Called "the first political manifesto of the 21st century," The Next Deal was one of the top-selling political books of 2001. Since then, its takes on what is occurring in government, business, and community life have not only been born out but have become even more relevant. The Next Deal examined the roles technological and generational change have played over the course of American history and laid out a progressive vision for government and community life in the 21st century. The book detailed how American life is being remade by a new desire for individualized choice and personal decision-making power. The Los Angeles Times praised the book as "visionary in scope" and it has been lauded by everyone from Al Gore who called it "a roadmap of what Democrats should fight for in the 21st century" to even Newt Gingrich who called it "one of the most thoughtful books about...the information age to be produced by anyone of any ideological background." In 2005, the Financial Times reported that The Next Deal "has become required reading" in Britain's Labour government.
About The Next Deal by Andrei Cherny:
One hundred years ago, the Progressives remade American government and community life for their own changing times - a moment that saw the birth of assembly line factories and one-size-fits-all products. In response, they built a government that was big, centralized, hierarchical, and bureaucratic. It is the 20th century government we all know.
As the 21st century begins, America is changing again. Today, modern workplaces are geared toward empowering their employees with more personal decision-making power. Today, businesses are built on the idea of giving consumers a seemingly endless number of individual choices and personalized products.
But government lags behind those changes. We have an assembly line government in an Information Age; a politics that runs on the fumes of scandal and soundbites because its ideas have run out of gas.
We need fresh and brave thinking about government - a path forward that fits the world of this new century and the outlook of today's young people.
The Next Deal shows us how to:
- Take government decisions from bureaucrats and give them to ordinary Americans.
- Break the stranglehold of powerful special interests on Washington.
- Fix our failing public school system.
- Require all young people to give a year of citizen service to their nation.
- Return America to our bottom-up Jeffersonian roots and turn away from our modern top-down Hamiltonian rule.
- Amend the Constitution to allow national initiatives.
- Bring the promise of the New Economy to every American.
Read the Preface to The Next Deal by Andrei Cherny
