Book Review: The Future We Need: Organizing for a Better Democracy in the Twenty-First Century, by Erica Smiley and Sarita Gupta

Abstract

For decades, a key critique of the left has been that we cannot articulate what we are fighting for, only what we are against. For far too long social and economic justice movements have advanced single issue struggles, knowing that, as Audre Lorde states, “we do not live singleissue lives” (Sister Outsider, 1984). The Future We Need talks back (bell hooks, Talking Back, 1989) to these long-held critiques with a big vision for shaping the multiracial, feminist, economic democracy that we can all live into. The vision Erica Smiley and Sarita Gupta articulate is rooted in intersectional approaches that engage laboring people as whole people, and the North Star is to fundamentally broaden democratic practices such that we are able to negotiate with any entity exercising power over the conditions of our lives. Listening to the “special voice” (Mari Matsuda, “Looking to the Bottom,” 1987) of worker leaders is central to the dialogic practice of this co-authored text. Through a collection of “profiles of modern workers,” the authors present a body of counternarratives that invite audiences to think about the interior lives of worker leaders, to hear their motivations, and to connect with their struggles and their joy. These stories are not simply bullet-pointed examples included to amplify Smiley and Gupta’s viewpoints; instead, they provide anchors throughout the text. Many of the worker voices featured are women of color whose experiences illuminate the interlocking systems of oppression that exclude them from basic opportunities and protections. These stories are then put into historical and political contexts relevant to sectors of work, geography, cultural norms, key events, financescapes (Arjun Appadurai, 1990, 1996, 2006), and the (federal, state, and local) legislation that animates the living and working conditions that motivated these workers to take action. Lane Windham’s Knocking on Labor’s Door (2017) spotlights historical narratives that reveal an overlooked vibrancy in worker justice movements; The Future We Need builds on that work by offering contemporary narratives and lessons that can be replicated in this moment.