Lappé (cofounder of Food First, the American News Service, and the Small Planet Institute) criticizes the dominant understanding of American democracy and proposes an alternate understanding of "Living Democracy" that she believes is needed to renew and revitalize the American political system. She identifies four problems constricting democracy: the belief that having just two political parties is the "American way," the role of campaign spending in our elections, free-market absolutism, and the idea that the sole responsibility of corporations is to the financial bottom line. She then describes examples of how various Americans are acting out "Living Democracy" practices, from economics and politics to food and the media. She concludes with a vision of how such practices can be connected in an overarching framework for transforming the whole society. Jossey-Bass is an imprint of Wiley. Annotation ©2006 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
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Three out of five Americans, both Republicans and Democrats, feel our country is headed in the wrong direction. America is at the edge, a critical place at which we can either renew and revitalize or give in and lose that most precious American ideal—democracy—and along with it the freedom, fairness, and opportunities it assures. Democracy’s Edge is a rousing battle cry that we can—and must—act now. From Jefferson to Eisenhower, presidents from both parties have warned us of the danger of letting a closed, narrow group of business and government officials concentrate power over our lives. Yet today, a small and unrepresentative group of people is making vital decisions for all of us.But this crisis is only a symptom, Lappé argues. It’s a symptom of thin democracy, something done to us or for us, not by or with us. Such democracy is always at risk of being stolen by private interests or extremist groups, left and right. But there is a solution. The answer, says Lappé, is Living Democracy, a powerful yet often invisible citizens’ revolution surging in communities across America. It’s not random, disjointed activism but the emergence of a new historical stage of democracy in which Americans realize that democracy isn’t something we have but something we do. Either we live it or lose it, says Lappé.
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