This Is the Time

Abstract

This chapter argues that national sentiments should be used to induce a readiness to rebuild a cross-class coalition, giving individuals worthwhile reasons to work together to promote the common good, securing a more just distribution of risks and opportunities. The chapter then presents four reasons why this is the right time to do so. It also describes how state-directed actions must be taken in order to allow millennials to conduct a productive and satisfying life. By narrating the states' new task to reestablish a cross-class coalition that will promote a fairer distribution of risks and opportunities, the chapter acknowledges that some risks and opportunities are unifying — promoting social cohesiveness and undermining class tensions — while others are divisive — pulling the different classes in different directions and exacerbating social conflict. Ultimately, the chapter explicates shifting the social and economic balance in ways that will allow a more even distribution of risks and opportunities. It analyzes how such moves are likely to make a difference in the basic perceptions of public morality.