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Health innovation policy for the people

Health innovation policy for the people

by Shobita Parthasarathy

Healthcare innovation policy in the United States has yielded some benefits but has also done harm, specifically when it comes o health equity. This paper identifies four such harms and offers recommendations that address the needs of marginalized communities and produces for all of us the innovations we really need. read more
Health & Wellbeing Democratic Ownership
Regeneration not gentrification

A “new direction”: Rediscovering community wealth building in an age of gentrification

by Nishani Frazier

To preserve communities in the throes of displacement, cooperative movements and new economy advocates must pivot in a new direction that blends place and the democratic economy. This “new direction” actually borrows from an idea nearly 50 years old. read more
Community & Place Democratic Ownership
Nenad Stojkovic via Flickr

Gar Alperovitz on how change happens over “pizza and some beer”

by Gar Alperovitz

Gar Alperovitz talks about how the democratic economy can come into being much as movements did in the 1960s: “Six friends get together and get some pizza and some beer.” read more
Movement Strategy & History Democratic Ownership
Revisiting community control of land and housing

Revisiting community control of land and housing in the wake of COVID-19

by Thomas Hanna

As the nation’s housing crisis deepens during the COVID-19 pandemic, we urgently need new approaches and institutions that center permanent affordability, community ownership and control, and the long-term goal of decommodification. read more
Community & Place Democratic Ownership
Windmills under a blue sky

A new era of public power: A vision for New York Power Authority in pursuit of climate justice

by Johanna Bozuwa

As both the owners and customers of the NYPA, New Yorkers have the opportunity to demand, build, and benefit from a more democratic and equitable energy system as the state aims to be greenhouse-gas-emission-free by 2040. read more
Environment & Energy
Public bank

Constructing the Democratic Public Bank: A governance proposal for Los Angeles

by Michael Brennan

Public banks have the potential to address a host of economic, social, and ecological crises, but it is important to get the institutional structure right. This report offers recommendations for a Los Angeles public bank and addresses key questions of who the public bank serves and how. read more
Money & Banking Democracy & Governance

The New Systems Reader

The New Systems Reader highlights some of the most thoughtful, substantive, and promising answers to these questions as the world grapples with the effects of a global pandemic on top of the looming climate crisis, chronic structural racism, and worsening wealth inequities. The book draws on the work and ideas of some of the world’s key thinkers and activists on systemic change.

Circles rising above a cityscape

Principles of a Pluralist Commonwealth

by Gar Alperovitz

Our time demands we meet the challenges inherent in an era of deepening despair and accelerating crises—political, ecological, and economic—that is also potentially the prehistory of transformative and fundamental systemic change. read more
Democratic Ownership
A periodic table overlaid over a birdseye view of buildings.

Elements of the democratic economy

An entry point for all those looking to understand the various building blocks of the democratic economy currently being constructed from the ground up in communities across our nation and around the world. read more
The Next System Podcast

The Next System Podcast

The Next System Podcast features conversations with leading thinkers and activists about movements, models, and pathways toward a new system. read more
Water manhole cover

From pragmatic to politicized? The future of water remunicipalization in the United States

by Thomas Hanna

As with many countries, the United States has experienced swings of public and private operation of its water services for more than 150 years. Most water services in the country began as private enterprises in the 1800s but were municipalized from the late 19th century into the 1930s. read more
Community & Place
Democratic public ownership panel

Ownership Futures: Towards democratic public ownership in the 21st century

by Mathew Lawrence, Thomas Hanna

The Democracy Collaborative and Common Wealth is undertaking a 2020 project to explore the frontiers of public ownership in the 21st century, particularly in the areas of digital infrastructure, data and platforms, intellectual property, and land and natural resources. The lead researchers explain the urgent need for their work. read more
Democratic Ownership
Pharmaceutical products on shelves

Medicine For All: The Case for a Public Option in the Pharmaceutical Industry

by Dana Brown

Democratic, public ownership of pharmaceutical development, production, and distribution in the U.S. is necessary to combat the increasingly harmful impacts of Big Pharma which decades of regulation have failed to counteract. read more
Health & Wellbeing
Bill McKibben, Angela Glover Blackwell, Danny Glover

The Next System Project: Overview and Introduction

Growing inequality, political stalemate, and climate disruption prompt an important insight. When the old ways no longer produce the outcomes we are looking for, something deeper is occurring. It is time to explore genuine alternatives and new models—“the next system.”
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Join these leaders

