 ISBN 13: 9780807043271

Publisher: Beacon Press, 1999

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Unless Americans prove themselves willing to be as open-minded about the institutional arrangements of the country as they have been about almost everything else, they will continue to find their hopes frustrated. It is not enough to rebel against the lack of justice unless we also rebel against the lack of imagination.

Roberto Mangabeira Unger and Cornel West argue that the path to progressive reform goes through reorganization of our economic and political instutitions; tax and spending are not enough. Breaking with the conventional ideas of American progressive politics, they show how we can stimulate economic growth and guarantee a minimum of resources for all citizens.

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Review:

The United States boasts one of the healthiest, most powerful economies in the world--but is it ensuring a strong future for itself? In this thought-provoking collaboration, bestselling author and preeminent public intellectual Cornel West and internationally acclaimed social theorist Roberto Mangabeira Unger describe a nation suffering from an educational and health-care meltdown and an ever-growing gap between the rich and the poor. The U.S., they contend, has become a meritocracy, one that is both firmly racist and classist. Why, Unger and West ask, is America, which subscribes to what they term "a religion of possibility" and has a long, rich tradition of innovation, unable to apply its collective genius to solve the vexing problem of our times and preempt the conflicts that threaten our future?

Unger and West offer a solution that promises to "mark a path rather than to define a blueprint." They want to return the United States to the deepest goal of democracy: to realize the greatest potential of all citizens. They blast the myth that the nation comprises three major social classes (upper, middle, and lower), and instead suggest that it is divided into four: the high-power professionals and big-business executives, the small-business class, the working class, which includes both blue- and white-collar workers, and the racially stigmatized underclass. Their solution tackles the "poisonous mixture" of racism and classism head-on as they propose health care for all children; an educational system that "equips the child with the means to think and to stand on his own feet" with schools that "recognize in the child the future worker and citizen, a little prophet"; and broad-based taxation of consumption that will benefit both the rich and the poor, assure savings for all citizens of this country, and close the gap between the classes.

Drawing on progressive political and economic theories in their effort to return the U.S. to its philosophical foundation and ensure a solid future that every citizen can look forward to, Unger and West may have found an answer that is as practical as it is provocative. --Kera Bolonik

About the Author:

Roberto Mangabeira Unger, Harvard Law School professor and one of two "godfathers of the loosely organized leftist challenge to orthodox economic reform" (Institutional Investor), is author of Democracy Realized and other books.

Cornel West, the "preeminent African-American intellectual of our generation" (Henry Louis Gates, Jr.), is author of many books, including the best-selling Race Matters and, with Sylvia Ann Hewlitt, The War Against Parents. He is Alphonse Fletcher, Jr., University Professor at Harvard University.

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