ABSTRACT
History (or better, the play of social contradictions) repeatedly subjects capitalist societies to periods when social theories that had been dominant suddenly lose much of their force. One such period, the 1960s in the US, was our theoretical coming of age. Concepts of American democracy and the free enterprise economy as the ultimate fulfillment of civilization’s promise had dominated social theories in the 1950s; they did double duty in portraying socialism, Marxism, anarchism, and communism as the “evil others” of American democracy. But such theories fell on hard times in the 1960s. Once the protests of AfricanAmericans had exposed their exclusion from American “democracy,” the exclusion of others became clear as well. Michael Harrington (1963) rediscovered poverty in The Other America. Many and especially young people challenged the deep inequalities of wealth and power in the US. Increasing criticism undermined images of the US as the land of infinite possibility, upward mobility, equal opportunity, freedom, and economic and social justice. A new generation of activists renewed older critical movements (for peace, real democracy, and wealth redistributions), rediscovered marginalized social theories (including Marxism and institutionalism), and generated “new social movements” (including women’s liberation, civil rights for ethnic and sexual minorities, and environmentalism). The Vietnam War draft confronted millions with the immense personal costs and injustices of “the system.” Anti-war critics and activists rediscovered anti-imperialist social theories and built anti-imperialist movements.
