ABSTRACT
California has long played a leading role in the political economy of capitalism, but at the end of the millennium it is a microcosm of American – even global – malaise, with a misguided economy, a disintegrative social order and decadent politics. After a triumphal epoch of growth, it must rid itself of the accumulated deadweight of the past: not just fixed capital and redundant labour, but all manner of social practices put in question by the shifting tides of world capitalism. This requires a wrenching process of economic, political and social restructuring, yet the state’s ruling class (overwhelmingly white and male) is unprepared to cope with the profound tasks of industrial retooling, closing the class and race divides, and reviving the democratic polity. California suffers from many plagues, but three general social contradictions stand out: the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, thorough race and class recomposition of the people, and a political system unable to govern. California’s dilemmas, like its prior successes, have deep political and social causes, which we can only begin to touch. But it owes much to the political triumph of reaction since the 1960s, and the resulting failure of class, race and political renewal which changing circumstances demand.
