Yes, There Is an Alternative — George Monbiot and Jeremy Lent
George Monbiot and Jeremy Lent challenge growth-based capitalism and explore real-world models for a regenerative economy, from Mondragón to Kerala.
Why we picked this
Two of the sharpest critics of extractive capitalism, bringing actual examples (Mondragón, Kerala, Jackson, Mississippi) rather than abstract alternatives. The title is a direct challenge to Thatcher's most famous claim.
George Monbiot and Jeremy Lent sit down for a conversation that takes Margaret Thatcher’s declaration that “there is no alternative” and meets it head-on. What would society look like if organized around regeneration and thriving rather than extraction, exploitation, and elite wealth accumulation?
The conversation draws on Lent’s book Ecocivilization: Making a World that Works for All and ranges across real-world examples from the Mondragón cooperatives in Spain to community-wealth models in Jackson, Mississippi, and Kerala, India. This is political economy at its most concrete: not what we should do in theory, but what people are already doing.