Government Alone Can’t Solve Society’s Biggest Problems World hunger. Climate change. Crumbling infrastructure. It’s clear that in today’s era of fiscal constraints and political gridlock, we can no longer turn to government alone to tackle these and other towering social problems. What’s required is a new, more collaborative and productive economic system. The Solution Revolution brings hope—revealing just such a burgeoning new economy where players from across the spectrum of business, government, philanthropy, and social enterprise converge to solve big problems and create public value. By erasing public-private sector boundaries, the solution economy is unlocking trillions of dollars in social benefit and commercial value. Where tough societal problems persist, new problem solvers are crowdfunding, ridesharing, app-developing, or impact-investing to design innovative new solutions for seemingly intractable problems. Providing low-cost health care, fighting poverty, creating renewable energy, and preventing obesity are just a few of the tough challenges that also represent tremendous opportunities for those at the vanguard of this movement. They create markets for social good and trade solutions instead of dollars to fill the gap between what government can provide and what citizens need. So what drives the solution economy? Who are these new players and how are their roles changing? How can we grow the movement? And how can we participate? Deloitte’s William D. Eggers and Paul Macmillan answer these questions and more, and they introduce us to the people and organizations driving the revolution—from edgy social enterprises growing at a clip of 15 percent a year, to megafoundations, to Fortune 500 companies delivering social good on the path to profit. Recyclebank, RelayRides, and LivingGoods are just a few of the innovative organizations you’ll read about in this book. Government cannot handle alone the huge challenges facing our global society—and it shouldn’t. We need a different economic paradigm that can flexibly draw on resources, combine efforts, and create value, while improving the lives of citizens. The Solution Revolution shows the way.

"In the 20th and 21st century revolutions have become more urban, often less violent, but also more frequent and more transformative of the international order. Whether it is the revolutions against Communism in Eastern Europe and the USSR; the "color revolutions" across Asia, Europe and North Africa; or the religious revolutions in Iran, Afghanistan, and Syria; today's revolutions are quite different from those of the past. Modern theories of revolution have therefore replaced the older class-based theories with more varied, dynamic, and contingent models of social and political change. This new edition updates the history of revolutions, from Classical Greece and Rome to the Revolution of Dignity in the Ukraine, with attention to the changing types and outcomes of revolutionary struggles. It also presents the latest advances in the theory of revolutions, including the issues of revolutionary waves, revolutionary leadership, international influences, and the likelihood of revolutions to come. This volume provides a brief but comprehensive introduction to the nature of revolutions and their role in global history"--

Teen Vogue award-winning columnist Lauren Duca shares a smart and funny guide for challenging the status quo in a much-needed reminder that young people are the ones who will change the world. A columnist at Teen Vogue, Lauren Duca has become a fresh and authoritative voice on the experience of millennials in today’s society. In these pages she explores the post-Trump political awakening and lays the groundwork for a re-democratizing moment as it might be built out of the untapped potential of young people. Duca investigates and explains the issues at the root of our ailing political system and reimagines what an equitable democracy would look like. It begins with young people getting involved. People like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the youngest woman ever to be elected to Congress; David and Lauren Hogg, two survivors of the Parkland, Florida shooting who went on to become advocates for gun control; Amanda Litman, who founded the nonprofit organization Run For Something, to assist progressive young people in down ballot elections; and many more. Called “the millennial feminist warrior queen of social media” by Ariel Levy and “a national newsmaker” by The New York Times, Dan Rather agrees “we need fresh, intelligent, and creative voices—like Lauren’s—now as much—perhaps more—than ever before.” Here, Duca combines extensive research and first-person reporting to track her generation’s shift from political alienation to political participation. Throughout, she also draws on her own story as a young woman catapulted to the front lines of the political conversation (all while figuring out how to deal with her Trump-supporting parents).

"Never before have so many Americans been more frustrated with our economic system, more fearful that it is failing, or more open to fresh ideas about a new one. The seeds of a new economy--and, if we act upon it, a new system--are forming. What is that next system? It's not corporate capitalism, not state socialism, but something else--something entirely American. In What Then Must We Do?, Gar Alperovitz speaks directly to the reader about why the time is right for a revolutionary new economy movement, what it means to democratize the ownership of wealth, what it will take to build a new system to replace the decaying one--and how to strengthen our communities through cooperatives, worker-owned companies, neighborhood corporations, small and medium-size independent businesses, and publicly owned enterprises. For the growing group of Americans pacing at the edge of confidence in the old system, or already among its detractors, What Then Must We Do? offers an evolutionary, common-sense solution for moving from despair and anger to strategy and action."--Publisher's website.

The problems of the 21st century are of unprecedented scale. Climate change, financial instability, the housing crisis, the need for health care: all of these are political issues that could be managed with ease on a much smaller scale. But with an enormous global population, that kind of change is no longer an option. As a result, some of the large bodies we once appointed to manage macroscopic problems--such as the government--have begun to fail us. Never was this more clear than during Hurricane Katrina, when individual efforts and decentralized organizations were more efficient, swifter, and better suited to the task than, say, FEMA. But, according to the hard-charging and ambitious Jared Duval, there is good news. Accompanying the expansion of these social problems has been an explosion in information technology, and we are quickly discovering the power of collaboration. Obama's town hall meetings are just the beginning of something larger--a movement towards what he refers to as "open-source" principles. By sharing information and letting systems grow themselves, we can devise new programs that will tackle these sprawling problems. Kiva's innovative micro-lending principles are making impressive progress with huge, intractable problems like world hunger and poverty. The Open-Source Society is more than a persuasive argument, though. It is a manifesto, a narrative both personal and reportorial, and an empowering call to arms. Duval's spirit and intelligence are infectious, and his message is important.

Theda Skocpol, author of the award-winning 1979 book States and Social Revolutions, updates her arguments about social revolutions.

As the climate crisis worsens, we must look to revolutionary strategy for justice