Democracy Realized: The Progressive Alternative - Hardcover

Unger, Roberto Mangabeira

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1859849830 ISBN 13: 9781859849835

Publisher: Verso, 1998

Synopsis

A radical program of reform from a commanding political theorist. Roberto Unger is widely recognized as one of the most innovative and intellectually audacious political and legal theorists alive today. Placing himself in the tradition of “revolutionary reforms,” Unger has charted a course between social democracy and neoliberalism, seeking to combine the best element of both nonstatist and liberal aspirations. In this new work, Unger brings to bear his unique understanding of the replaceable nature of social and political institutions on the present global situation. The world economy is being reorganized as a network of economic vanguards, of privileged insiders, separated from the economic rearguard, the largely disenfranchised outsiders. Traditional devices for containing this division, whether through a redistributive welfare state or the support of small business, have proved inadequate. Democracy Realized challenges the ideological dominance of neoliberalism, which insists that all countries must converge in their acceptance of the dictates of market “flexibility.” Instead, Unger has developed practical alternatives that can narrow the divide between insiders and outsiders. In particular, he argues that in rich and poor countries alike, a more decentralized and inclusive relationship can be built between business and government, and that levels of civic engagement and group organization can be heightened and strengthened. In an age when leftist and progressive circles are marked by timidity and defensiveness, Unger’s Democracy Realized restores intellectual courage and programmatic zeal to political thought.

About this title

About the Author:

Roberto Mangabeira Unger is one of the leading social and political thinkers in the world today. He is also active in Brazilian politics. Verso has published much of his work: False Necessity: Antinecessitarian Social Theory in the Service of Radical Democracy, What Should Legal Analysis Become?, Democracy Realized: The Progressive Alternative, Politics, and The Left Alternative.

Review:

“Roberto Mangabeira Unger’s project is breathtaking ... He is writing what may be the most powerful social theory of the second half of the century.”—Geoffrey Hawthorn

“A philosophical mind out of the Third World turning the tables, to become synoptist and seer of the First.”—Perry Anderson

“[Unger] does not make moves in any game we know how to play ... [His] book will someday make possible a new national romance ... [It] will help the literate ... citizens of some country to see vistas where before they saw only dangers—see a hitherto undreamt-of national future.”—Richard Rorty

About this edition

• Publisher: Verso
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 1859849830
• ISBN 13: 9781859849835
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 318