Skip to main content

Learn

Stories

Default Image: Square

Can transformative change come to America?

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
Nenad Stojkovic via Flickr

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

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

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

Collections

A sun about to either rise or set behind a mountain range.

Transformations: Systemic Challenges & Solutions in 21st Century America

The Next System Project is pleased to offer a new series of policy-oriented papers that explore the theme that meeting America’s gravest challenges requires systemic change. read more
Lots of elements of a community powered by sustainable energy: solar, wind, and more.

La Democracia Energética: Una Baraja de Cartas

La democracia energética es la sencilla idea de que la transición a fuentes de energía renovables, que tan urgentemente necesitamos, debería ir de la mano con la expansión de una economía más equitativa y de una democracia más participativa. read more
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

Videos

Online Roundtable: Nationalization

We’ll be sorting out the surprising history of nationalization in the US, the demands currently on the table, and what we need to know in order to make sure nationalization is used to make a more democratic economy, not set up a post-crisis reconsolidation of corporate power. read more
Economic Update host Richard Wolff interviews John Duda

Worker co-ops rising

Democracy Collaborative communications director John Duda explains in this edition of “Economic Update with Richard Wolff” how worker cooperatives have become a rising movement that is shaping mainstream economic development strategy around the country. read more
Joe Guinan on Raising Incomes panel

The role of worker ownership in raising incomes

The Next System Project’s Joe Guinan called for a “democratic ownership revolution” at a Washington forum organized to discuss strategies for addressing extreme wealth inequality in the United States. read more

Reports

Health innovation policy for the people

Health innovation policy for the people

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
Regeneration not gentrification

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

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
Revisiting community control of land and housing

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

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