Rag Radio : Political Economist Gar Alperovitz on 'America Beyond Capitalism'

Gar Alperovitz. Image from Vimeo.
America Beyond Capitalism:
Rag Radio interviews Gar Alperovitz

By Thorne Webb Dreyer / The Rag Blog / February 8, 2012

Political economist and historian Gar Alperovitz, author of America Beyond Capitalism: Reclaiming Our Wealth, Our Liberty, and Our Democracy, was Thorne Dreyer's guest on Rag Radio, Friday, February 3, 2012.

The show can be heard here:

Political Economist Gar Alperovitz
on Rag Radio with Thorne Dreyer, Feb. 3, 2012

In America Beyond Capitalism, Gar Alperovitz "expertly diagnoses the long-term structural crisis of the American economic and political system and provides detailed, practical answers to the problems we face as a society." Originally published in 2005, a second edition of America Beyond Capitalism was released in November 2011 by the Democracy Collaborative.

In a February 2, 2012, review in The Rag Blog, Roger Baker said the thrust of Alperovitz's book is "to describe, document, and analyze the increasing failure of capitalism to deliver benefits to the general public." Alperovitz emphasizes "that the whole U.S. economic and political system, both public and private, has now become too top-heavy and removed from popular control to be run democratically from Washington."

Alperovitz advocates alternative, bottom-up, "new economy" strategies "to change a faltering system that increasingly fails to sustain the great American values of equality, liberty, and meaningful democracy."

He has written that "something different has been quietly brewing in recent decades: more and more Americans are involved in co-ops, worker-owned companies, and other alternatives to the traditional capitalist model. We may, in fact, be moving toward a hybrid system, something different from both traditional capitalism and socialism, without anyone even noticing."

Alperovitz, who has a PhD from Cambridge, is the Lionel R. Bauman Professor of Political Economy at the University of Maryland and is co-founder of the Democracy Collaborative. He is the author of a number of critically acclaimed books, and his articles have appeared in The New York Times, the Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, the New Republic, The Nation, and the Atlantic.

The Rag Blog's Roger Baker also participated in this lively and provocative discussion.


Rag Radio, which has aired since September 2009 on KOOP 91.7-FM, a cooperatively-run all-volunteer community radio station in Austin, Texas, features hour-long in-depth interviews and discussion about issues of progressive politics, culture, and history.

Hosted and produced by Rag Blog editor Thorne Dreyer, Rag Radio is broadcast every Friday from 2-3 p.m. (CST) on KOOP and streamed live on the web. After broadcast, all episodes are posted as podcasts and can be downloaded at the Internet Archive.

Rag Radio is also rebroadcast on Sundays at 10 a.m. (EST) on WFTE, 90.3-FM in Mt. Cobb, PA, and 105.7-FM in Scranton, PA. Rag Radio is produced in the KOOP studios, in association with The Rag Blog, a progressive internet newsmagazine, and the New Journalism Project, a Texas 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation.

Tracey Schulz is the show's engineer and co-producer.

[Thorne Dreyer, an influential Sixties underground journalist, was a founding editor of The Rag in Austin and Space City! in Houston. He now edits The Rag Blog, hosts Rag Radio, and is a director of the New Journalism Project. Read more articles by and about Thorne Dreyer on The Rag Blog.]

Please read "Gar Alperovitz's 'America Beyond Capitalism'" by Roger Baker / The Rag Blog / February 2, 2012.

Coming up on Rag Radio:

Feb. 10, 2012: "Tiny Homes" builder Brad Kittel on turning "trash" into sustainable housing.
Feb. 24, 2012: Journalist & labor activist David Bacon, on how U.S. policies fueled Mexico's great migration.

The Rag Blog