The crisis of the progressive motion is so evident that nothing less than a fundamental rethinking of its basic assumptions is required. Today’s progressives now work for professional organizations more comfortable with the within game in Washington DC (and capitols throughout the Western world), where these are outmatched and outspent by commercial interests.

In Simply no Shortcuts, Jane McAlevey argues that progressives can win, but lack the organized power to enact significant transformation, to outlast their about No Shortcuts: Organizing for Power in the brand new Gilded Age bosses in labor fights, and to keep elected leaders accountable. Drawing upon her encounter like a scholar and longtime organizer in the student, environmental, and labor motions, McAlevey examines situations from labor unions and sociable motions to pinpoint the elements that helped them succeed-or fail-to accomplish their intended goals. McAlevey makes a convincing case that the great social movements of previous eras gained their power from mass organizing, a strategy today’s progressives possess mostly abandoned in favor of shallow mobilization or advocacy. She ultimately concludes that, to be able to earn, progressive movements need strong unions built from bottom-up arranging strategies that place the power for change in the hands of employees and ordinary people at the city level.