New Books in Critical Theory Nick Romeo, "The Alternative: How to Build a Just Economy" (PublicAffairs, 2024)
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Jan 24, 2026 Nick Romeo, journalist and author who has reported for The New Yorker and taught at UC Berkeley, explores bold alternatives to current economic dogma. He spotlights real-world experiments: True Price accounting, living-wage businesses, a Viennese job guarantee, public gig platforms, perpetual-purpose trusts, and participatory budgeting. Short, concrete stories about rebuilding economies around ethics and accountability.
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Economics Needs Moral And Historical Depth
- Economics has narrowed into mathematical models that downplay history, ethics, and politics.
- Expanding economists' training to include moral and historical perspectives reveals distributional and environmental trade-offs hidden by pure math.
Reveal Hidden Costs With True Pricing
- True Price accounting reveals environmental and social costs that markets hide as externalities.
- Using those prices in policy or corporate accounting reallocates who pays and exposes long-term costs now borne by others.
Legislate Living Wages, Use Firms As Proof
- Make living wages a legislative floor rather than rely solely on voluntary firms.
- Use private examples as proof of concept but legislate to scale fair pay across markets.
