We often evaluate and criticize existing society. This book is less about criticism of how things are and more about alternatives. In times of terrible global problems and great gloom, it examines how things could be better. It is an exercise in idealism, but rooted in reality, in the now as much as the future. It is about realistic ways of getting to a better future, also how that future might be organized. It is about alternative societies, how to get to them and what they can be.

There are some key emphases or angles of the book. First, it looks at alternatives in current society and the future, alternative societies across the board, and it tries to branch out in its plurality and breadth. The book brings alternatives together and explores the synergies and tensions between them and is inclusive rather than just focusing on individual alternatives, say, utopianism, prefigurative experiments, socialism, or global politics. So, I hope the book will be of interest to those who want wide coverage. I have tried to be up to date on the alternatives covered. Of course, not every possible alternative is covered, and some are given more space than others. I include critical assessment of the alternatives, but that is not the emphasis. The emphasis is on positive outlining of the alternatives. By ‘prefigurative’ I mean experiments that can be the beginnings of a wider future alternative society: they prefigure broader future social change based on their experiments and lessons. (On prefiguration, see Swain, 2019; Raekstad and Gradin, 2020; Jeffrey and Dyson, 2021; Monticelli, 2022.)

Second, I try not to resort to simplifications or too clean arguments for one thing over another. I do not believe clear oppositions or dichotomies work intellectually or politically. So, I make no apologies that the book argues for pluralism and complexity. However, it does not advocate just a mix-and-match approach. I have genuinely not started with a predetermined perspective, but I think many of the alternatives I look at imply socialism. So, the pluralism and openness end up within a socialist perspective, in an undogmatic but definite framework.