Economic Policy and the Progressive Idea

Recent events in different countries suggest that institutional change is discontinuous and may lead to abrupt change. A specific case is shifts in social consensus. The article focuses on the latter. It argues that people make sense of their lives in relation to how they situate themselves within society. Their identities depend on the degree to which they are capable consciously to conduct their lives. Undesired economic change may disrupt previous identities and cause cognitive dissonance. At the collective level, it may trigger in-group versus out-group dynamics that provide a fictitious identity and either reinforce the status quo or suddenly subvert it.Neoliberalism caused such undesired changes. A progressive alternative cannot rely just on convincing people that a change in conventional economic measures is desirable. It requires a recovery of people’s active and conscious self-identification. This involves overcoming their forced adaptation to the status quo through participation and collective action