The United States boasts one of the healthiest, most powerful economies in the world--but is it ensuring a strong future for itself? In this thought-provoking collaboration, bestselling author and preeminent public intellectual Cornel West and internationally acclaimed social theorist Roberto Mangabeira Unger describe a nation suffering from an educational and health-care meltdown and an ever-growing gap between the rich and the poor. The U.S., they contend, has become a meritocracy, one that is both firmly racist and classist. Why, Unger and West ask, is America, which subscribes to what they term "a religion of possibility" and has a long, rich tradition of innovation, unable to apply its collective genius to solve the vexing problem of our times and preempt the conflicts that threaten our future? Unger and West offer a solution that promises to "mark a path rather than to define a blueprint." They want to return the United States to the deepest goal of democracy: to realize the greatest potential of all citizens. They blast the myth that the nation comprises three major social classes (upper, middle, and lower), and instead suggest that it is divided into four: the high-power professionals and big-business executives, the small-business class, the working class, which includes both blue- and white-collar workers, and the racially stigmatized underclass. Their solution tackles the "poisonous mixture" of racism and classism head-on as they propose health care for all ch