The New Society cannot be created solely among the affluent and well educated. The poor, who more than all others are victims of the present social order, must join in the invention of alternative institutions. An alternative to the existing system of Public Assisttance is proposed which seeks to institutionalize new concepts of work, employment, equality, and community. A theory of social change which leads from the identification of cognitive alternatives toward the reformulation of basic societal norms and values is implicit.