Financial collapse and crisis; disgust at bankers’ greed; the devastating effects of yawning inequality: all these and more have led to widespread dissatisfaction and disenchantment with capitalism. People are crying out for an alternative but are continually told that one does not exist.

In this fully updated new edition Richard Swift examines the past shortcomings and present health of not one but many other paths to changing the world, including socialism, social democracy, anarchism, ecology and degrowth.

Combining the practical with the visionary, he shows that finding alternatives to capitalism is no longer an academic issue for the left – it is an urgent planetary necessity.