Democracy Realized: The Progressive Alternative [Hardcover]

Roberto Mangabeira Unger (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 1998

Unger gives detailed content to a progressive and practical alternative to neoliberalism and institutionally conservative social democracy in a strategy that has drawn increasing attention throughout the world as well as in his native Brazil.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Unger skillfully summarizes the staid orthodoxy stifling most political and economic thought and articulates unquestioned assumptions that block innovation... His politically astute program recommends policies for both the near and far term. -- A. B. Cochran, Choice, October 1999

About the Author

Robert Mangabeira Unger is Professor of Law at Harvard University. His other books include The Critical Legal Studies Movement, and from Verso, What Should Legal Analysis Become? , and Politics: The Central Texts.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 309 pages
• Publisher: Verso Books (December 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1859849830
• ISBN-13: 978-1859849835
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #262,425 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Recommended book with one flaw, July 13, 2000

By 

K S Sastry (Holmdel, NJ USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Democracy Realized: The Progressive Alternative (Hardcover)

Unger is a proactive progressive who does not want to sit idle when the world is being taken over by currency speculators, multinational investors, and global mutual fund managers, what Thomas Friedman calls the 'electronic herd'. Unger's substantive plea needs to be heeded by every right-thinking denizen of this planet.

Unger is in serious error, howewer, in one important aspects of his action program. His program of taxation, saving and investment flows from the same faulty premises of establishment economists. His sugestion to replace the progressive income tax by a flat consumption tax is outrageous. Several studies have shown that this would exacerbate income inequalities and, in particular, enrich the top income group at the expense of the bottom income group.

I agree with him so far as the desirability of flat tax is concerned so that, among other advantages, this eliminates the scope for discretionary decision-making by the powers that be. But, the way to make sure the change does not adversely affect the lower income groups is to adopt the 'basic income/flat tax' approach advocated by by A.B. Atkinson and others.

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Difficult reading., October 25, 2008

By 

Norman Strojny "retired tech-person" (western desert of Utah) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Democracy Realized: The Progressive Alternative (Paperback)

"Democracy Realized: the progressive alternative" by Roberto Mangabeira Unger is a very difficult book to read. K S Sastry, the only other purchaser/reviewer to date, summarizes the book fairly, but I wish Verso, the book's publisher, had hired a very good writer of English text to work with the author to make this book much more readable. Throughout the book the author consistently uses very complex sentences and complex vocabulary with the result that this book is one of the most difficult to read of any books that I have tried to read.

I believe that Unger has very worthwhile ideas and I wish I understood what he is saying to a greater extent than I can manage with the current text. I am sure the text is worth much more effort by the publisher to make it more readable. At present, I think the text is too difficult for most undergraduate college level readers or casual readers of economics or politics.

Be sure to try to read the book before purchasing it.