There are political-economic system models that deliver superior social, economic and ecological outcomes.
  • Ralph Nader Consumer Advocate, Author, Former Presidential Candidate
  • Frances Fox Piven City University of New York
  • Annie Leonard Greenpeace USA
  • Oliver Stone Academy Award-winning Filmmaker
  • Timothy E. Wirth United Nations Foundation and Better World Fund
  • Ai-jen Poo National Domestic Workers Alliance
  • Jill Stein 2012 Green Party Presidential Nominee
  • Gar Alperovitz The Next System Project
  • James Gustave Speth The Next System Project
  • Jane Mansbridge Harvard University
  • Gerald Hudson Service Employees International Union
  • Robert B. Reich University of California at Berkeley
  • Dean Baker Center for Economic and Policy Research
  • Barbara Ehrenreich Author
  • Jeffrey D. Sachs Columbia University
  • Gerald Torres Cornell University Law School
  • Larry Cohen Communications Workers of America
  • Julie Matthaei Cornerstone Cohousing
  • Leo Gerard United Steelworkers
  • John James Conyers, Jr. Thirteenth District, Michigan
  • Bill McKibben 350.org
  • Saskia Sassen Columbia University
  • Manuel Pastor University of Southern California
  • J. Phillip Thompson Massachusetts Institute of Technology
  • Medea Benjamin CODEPINK
  • Sarita Gupta Jobs With Justice
  • Noam Chomsky Massachusetts Institute of Technology
  • Lawrence Mishel Economic Policy Institute
  • Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz California State University
  • Daniel Ellsberg Author, Whistleblower
  • Herman E. Daly University of Maryland
  • Heather McGhee Demos
  • Anna Galland MoveOn.org Civic Action
  • Danny Glover Actor, Social Activist
  • Nancy Fraser New School for Social Research
  • Van Jones The Dream Corps & Rebuild The Dream
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Latest reports

Health innovation policy for the people

Health innovation policy for the people

by Shobita Parthasarathy

Healthcare innovation policy in the United States has yielded some benefits but has also done harm, specifically when it comes o health equity. This paper identifies four such harms and offers recommendations that address the needs of marginalized communities and produces for all of us the innovations we really need. read more
Health & Wellbeing Democratic Ownership
Regeneration not gentrification

A “new direction”: Rediscovering community wealth building in an age of gentrification

by Nishani Frazier

To preserve communities in the throes of displacement, cooperative movements and new economy advocates must pivot in a new direction that blends place and the democratic economy. This “new direction” actually borrows from an idea nearly 50 years old. read more
Community & Place Democratic Ownership
Revisiting community control of land and housing

Revisiting community control of land and housing in the wake of COVID-19

by Thomas Hanna

As the nation’s housing crisis deepens during the COVID-19 pandemic, we urgently need new approaches and institutions that center permanent affordability, community ownership and control, and the long-term goal of decommodification. read more
Community & Place Democratic Ownership
Public bank

Constructing the Democratic Public Bank: A governance proposal for Los Angeles

by Michael Brennan

Public banks have the potential to address a host of economic, social, and ecological crises, but it is important to get the institutional structure right. This report offers recommendations for a Los Angeles public bank and addresses key questions of who the public bank serves and how. read more
Money & Banking Democracy & Governance
COVID-19 and 21st century public ownership

COVID-19 and 21st century public ownership

by Thomas Hanna, Mathew Lawrence

COVID-19 has made the case for reimagining the ownership and governance of our economies on both sides of the Atlantic more urgent than ever. To meet the needs of the moment, an agenda to extend democratic public ownership is essential. read more
Democratic Ownership Democracy & Governance
A Common Platform

A Common Platform: Reimagining data and platforms

by Thomas Hanna, Mathew Lawrence, Nils Peters

Digital platforms have proven indispensable to how we live, work, and play. The challenge is to set principles and implement policies that liberate the democratic and enlivening potential of the platform from the logic of concentrated corporate ownership and profit maximization. read more
Democratic Ownership Democracy & Governance
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Newest Stories

Default Image: Glass Facade

Can transformative change come to America?

by Gus Speth

The good news is systemic change may happen more rapidly than once seemed possible. But how the US and the world address the climate crisis will be a powerful determinant of what is possible. read more
Movement Strategy & History Environment & Energy
Health innovation policy for the people

Health innovation policy for the people

by Shobita Parthasarathy

Healthcare innovation policy in the United States has yielded some benefits but has also done harm, specifically when it comes o health equity. This paper identifies four such harms and offers recommendations that address the needs of marginalized communities and produces for all of us the innovations we really need. read more
Health & Wellbeing Democratic Ownership
Regeneration not gentrification

A “new direction”: Rediscovering community wealth building in an age of gentrification

by Nishani Frazier

To preserve communities in the throes of displacement, cooperative movements and new economy advocates must pivot in a new direction that blends place and the democratic economy. This “new direction” actually borrows from an idea nearly 50 years old. read more
Community & Place Democratic Ownership
Nenad Stojkovic via Flickr

Gar Alperovitz on how change happens over “pizza and some beer”

by Gar Alperovitz

Gar Alperovitz talks about how the democratic economy can come into being much as movements did in the 1960s: “Six friends get together and get some pizza and some beer.” read more
Movement Strategy & History Democratic Ownership
Revisiting community control of land and housing

Revisiting community control of land and housing in the wake of COVID-19

by Thomas Hanna

As the nation’s housing crisis deepens during the COVID-19 pandemic, we urgently need new approaches and institutions that center permanent affordability, community ownership and control, and the long-term goal of decommodification. read more
Community & Place Democratic Ownership

Community wealth building in Ireland: Sinn Féin proposes a new economic development direction

The Irish political party Sinn Féin has embraced a wide-ranging community wealth building agenda. read more
Community & Place
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