Not surprisingly, the swift unraveling of the global economy combined with the ascent to the US presidency of an African-American liberal has left millions anticipating that the world is on the threshold of a new era.
Some of President-elect Barack Obama's new appointees — particularly ex-Treasury Secretary Larry Summers to lead the National Economic Council, New York Federal Reserve Board chief Tim Geithner to head Treasury, and former Dallas Mayor Ron Kirk to serve as trade representative — have certainly elicited some skepticism. But the sense that the old neoliberal formulas are thoroughly discredited has convinced many that the new Democratic leadership in the world's biggest economy will break with the market fundamentalist policies that have reigned since the early 1980s.
One important question is how decisive and definitive the break with neoliberalism will be. Other questions go to the heart of capitalism itself, however. Will government ownership, intervention, and control be exercised simply to stabilize capitalism, after which control will be given back to the corporate elites? Are we going to see a second round of Keynesian capitalism, where the state and corporate elites work out a partnership with labor based on industrial policy, growth and high wages, though with a green dimension this time around?
Or will we witness the beginnings of fundamental shifts in the ownership and control of the economy in a more popular direction? There are limits to reform in the system of global capitalism, but at no other time in the last half-century have those limits seemed more fluid.
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