This collection of essays highlights the need for sociological and political analysis of actual alternatives to capitalism and the existing system of so-called nation states. It challenges the conventional idea that capitalism can be successfully reformed to meet the needs of most people in the world, confronting it with the existential threats posed by the perfect storm of climate change and the Anthropocene, hyper-urbanization, and the Coronavirus pandemic. Written over a period of 50 years, it charts the ways in which capitalism and socialism have evolved as global systems, their successes and failures, to the point that "it is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism". It offers ways forward, community by community.