THE CENTER CANNOT HOLD:
Rekindling the Radical Imagination

The ongoing capitalist crisis generated high hopes that the parties and social movements of the Left, both in the U.S. and elsewhere in the world, would be re-energized. So far this has not happened. The Left remains fractured and confused, drifting away from its labor base, while the Right seems to have emerged as the stronger or at least the more strident force. The result is that unemployment remains high, wages low, and insecurity grows. In the U.S., the Obama administration negotiates from the center, and concedes more and more to business interests and political conservatives. Can this be turned around? Can the hardships and opportunities generated by the capitalist crisis yet become the trigger for the revival of a transformative Left?