Charles A. Reich's new book breaks the prolonged silence of progressive voices in the face of increasing social breakdown. Carrying forward the analysis in his best-selling classic, The Greening of America, he calls for a fundamental change of direction before our country is torn apart by internal conflict. The past twenty-five years have demonstrated that uncontrolled economic power destroys the organic basis of human society, causing insecurity, depletion of earnings, the unraveling of family connections, the rise of inequality, poverty, violence and crime, and the malignant neglect of our social and natural habitat. We make things worse by blaming each other, attacking symptoms rather than causes, abandoning our principles and ideals, and attempting an impossible return to the past.
Opposing the System provides a more intelligible picture of our world and a more penetrating diagnosis of our malady than has heretofore been available. It shows how efforts at reform, including the counterculture and mainstream liberalism, failed not because of unattainable goals but because of reliance on a false map of reality - a map shared with today's conservatives. Once this map is discarded, we regain our ability to imagine a far better and more hopeful future. With both political parties committed to essentially the same pro-System course, there is no institutional means for stopping the ongoing destruction of our society. Accordingly, Charles Reich declares the time has arrived for opposition to the System as a whole. We must condemn it as both morally bankrupt and as a threat to the survival of our species. We must reassert our sovereign power as citizens to create a society respectful of nature and human needs.