The dictionary of alternatives

Utopianism and organisation

Martin Parker, Valerie Fournier, Patrick Reedy, Zed Books, 338 pages, paperback, £16.99

So what is the alternative? This is the question that this A-to-Z reference guide proposes to answer. It is written to break the 21st-century orthodoxy that there is no alternative to “free market liberalism and managerialism”. It argues against the established view that everything is already set in stone or is simply beyond our control.

Organisation is defined as the process through which we institutionalise our activities.So, drawing on fiction, history and politics, this dictionary promotes ways of reorganising our society.

It contains hundreds of alphabetically ordered entries and cross-references, showing that there are many alternatives to how we live. It covers everything from the principles of bartering, and community-supported agriculture to Christiania, the self-governing district in Copenhagen established by a mass squat in 1971.

It’s an interesting book, which is easy to dip in and out of. And it takes its ideas from across the spectrum — one entry is a description of the concept of worker self- management where those who produce control their workplaces, and then it describes Zakat, where according to Islamic law every individual who is able to must make a payment of 1/40th of their annual income to the poor and needy.

There is plenty to think about here, but this list of possible alternatives is also an entertaining read.