"As Grey demonstrates, capitalism promises equality and freedom of expression but instead produces gross inequality with control of the state and access to dominant economic resources available to only a select few. That makes choice of lifestyle, opportunity for creativity, and freedom of expression extremely limited for the vast majority, who are then persuaded, at least recently, that the only viable alternative is neoliberalism. Rather than mitigating their problems, that intensifies the gap between the elite and everyone else. Grey considers alternatives and concludes that communism, at least in the Stalinist and Maoist forms, has been brutally more repressive than democratic capitalism. He recommends social democracy, which retains private corporations but regulates them to reduce gross poverty, gives average citizens meaningful choices of lifestyle, and prevents the ultra-rich from dominating the government. Recommended. " Choice

"Far more than a critique of capitalism and political form, Capitalism and the Alternatives is a courageous and lucid expression of political thought that will intrigue and provoke the educated reader. " Tim Thomas, author of A City with a Difference: the Rise and Fall of the Montreal Citizen's Movement