Michael Hargrove
Soc 4010/5010
Instructor Montez de Oca
10/19/12
Beyond Capitalism

America Beyond Capitalism: Reclaiming Our Wealth, Our Liberty, and Our Democracy, by Gar Alperovitz claim’s that our political/economic system can no longer sustain equality liberty, and democracy to the American working class. Alperovitz argues that a radical change to our political-economic system is needed. He also believes that it is at the lower or grassroots level that this change has to take place, but that it is going to take some time and a lot of commitment on their part. An analysis of Alperovitz’s book America Beyond Capitalism provides a unique but radical perspective on overhauling our political/economical system. However, his perspective depends on the American working class people to create a new political/economic system in order to restore equality, liberty, and democracy. This idea is plausible, but reducing the federal government down to the city and state level is highly unlikely. Alperovitz claims that our political/economic system can no longer sustain our equality, liberty, and democracy for working class Americans. Alperovitz’s first argument is on equality. His concern is that globalization, changing technologies, and sectoral balances are creating a widening gap of inequality. The decline of labor unions has enabled the corporations to lead a number of campaigns that have challenged redistribution programs. Globalization has increased the influence of large corporations over our economical and political system because they have the option to take their business elsewhere. This increases the corporations bargaining power over the government. Competition for investment has created pressure on the government to lower corporate taxes, but in order for the government to make up the lost profit they have to increase the taxes on the working class, which creates even greater inequality.
One of the ways inequality has decreased is during a major crisis. By corporations owning the politicians and most of the wealth a step towards equality would require the redistribution of capital and ownership.
The second argument is the inability to sustain a culture of liberty. Alperovitz uses three theories on the central propositions. The first requires the institutional and structural support for individual economic security. The second depends on community support to create and sustain unions or organizations that help sustain cultural liberty. Finally, he talks about the importance of free time. Free time is the time that one needs for personal development, but it is also the time a person needs to enjoy their community. Equality and liberty go together because according to Alperovitz equality depends on the redistribution of wealth so that workers have an opportunity to live the American dream, but Americans also need the time develop themselves and have the time to take part in their communities.
Finally Alperovitz’s last argument is democracy. He argues that corporations have been able to corrupt the government and media with money to influence policies and regulations. Alperovitz argues that democracy has to start from the ground up. The idea is that you can’t have a strong democracy if the smaller communities are in a state of disarray. He also argues democracy is impossible if everything is unequal. He also believes that in order for democracy to succeed in the U.S; he claims that it needs to be broken down into regions for it to be more efficient. The idea behind breaking down the government into regions is to give back power and control to the ninety-nine percent of Americans. At city and state levels the people have more control over their governing officials because they elect them, but at the federal the ninety-nine percent of Americans loose that power and control to lobbyist, corporations’, and the one percentile of the United States.
America Beyond Capitalism provides radical perspective on overhauling our political/economical system. The failure of this system to improve equality, liberty, and democracy should raise some concerns. Alperovitz’s argues that the working class needs to mobilize and unify in order to create change. This idea stems from an experience that Alperovitz had from a steel mill that was going to close down in Youngstown, Ohio. He witnessed the steel workers mobilize and suggest that they buy and run the mill themselves. The idea behind this perspective is, when you localize a business it creates a sense of ownership and job security, but it also closes the gap of inequality within the political economic system. Alperovitz also claims that since big government is too big and cannot effectively represent the American people fairly. His solution for this problem is to break it down into manageable levels that give the power back to the people, though this is a great idea it is highly improbable. This would go against everything America stands for. Furthermore, the concept of this book is to challenge us to think outside the box, and suggests how we need to do it. We as American’s do need a major change in order to sustain our democracy and freedoms, but the solution Alperovitz suggests is a radical idea because it requires a vivisection of the government into smaller more manageable units this is not a radical idea but perhaps a revolutionary idea. However, Alperovitz is thinking on a revolutionary ideology, this revolutionary idea would severely damage the foundation of which the United States was built upon. The U.S Constitution for instance would have to be recreated, and a new Declaration of Independence would have to be written. Everything that this nation has fought and sacrificed for would have been fought and sacrificed for what? The American people would be even more divided than we are at this point in time; the division of the U.S would look like any other country that has been through a vivisection (India, Russia, and Middle East). These countries have endured civil war, breach of security, a lack of equality, and now are divided.