In this election cycle, what we needed was transformative imagination—new ideas to ignite the old and inspire the young. Instead, Democrats, as usual, turned away from bold visions and a true commitment to public welfare and peace, ceding ground to the very dark forces they pretended to oppose.
This wasn’t just a failure to mobilize young voters [and men]; it’s an absolute failure of imagination for a more just and hopeful future.
Since the 1980s, Democrats have played a role in eroding public trust in essential services like education and healthcare. Take New York’s public schools and colleges, for instance: once pathways to upward mobility for the working class with almost free education, they now struggle under shrinking budgets and suffocating bureaucracy.
As a SUNY professor working in a prestigious public art school, I wade through endless paperwork and applications just to secure a mere $100 of funds for a simple student event for over 100 students (while there seem to be no budget cuts for ongoing wars and genocides).
The right wing is right on one thing. In state institutions, everything moves at glacial speeds, stalling even the simplest efforts to serve students and the community. This bureaucracy seems purposefully designed to make any progress an exhausting ordeal. An intentional failure by democratic neoliberalism.
People dread interacting with the public sector, where they are often treated as nuisances rather than citizens with valid needs. City and state bureaucracies are so convoluted that only those who can afford costly expeditors can make any headway.
Small business owners suffer, too, sidelined by a system that favors large corporations adept at navigating—and gaming—the maze of permits, regulations, and approvals. For the average person, the public sector feels like a fortress of obstacles, where real support is nearly impossible to access without the resources to bypass the red tape.
The right-wing exploited these vulnerabilities. Elon Musk and Co’s solution isn’t to fix public services; they aim to dismantle them. Liberals, in practice, paved the way for characters like Musk.
Over the years, cities and states have outsourced responsibilities to nonprofits, charter schools, and private companies—systematically sidestepping democratic scrutiny and accountability. So-called “public-private partnerships” have become a de-facto mechanism for shifting burdens rather than sharing them. These arrangements often allow private companies to reap substantial profits while leaving the public to shoulder the risks and long-term costs. Infrastructure projects, public services, and social programs are designed to benefit corporate interests, not the communities they are meant to serve.
Contrary to the claims of the right-wing chorus, the failures aren’t the result of recent diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives. Their roots lie in decades of MBA-driven neoliberalism, which frames the public sector as a liability to be offloaded onto market forces. Under this model, where MBAs dominate governance, citizens are reduced to clients, and students to customers, stripping them of their roles as active participants in democratic institutions. The result is a system that privatizes gains while socializing losses, draining public resources and undermining trust in government.
The neoliberal agenda, championed by both Democrats and Republicans, has systematically undermined the concept of the public, reducing it to a weakened, sometimes corrupt entity incapable of fulfilling its core responsibilities. Nowhere is this more evident than in the handling of the homelessness crisis in New York and California. Rather than investing in robust public solutions, these states have outsourced their obligations to developers and nonprofits, resulting in significant wealth transfers that fail to address the root causes of homelessness.
A recent Department of Investigation report reveals that over the past five years, New York City has spent nearly $20 billion on payments to developers and nonprofits under this model. This staggering expenditure has enriched nonprofit executives—some earning between $600,000 and $1 million annually—while providing little in terms of sustainable solutions.
With the same $20 billion, the city could have constructed more than 60,000 public housing units or developed publicly managed shelters. These facilities could have not only addressed immediate housing needs but also been repurposed after the crisis into long-term community assets such as cultural centers or artist studios. Instead, public resources have been diverted into inefficient systems that perpetuate the very issues they claim to resolve.
Just like privatized healthcare, privatized public housing is not a solution. It is a vicious loop.
How can we trust public institutions when those responsible for leading them (i.e., elected officials) have systematically gutted them? Or, can we trust politicians who “commons-wash” by instrumentalizing nonprofits as a mediocre substitute for public services?
Is it possible for a new generation of politicians to bring the strategic thinking, long-term vision, and imagination for commons so urgently needed? We need lean, efficient, and widespread public solutions, yet today’s Democratic Party is dominated by what political theorist Nancy Fraser calls “neoliberal progressives”—those who champion market solutions, privatization (often through nonprofits), and individualism under the guise of progressive values like multiculturalism and gender equality. But the global wave of populist right-wing backlash reveals that this brand of “progressivism” is not just inadequate—it is dangerously counterproductive.
So the question is, is a good-State imaginable?
To move forward, we must redefine the role of the state as a protector and nurturer of shared resources rooted in trust and designed to serve the collective good. Imagine a state that prioritizes the stewardship of public assets, ensuring equitable access and benefit for all. Americans—particularly cultural workers—possess the expertise and spirit for collective action, but what’s lacking is leadership capable of politically articulating and advancing these strategic visions. To bridge this gap, we need a new generation of public entrepreneurs—leaders who collaborate with public intellectuals, designers, and artists and willing to make bold decisions, propose transformative ideas, and take risks for the common good.
Solutions must be both structural and scalable, addressing critical challenges like immigration, homelessness, education, and healthcare at their foundations, with the scope and ambition required to create lasting change.
In his forthcoming book Trust: Building on the Cultural Commons (Valiz, 2024), sociologist Pascal Gielen tackles these pressing issues by reimagining the concept of cultural commons. He explores how shared resources and collective trust can reinvigorate public institutions and nurture social cohesion. Gielen calls for cultural policies that prioritize community building and the commons as central strategies for addressing today’s social crises. He pleads for a transformative shift from a competitive, individualistic culture to one that values collaboration, shared resources, and mutual care. By embracing shared vulnerabilities, he argues, we can foster a collective identity rooted in trust, where artists and civil initiatives play a pivotal role in using cultural expressions to deepen our understanding of the commons and cultivate solidarity.
You can pre-order Pascal’s book here:
Note: We had two public book launch events organized at Purchase College on December 4th at 3 PM and at CUNY Graduate Center on December 5th at 6:30 PM.