Here’s an excerpt from the Preface:

This book tells the story of how system change can come to America. At its heart is a vision of an attractive, pleasant, and successful America that is still within our power to realize by mid-century. In this America the Possible, our country will have rejoined the leading nations in realizing social justice and well-being, in building peace and real global security, and in sustaining our planet’s environmental assets both domestically and globally. We will have reclaimed our democracy from what were once quite properly called the “moneyed interests.” And we will have seen a deep transformation in our country’s dominant values and culture.

Now that is all very nice, you might be thinking, but how do we get there? I will endeavor  in this book to chart a course to an America the Possible — a course from today’s decline to tomorrow’s rebirth.

The journey to America the Possible begins when enough Americans have come to some important conclusions. The first is that something is profoundly wrong with our overall political economy — the operating system on which our country now runs. That system is now routinely generating terrible results, and is failing us socially, economically, environmentally, and politically. The second conclusion follows from the first. It is the imperative of system change, of building a new political economy that routinely delivers good results for people and planet.

The third conclusion is that, contrary to what one frequently hears, a better alternative does indeed exist. We certainly do not yet understand all the details of how this alternative will look, and much hard analysis and creative experimentation lie ahead. But we do know enough to have confidence that something much better can be built, and we know enough to start building it.

These conclusions are not today’s conventional wisdom, but more and more people are embracing them. They are the foundation from which the work of system change can move forward. From the vantage point they provide, we can see how the dynamics of fundamental change might emerge. As conditions in our country continue to decline across a wide front, or at best fester as they are, ever-larger numbers of Americans lose faith in the current system and its ability to deliver on the values it proclaims. The system steadily loses support, leading to a crisis and in the environment, grow more numerous and fearsome. In response, progressives of all stripes coalesce, find their voice and their strength, and pioneer the development of a powerful set of new ideas and policy proposals confirming that the path to a better world does indeed exist. Demonstrations and protests multiply, and a popular movement for prodemocracy reform and transformative change is born. At the local level, people and groups plant the seeds of change through a host of innovative initiatives that provide inspirational models of how things might work in a new political economy devoted to sustaining human and natural communities. Sensing the direction in which things are moving, our wiser and more responsible leaders, political and otherwise, rise to the occasion, support the growing movement for change, and frame a compelling story or narrative that makes sense of it all and provides a positive vision of a better America. The movement broadens to become a major national force.

Source: pg. x-xi.