What is needed for an alternative future is to shift the context away from business, empire, development, and progress. To shift the narrative from business perspective to community perspective, from empire to neighborhood, from consumer to citizen, from scarcity to abundance. To seek an alternative future by ways of thinking we call “communal restoration.” This is the alternative to imperial, business-minded reform.

Listening, not imitation, may be the sincerest form of flattery. Dr. Joyce Brothers (1928 – )

Restoration replaces development and management with engagement. It values uniqueness over consistency, participation over control, and surprise over predictability. These lead to alternatives to individualism, market competition, privatization, and more expertise. We focus on interdependence, on market generosity, on cooperative and communal structures, and on the power of un-credentialed voices. Where the business perspective and empire are seemingly good for privatization, the communal and neighborhood perspective serves the common good. This perspective gives power to reform. It gives power to citizens. And in fact is the only process where reform has taken hold. All of this, then, seeks a communal, rather than imperial context.