Apparently we had the capability for collective action at one time, but most of us weren't around then.
The political order of the New Deal lasted from roughly the Great Depression until about 1980. It wasn't just about government actions, it was more about how most people understood the world what it means to live a good life. That way of thinking about the world enabled collective action to improve the standard of living for most people, reduce poverty and inequality, give most people better health, housing and longer lives, faster and safer transportation, dignity in old age, etc.
But that political order was replaced by neoliberalism, which started in the 1980s and probably ended at the 2008 financial collapse. Again, it was not only a new political order, it was a shift in how people understood the world and their place in it. It was a time of deregulation, globalized commerce and capital flows, and the supremacy of market-based solutions. We got dramatic increases in inequality, unimaginable individual wealth combined with tent cities and a resurgence of infectious disease.
It's hard to imagine accomplishing big collective goals like building an interstate highway system, or implementing social security, or winning a world war against fascism, if all that hadn't been done already.
We might not even be capable of maintaining what previous generations were able to build from nothing.
I've spent my life swimming in the water of neoliberalism so it's almost impossible to imagine that there are alternatives. It feels like effective collective action for the greater good has never been possible and never will be.
The political order of the New Deal lasted from roughly the Great Depression until about 1980. It wasn't just about government actions, it was more about how most people understood the world what it means to live a good life. That way of thinking about the world enabled collective action to improve the standard of living for most people, reduce poverty and inequality, give most people better health, housing and longer lives, faster and safer transportation, dignity in old age, etc.
But that political order was replaced by neoliberalism, which started in the 1980s and probably ended at the 2008 financial collapse. Again, it was not only a new political order, it was a shift in how people understood the world and their place in it. It was a time of deregulation, globalized commerce and capital flows, and the supremacy of market-based solutions. We got dramatic increases in inequality, unimaginable individual wealth combined with tent cities and a resurgence of infectious disease.
It's hard to imagine accomplishing big collective goals like building an interstate highway system, or implementing social security, or winning a world war against fascism, if all that hadn't been done already.
We might not even be capable of maintaining what previous generations were able to build from nothing.
I've spent my life swimming in the water of neoliberalism so it's almost impossible to imagine that there are alternatives. It feels like effective collective action for the greater good has never been possible and never will be.