The Emerging Worldview: How New Progressivism Is Moving Beyond Neoliberalism
January 15, 2020
By Felicia Wong
Measured conventionally, very little about today’s politics makes sense. Many attempts to explain the chaos point to political partisanship or regional animosity, but we believe that the chaos is a sign of something deeper: the death of one worldview and the ascent of another.
The neoliberal ideal—that markets would create both economic and political freedom and that our economy and politics should therefore privilege individual private choice and profit-driven private-sector companies above all—has dominated our thinking in the US and around the world for decades. The empirical results are clear though: Neoliberalism has failed, decimating economic growth and stability, driving racial and gender inequality, and hollowing out democracy itself.
As we awaken from the neoliberal trance, what we need is a coherent worldview that encompasses a new set of common understandings: about how our economy can work for more people, how our politics and society can solve problems, and how we can live our values.
In The Emerging Worldview: How New Progressivism Is Moving Beyond Neoliberalism, Roosevelt President and CEO Felicia Wong reviews the work of over 150 thinkers across a range of disciplines and finds the signs of a new progressivism as a promising alternative to neoliberalism.
“The data, the research, and the policy proposals show a path toward a healthier, more balanced economy and democracy,” she says. “Whether and how progressives get there will depend on the politics and on their ability to develop a common language and make common cause across a wealth of thinking that believes, most of all, in the public good.”
