Can society truly ever fix inequality and climate change? This book promises a revolutionary path, but are its solutions scalable, replicable, and based on evidence, or just hopeful anecdotes? Is this a realistic picture of widespread change, or a utopian dream? This book demands a critical eye to separate inspiring stories from sustainable solutions but it's nice to think about.

Nick Romeo's THE ALTERNATIVE is designed to challenge preconceived notions of the way things have to be in our world. Covering our major organizational and social structures, Romeo proposes remedies to counter what he views as destructive, unfair, and biased organizations and ways of life. Unfortunately, the book is not the enjoyable debate about ways to reconsider our ways of life. I abandoned reading when the heavy-handed pressure to agree with his views and lightweight sources felt as authoritarian and biased as the very systems he seeks to overthrow. I received a copy of this book and these opinions are my own, unbiased thoughts.

This simply is not a very good book. Its author, Mr. Romeo is a journalist who writes for a far-left magazine, and he is not an economist. Thus, each chapter is like a magazine spread instead of a series of serious proposals. The bottom line is that Nick Romeo is not a fan of capitalism in spite of the fact that individualism is the idea that has lifted almost the entire world from abject poverty and almost total misery. For 3,000 years humankind lived on the edge of starvation and today everyone in the West is over 5,000% better off than they once were.
One can quickly find the deep flaws in Mr. Romeo's research by consulting his rather meager set of footnotes. Perhaps the most common reference in "The Alternative's" footnotes are citations to "press releases" as opposed to the source documents. Amazingly, perhaps his second most common citations are to "blogs" and again not to serious in-depth research. Strikingly, he also references many newspaper stories, and other such unserious resources like "Truthout", "The Jacobin", etc.
The lone reason for anyone to read this book, is if you are interested in learning what America's neo-Marxists are thinking about.