What Should the Left Propose?    
Roberto Mangabeira Unger
Verso
What Should  the Left Propose? is a manifesto that engages a vital question of our  time: where do we go from  here?What Should  the Left Propose? is a manifesto that engages a vital issue of our  time: the program for which Leftists should stand, now that the ideological proposals of the past two  hundred years are exhausted.  Confronting the major debates in the world  today — about national alternatives and alternative globalizations — Unger  shows that there is a set of national and global alternatives that we  can begin to develop with the materials at hand: opportunities  available to us only if we learn to recognize them. These alternatives  would, over time, vastly enhance our practical capabilities. They would  also give greater reality to the central teaching of democracy: faith  in the constructive genius of ordinary men and women.   For Unger, a programmatic argument is not a blueprint; it marks a direction and explores next steps. He explores the form this direction could take in the European social democracies, in the United States, in the developing countries, and in the contest over the reform of globalization. He shows how the Left in power can do more than use compensatory redistribution to sugarcoat economic inequality, and how it can make good on its ideals without reaffirming a discredited commitment to governmental control of the economy.