In the past, the political Left in capitalist democracies vigorously
defended the affirmative state against these kinds of argument. In its
most radical form, revolutionary socialists argued that public ownership
of the principal means of production combined with centralized
state planning offered the best hope for a just, humane, and egalitarian
society. But even those on the Left who rejected revolutionary visions
of ruptures with capitalism insisted that an activist state was essential
to counteract a host of negative effects generated by the dynamics of
capitalist economies – poverty, unemployment, increasing inequality,
under-provision of public goods like training and public health. In the
absence of such state interventions, the capitalist market becomes a
“Satanic mill,” in Karl Polanyi’s metaphor, that erodes the social foundations
of its own existence.1 These defenses of the affirmative state
have become noticeably weaker in recent years, both in their rhetorical
force and in their practical political capacity to mobilize. Although the
Left has not come to accept unregulated markets and a minimal state as
morally desirable or economically efficient, it is much less certain that
the institutions it defended in the past can achieve social justice and
economic well-being in the present