ABSTRACT
In any specific capitalist social formation, the visions of a better life that dominate the collective imaginary will be ones that promise relief from the most pressing, restricting demands that the current mode of organizing production, consumption and citizenship subjects people to. Both these demands and the visions of a life beyond them will always be class specific, and the struggles for that better life will be class struggles. These struggles have historically been a driving force of capitalist development. This chapter illustrates this historical cycle of events by giving a highly stylised account of the history of Western European capitalism as a succession of three growth regimes – liberal capitalism, organised capitalism and flexible capitalism – along with the restrictions they have forced on people, the visions of a better life put forward against them and the battles waged to make these visions a reality, ending up, in each case so far, in a new capitalist growth regime.
