Adapted from Lisa Duggan, The Twilight of Equality: Neoliberalism, Cultural Politics and the Attack on Democracy (Boston: Beacon Press, 2003).

Overview

We are living in a dangerous and uncertain time. A breakdown in multilateral cooperation in global politics, accompanying the revival of an overtly violent assertion of U.S. imperial power in the Middle East, puts the fate of millions in the hands of a few. At the same time, inequality among nations and within the United States continues to grow at a dizzying pace. And in response to the continuing economic downturn inaugurated when the dot-com bubble burst in the late 1990s, the executive branch of government in the United States advocates cuts in the budget for social services and public welfare, yet proposes more increases in military and security spending. The twenty-first century is off to a frightening start.

And yet, this dangerous and tragic start also presents opportunities for a renewed politics of equality and democracy within the United States and around the world. Neoliberal dominance, seemingly invincible from the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 through the 1990s, is under attack as never before. Economic and financial crises - in Mexico in 1994, in Asia in 1997 - ignited long simmering conflicts between wealthy Western creditor nations and the debtor nations of the poorer, developing world. The staggering crash of technology/dot-com stocks listed on the U.S. NASDAQ index punctured the confidence of investors and gutted the bank accounts of a significant proportion of the American middle class. Resulting public fury helped propel the exposure of corrupt financial practices and widespread corporate greed. And the use of military force in the Middle East exposed the coercive underbelly of purportedly benign U.S. foreign relations and trade policies.

But such disillusionments and exposures will produce opportunities for progressive left politics only if we are prepared to seize them. This moment of violent rupture in the smooth operations of neoliberal policies might be repaired through the construction of a reformed neoliberal hegemony, rebuilt through brutality, and poised to extract yet more of the earth's surplus for the benefit of the wealthiest one percent of the world's population. Or opposition and resistance to violence and inequality around the world might coalesce into a new social movement strong enough to change our historical course.