In 1980, the New Deal Coalition, which controlled much of American politics for almost a half-century collapsed, never, like Humpty Dumpty, to be put back together again. It was replaced by a more direct corporate rule, maybe best described as unfettered corporate rule, with sprinklings of various elements of the 1960s cultural revolution, the only fragments showing any growth over the following decades.
By the beginning of the 90s, what might euphemistically be called the economic Left, was comprised of aging New Dealers and a few remnant socialists. United by one thing, a complete lack of interest in any thought to why a once dominant coalition collapsed. “The economy will fall and and we'll get back in,” was pretty much the only thinking. After all, that was how the coalition was first created.
Then, the Soviet Union imploded. A few, very few, thought, “This is great, finally things will open up from this decrepit and increasingly worthless dichotomy of capitalism and socialism.” But no, that didn't happen. Instead, America became inflicted by what Mikhail Gorbachev called a “victor's complex,” America was right about everything. Phew, looking at where the US and world were in the 90s and to believe we had everything figured was an amazing bit of hubris and delusion, the lack of political imagination complete.
Inconceivably, this deficit of imagination grew even greater over the last decade as a neo-socialism resurrected. Certainly, the tightening grip of corporate power and the resulting decades growth in inequity were making people cry for an alternative, but socialism? It made you throw your hands up, shake your head, and go all Old Testament, “Where there is no vision, the people perish.”
This recognition of a deficit of American and global political imagination is not new. It was realized most acutely by historian Lawrence Goodwyn, whose book, The Populist Moment: A Short History of the Agrarian Revolt in America, is one of the great works of American history. Goodwyn's book documents one of the greatest democratic movements in American history. It’s failure resulting in the fall of America's yeoman farm republic, crushed by the forces of industrialization. Today, it needs to be asked, did the American republic itself survive industrialization? A pretty good argument can be made, no, it didn't.
On the lack of political imagination, Goodwyn writes in 1978,
“As a body of political ideas, socialism in America—as in so many other countries—never developed a capacity for self-generating creativity. It remained in intellectual servitude to sundry theorists—mostly dead theorists—even as the unfolding history of the 20th century raised compelling new questions about the most difficult political problem facing mankind: the centralization of power in highly technological societies. If it requires an army responsive to a central political committee to domesticate the corporate state, socialism has overwhelmingly failed to deal with the question of who, in the name of democratic values, would domesticate the party and the army. In face of such a central impasse, it requires a rather grand failure of imagination to sustain the traditional socialist faith.”
Goodwyn adds,
“Modern politics takes place wholly within the narrowed boundaries of the corporate state. In most circles, it is now considered bad manners to venture outside these boundaries. While most Americans do not venture, they also do not celebrate the limits. They cannot, however, find a culturally sanctioned way to express their anxiety politically. A heartfelt but unfocused discontent about 'politics' has therefore become a centerpiece of the popular subculture across the nation.”
This discontent grew, today, it is no longer a subculture, it is the popular political culture itself. If the US were to evolve its politics and revive democracy, filling the deficit of political imagination would be a necessary first step.
The most imaginative contemporary political organization I'm aware of that's working toward democratic ends is LANDS (Jamaica).
The most imaginative contemporary political theorist I'm aware of that's working toward democratic ends is Nia Frome.