Publishers Weekly
★ 10/09/2023
Journalist Romeo debuts with an invigorating investigation of how governments across the globe are implementing creative and practical fixes “to urgent economic problems, from decreasing wealth inequality to addressing the climate crisis and creating meaningful jobs.” In Amsterdam, he explains, some businesses are opting into a “true price” program that incorporates “climate impact, water use, land use, and underpayment to workers” into products’ retail price. For example, a tomato picked by an underpaid worker and delivered with a diesel truck will carry an extra charge, incentivizing companies to institute more ethical practices to remain competitive. Romeo humanizes the policy talk with stories of people affected by the various programs, as when he describes how an out of work cobbler found employment doing carpentry and teaching German as part of a jobs guarantee program in Gramatneusiedl, Austria. Discussions of worker-owned cooperatives in the Basque country of Spain and participatory budgeting in Portugal will expand readers’ conception of what public policy can look like, and Romeo offers an incisive history of how neoliberal economists have limited America’s legislative imagination since the 1970s by falsely asserting that the country’s institutions and fiscal policy were founded on “immutable” laws of economics, and consequently beyond large-scale reform. This is an eye-opening handbook for a better world. (Jan.)
From the Publisher
TINA (There is no alternative) has been the most powerful weapon deployed against its critics by neoliberal free-market economists in the last few decades. In this informative and courageous book, Nick Romeo shows there is an alternative—or, rather, many alternatives—to the currently dominant neoliberal economic system. In doing so, he liberates our economic imagination and puts a backbone into economics as a moral science. This is a very valuable field manual for those who want to change our economies for the better.”—Ha-Joon Chang, professor of economics, University of London, and author of Edible Economics
"Romeo’s diligently researched and admirably principled new book...“The Alternative” present diverse solutions to the problems of paltry wages, rampant unemployment, unstable housing and exploitative labor practices....“The Alternative” is a brisk and sensible book that details bold and ingenious proposals in measured tones. Romeo...has the approachable style of a moderate but the bold convictions of a radical."—Washington Post
“Romeo’s The Alternative got my emotions boiling. After reading the history of how we’ve come to blindly accept that poverty and massive inequality are immutable fixtures of capitalism, I was left angry and disgusted. And yet I felt a strong rush of hope in seeing, through Romeo’s deep research and vivid storytelling, that there are plenty of great solutions out there, and they’re already being put into practice. As this important book makes clear, we just need the moral courage and political imagination to make them mainstream.” —Rick Wartzman, author of Still Broke: Walmart’s Remarkable Transformation and the Limits of Socially Conscious Capitalism
“Carefully researched, beautifully written, engaging stories, filled with wisdom about building economic justice. Easy reading that results in hard thinking about how economics can be a force for good.” —Joseph R. Blasi, professor and director, Institute for the Study of Employee Ownership and Profit Sharing, Rutgers University
“There is an alternative to capitalism as we know it. Romeo vividly describes the options, giving reason for optimism about a more just and democratic economy beyond the bleak prison of shareholder capitalism. The Alternative reports from the front lines on bold experiments going on around the world: providing consumers information on the true costs of what they buy; enterprises that pay a sustainable living wage; job guarantees for all workers; gig-employment platforms operated as a public utility; large-scale, worker-owned cooperatives; perpetual purpose trusts; participatory government budgeting; expansive employee ownership.” —Jerry Davis, professor of business administration, University of Michigan
“Profound and engaging, a terrific book that deserves to be widely read. Romeo zeroes in on the actual solutions undertaken by communities and businesses to end the crises of global warming and wealth inequality and provide good jobs for all with genuine living wages. The Alternative gives us the ways and means for creating a just economy.” —Clair Brown, professor of economics emerita, University of California, Berkeley
“Romeo’s The Alternative breathes with hope and urgency about building a more equitable economy and society. The hope, however, rests not on fanciful dreams but is grounded in living examples of people and organizations that are already demonstrating their viability. Whether these are cooperatives, perpetual purpose or employee-owned enterprises, land trusts, job guarantees, or companies with livable wages—these efforts are signals of what is possible. I hope that by bringing these ‘alternatives’ to the attention of wider audiences, Romeo’s book will inspire many more such efforts, helping to move them from the margins of our economy to the mainstream.” —Marina Gorbis, executive director, Institute for the Future
“An enlightening, inspiring read… The Alternative brings together an appealing range of ways people across the west are imaginatively and determinedly contesting the givens in today’s capitalism. There is an ache for better – for more just ways of organising the way we work and adding more meaning to our lives. You can’t help but applaud Nick Romeo for showing the workable alternatives to capitalism and the moral driver behind them – everything from the way companies are incorporated to how employees are hired, paid and enabled to share in the value they create.” —The Guardian
“Journalist Romeo debuts with an invigorating investigation of how governments across the globe are implementing creative and practical fixes…This is an eye-opening handbook for a better world.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review
“[It] makes a terrific complement to Matthew Desmond’s Poverty, by America for readers looking for practical solutions…Eschewing both “revolution [and] resignation.” —Kirkus
JANUARY 2024 - AudioFile
To riff on a statement by Winston Churchill, capitalism is the worst economic system--except for all the others. In this constructive and well-narrated audiobook, NEW YORKER journalist Nick Romeo introduces listeners to companies and jurisdictions that have successfully challenged traditional capitalism with projects such as true pricing, participatory budgeting, and guaranteed jobs. Jamie Renell's well-paced and expressive narration is a good fit for the author's tone, which is reasoned and moderate, never strident. Renell's welcoming voice should win over listeners who might approach these ideas with skepticism, and it just might give these hopeful innovations the audience they deserve. D.B. © AudioFile 2024, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
2023-09-19
Romeo spins a series of New Yorker articles into a cohesive argument that there are alternatives “to our disastrous economic status quo.”
The author opens by challenging the basic received truth in neoclassical economics that it is a science, operating under its own set of ineluctable laws and with no political or moral dimension. This alone is worth the price of admission, revealing the increasingly narrow perspective promulgated by academia and the flexibility of thought that comes with the introduction of other disciplines, including history, philosophy, and psychology. Romeo then goes on to survey eight different real-world models based in such heterodox thought: true pricing of consumer goods; the movement for an actual living wage; job guarantees; gig-work platforms that operate as public utilities; worker-owned cooperatives; perpetual purpose trusts that “dethrone shareholder primacy and profit maximization”; participatory budgeting at the municipal level; and the use of private equity to create employee stock ownership plans. Such an exploration may sound technocratic, but Romeo never loses his thread: that these approaches are based on both sound economic policy and a commitment to reject the immiseration of an underclass as an “economic necessity.” Variations on decent, moral, and ethical suffuse the text, continually challenging readers to look beyond cost-benefit analyses; that author argues that “no amount of added value for shareholders…can justify the existence of child labor.” Though the examples Romeo presents are satisfyingly mind-bending, they are largely limited to Europe and the U.S. While this effectively establishes proof of concept in developed economies, it ignores whatever innovation may be taking place in the global south and elsewhere that might further upend traditional economic thought. Nevertheless, it makes a terrific complement to Matthew Desmond’s Poverty, by America for readers looking for practical solutions.
Eschewing both “revolution [and] resignation,” Romeo offers a powerful addition to an urgent debate.