Neoliberalism and the death of the social state: remembering Walter Benjamin's Angel of History

This article argues that for the past 30 years, the values and practices of disposability and social death promoted by casino capitalism have replaced important elements of a democratic polity with a culture of greed and cruel spectacles of violence. In its current form neoliberal politics, economics, and public pedagogy have become a register of how difficult it is for American society to make any claims on the promise of a democracy to come. …