continuation of a progression from divine rulers to "the people." Right now most is "diffusing" to the people who count their wealth in the hundreds of millions and up, of course.

Sorry. He's right, what he's calling "nation-states" aren't dead. Just voted in mine last week, so I know it's still here, and my DIL became a U.S. citizen the week before. The arguments he chooses to refute that our states are "dead" are unsupportable of course, whoever's presumably making them, and equally of course are promptly knocked down. Massive dark money isn't spent to influence elections because government and who runs it don't matter.

But my literal mind is always irritated by this kind of silly premise. I really need a more active sense of humor. At the moment this premise is making me think of some of the hats wedding guests are wearing on the screen, and I'm not even smiling. The coffeemaker's broken.

I think part of it is that he keeps splashing the term neoliberal all over. He's writing from over the pond, and I hope as an economist he means strongly economically conservative/laissez-faire.

But these days over here, that word's most used in leftist anti-Democratic propaganda because having "liberal" in a conservative term makes it a good tool for deception. It was used all over DU in 2015-2016 by dissidents who didn't know or care what it meant, just that it sounded insulting.

Speaking of propaganda, I notice another title on this blog claims "the Left propaganda" insists the state is, not dead, but powerless. Maybe the Irish left, but not me. If I were religious, I'd be praying every day that we get control of both houses of congress and that a rogue golf ball deliver us from evil, although a tribulation of them would probably be required.

But, as Mitchell wrote, it's basically, "...cutting expenditures on public sector employment and social programs; culled the public capacity to offer apprenticeships and training programs, and set about dismantling what they claimed to be supply impediments (such as labour regulations, minimum wages, social security payments and the like)."

It's been overused in describing mainstream Democrats, but I can't argue against the point that some Democrats have contributed to the problem (I'm looking at you, Bill Clinton).

Not "overused," Garrett78. Neoliberalism, effectively laissez-faire capitalism, is right-wing economic extremism, which is not only not supported by the Democratic Party but is completely inimical to the liberal values our party is based on.

This baldfaced lie is promoted by ignorant fools, malicious players, and insidious liars. And by its use this way we identify them. Same as we would someone trying to knife us on the street.

Those hostile to Democrats on BOTH sides work against the Democratic Party by casting blame for conservative crimes on Democrats. Conservatives confuse voters with this tactic. But worse are those on the left who use it to sabotage America's huge and only liberal progressive party, then of course also blame Democrats for the harm they themselves cause.

Here's reality:

ALL those programs you mention were created by the liberal-controlled Democratic Party and, in the past, by also allying with liberals and moderate conservatives in the Republican Party. ALL future progressive advances will be created by the Democratic Party. We're it.

And that's because political liberals are the people who are caring enough, numerous enough, and competent enough to make them happen. WE do it, usually creating majorities by convincing moderate conservatives to work with us.

But always against great opposition. That's because half the citizens of our democracy either oppose most progressive programs outright or want them severely limited. The conservative half.

To get ANYTHING done, at least permanently, the Democratic Party must get at least some cooperation from some Republican legislators. And that, SOP, requires concessions in writing legislation.

Which brings us back to political actors like this author, Garrett78. Education does not reform dishonesty, merely helps hostile actors develop language as a more effective weapon.

You know, the opposition of conservatives doesn't offend me a tenth as much as the opposition from those, like this author, who say, and sometimes believe with astonishing hypocrisy, that they support liberal ideals but spend their lives trying to kneecap liberals while they work to achieve and protect those ideals.

So-called welfare reform, NAFTA, tinkering with the idea of privatizing Social Security, "the era of big government is over," etc., etc., etc.

Mind you, Bill Clinton is still infinitely better than any Republican...and, fortunately, it seems the Democratic Party is continuing to move away from Clinton-esque governance.

era, when 3/4 of the nation shifted farther right. Even large numbers of Democrats were affected by the new conservative mood that replaced the long, spectacular run of the New Deal era.

As a progressive liberal Democrat in those years, I was unhappy with much of the legislation he signed, but I understood that in those years the liberal Democratic Party was struggling to retain enough power, in national politics definitely but also in most states, to be able to offset the conservatism of this new era and protect our gains from the decades before. Representative government under Republicans wasn't wholly broken then, and "the people" wanted a retrenching, a return to what they imagined were the good old ways.

Authors you've clearly read who point to Clinton era actions as representative of what Democratic liberalism is, and what the Democratic Party of this era is trying to achieve, are either inadvertently passing on their own ignorance or deliberately trying to deceive you.

Here's a link to our 2016 platform. Another lie no one should believe is that what's in it is irrelevant. It is our statement of purpose, even if far too ambitious to achieve in one presidency.

But just scan the parts of it that most interest you and imagine what would happen to Republican power if, instead of believing their insidious lies, all Americans genuinely understood that this is what the grand, extremely diverse coalition that is the Democratic Party wants for us all. Versions of this, morphing to reflect our current needs and moods, are always in our dreams, and hopefully a little refresher from our party itself will also inspire. It's not lost, just delayed.

https://www.democrats.org/party-platform

I'm not. The OP article is all about refuting the notion that the nation-state is dead (a notion promoted by some leftists, which plays right into the hands of anti-government, neoliberal right wingers). It's not dead. It's just been hijacked.

The OP article is a critique of another article that was recently posted here at DU. As liberal Democrats, we mustn't give in to this idea that the nation-state (or effective government) is dead and gone.

Again, we all have no problem recognizing a real knife coming at us. But words make bloody fools of most who aren't watching for incoming.

We need to all understand that words are routinely weaponized into the political equivalent of knives, or poisoned Kool-Aid for another analogy. We much watch out and recognize when our thoughts are under attack.

As for this author's purpose, I haven't examined official premise for validity, just got hooked by the reality that this article is (also?) a vehicle for delivery of weaponized words. The official theme of any article may be a valid message on its own. Sometimes, instead, the putative message is actually about as politically important as a Dennis the Menace cartoon and the real purpose is achieved entirely by subthemes, in this case sprinkling false equivalencies between Democrats and right wing laissez-faire economic thievery.

You can figure out which pattern this article falls into. This author's work is in my trash bin. He can't be trusted, and any valid point he might want to make will have been made better by others.

For corporations, the wealthy and the security services.

Largely.

For poor schmucks its as alive as ever.

One scary point is that banks are lending money at twenty times their cash in hand.

Currency trading is the biggest business - more traded each day than the entire world GDP for a year.