The test of a progressive policy is not private but public, not just rising income and consumption for individuals, but widening the opportunities and what Amartya Sen calls the ‘capabilities' of all through collective action. But that means, it must mean, public non-profit initiative, even if only in redistributing private accumulation. That is the basis of progressive policy. Nowhere will this be more important than in tackling the greatest problem facing us this century, the environmental crisis.