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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
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

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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Announcing the winners in our essay competition!

Next System Project Essay Competition

After reviewing hundreds of submissions from around the world, here are the six winning original essays from the 2016 “What’s Next?” essay contest. read more
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
Democratic public ownership panel

Ownership futures

Public ownership of railways and road networks, land and natural resources, water and electricity utilities, and banking and postal services helped build the infrastructure, institutions, and technologies of the mid-20th century. Today, public ownership once again has a key role to play in laying the foundations for a transformative and prosperous 21st-century economy. read more
Democratic Ownership
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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
Democratic Ownership
Joe Guinan on Raising Incomes panel

The role of worker ownership in raising incomes

by Isaiah J. Poole

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
Democratic Ownership
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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
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