Democracy is a future-oriented system. Politicians ask us to think in the long term: if there's injustice today, we're told it can be ironed out tomorrow, at the next election. But the biggest issues facing us in the twenty-first century - from climate collapse to Covid-19, economic crisis to world war - each appear to bring us to the edge of irreversible change. What happens to democracy when the future isn't guaranteed?
Yet as Jonathan White reveals with In The Long Run, politics has long been shaped by shifting visions of what the future should look like. The nineteenth century saw the rise of ideologies and isms, as Communists and capitalists strove to build radically different futures, while the collapse of the Soviet Union and the rise of neoliberalism in the twentieth century reoriented society around individuals, rather than communities. Now, as a seemingly inescapable feeling of emergency and approaching disaster defines our politics, Jonathan White shows that investing in long-term ambition may be the best way to restore faith in democracy and bring about real change.
Rich and revealing, wide in scope and sharply observed, In The Long Run is a history of the future and a story of how to make tomorrow new again.
