If not capitalism, what? [intro]

It ain't over till it's made over. The old neoliberal order is in severe crisis, and its leaders in a state of uncertainty and even confusion. But those struggling to help a new order to be born are not prepared.

Preparedness involves organisation and popular mobilisation around proposals that defend people's living standards and livelihoods against attempts to resolve the crisis at their expense. But it is also about grasping a moment when those with power are wobbling on their back foot, and being politically bold and institutionally imaginative enough to build the necessary self-confidence to construct the basis of a new order as we resist.

So, to refresh and sharpen our imaginations, Red Pepper put the question 'If not capitalism, what?' to five people who are working for a new society based on values of social and environmental justice: Leo Panitch, whose Renewing Socialism is reprinted this month in updated form, Robin Blackburn, author of Age Shock: How Finance is Failing Us, eco-socialist writers and activists Martin Ryle and Kate Soper, and Michel Bauwens, the director of the Peer to Peer Foundation.