Gar Alperovitz’s keynote speech at "The Summit" at Appalachian State in Boone, NC April 2013.
“What Then Must We Do: Straight Talk About The Next American Revolution”
By Gar Alperovitz, originally published by New Economics Institute
May 16, 2013
Gar Alperovitz
Gar Alperovitz is the Lionel R. Bauman professor of political economy at the University of Maryland. He is the author numerous books, including What Then Must We Do? Straight Talk About the Next American Revolution, America Beyond Capitalism and, with Lew Daly, Unjust Deserts. Gar is the co-founder of the Democracy Collaborative, an innovative think tank developing new models for sustainable, equitable and cooperative community development.
In addition to his work in economics, he is also an acclaimed historian whose work has focused on the decision to use atomic weapons at the close of World War II. His articles have appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, the New Republic, The Nation, and the Atlantic among other popular and academic publications. He has been profiled by the New York Times, the Associated Press, People, UPI and Mother Jones and has been a guest on numerous network TV and cable news programs, including “Meet the Press,” “Larry King Live,” “The Charlie Rose Show,” “Cross Fire,” and “the O’Reilly Factor.”
Tags: american dream, changemaking
Related Articles
New tools for growing the commons, and how I discovered them
By Dave Darby, Growing the Commons
After the financial crash of 2008-9, I started to discover tools and ideas that I thought were promising, but discrete and disconnected. But they’re not: they can be (and are being) used together to form networks that have the potential to grow exponentially to challenge the status quo – to build a commons economy, a commons society, a commons world.
March 12, 2026
Chokepoint
By Richard Heinberg, Resilience.org
The 24-mile-wide Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf, through which roughly 20 percent of world oil shipments pass, is an obvious pinch point for a vital industrial resource. But it also serves as an apt metaphor for the brittle global supply chains upon which the entire economy depends.
March 12, 2026
Wide Boundary News: The Iranian War, Rising Gas Prices, and the Single Point Failure
By Nate Hagens, The Great Simplification
In this installment, Nate addresses the U.S. and Israeli military offensive against Iran and traces the reverberating effects that extend far beyond the conflict itself, starting with what the closure of the Strait of Hormuz means for a civilization that routes a massive share of its physical economy through a single maritime corridor.
March 11, 2026




















