<p><em>What Shouldthe Left Propose?</em> is a manifesto that engages a vital issue of ourtime: the program for which Leftists should stand, now that the ideological proposals of the past twohundred years are exhausted.</p><p>Confronting the major debates in the worldtoday - about national alternatives and alternative globalizations - Ungershows that there is a set of national and global alternatives that wecan begin to develop with the materials at hand: opportunitiesavailable to us only if we learn to recognize them. These alternativeswould, over time, vastly enhance our practical capabilities. They wouldalso give greater reality to the central teaching of democracy: faithin the constructive genius of ordinary men and women. </p><p>For Unger, a programmatic argument is not a blueprint; it marks a direction and explores next steps. He explores the form this direction could take in the European social democracies, in the United States, in the developing countries, and in the contest over the reform of globalization. He shows how the Left in power can do more than use compensatory redistribution to sugarcoat economic inequality, and how it can make good on its ideals without reaffirming a discredited commitment to governmental control of the economy.</p>