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I agree with Zinn, but i'm somewhat optimistic about the chances for an opening for workers in the next 4 years. But maybe that optimism comes from the mistaken belief that people see things in the way i do. In any case, i've thought that inequality has been a contributing factor to the current crisis, and that to get to the root of the problem, we have to address inequality in some fashion. That is to say that there are reasons to support greater equality from a purely technocratic perspective. The problem is that without the mass movements, you have only technocratic reason to offer as rationales. There isn't an angry horde ready to storm Washington if a few bones aren't thrown its way.
I agree with Davis that the lack of ideas about the economy could be crippling. On the other hand, i don't like his analogy of pulling things off the shelf. The conceptual tools don't spring full formed out of someone's head. They develop with application, and with reflection on that application. In other words, the requisite conceptual apparatus may not be as obvious as a commodity sitting on the shelf saying "choose me". Whether or not Obama & crew can pull the US out of the current slump may depend more on attitudes toward theory. I guess that puts me more in tune with his friend than Davis himself.
The difference between now and the 1960s or 1930s is that there is no civil rights movement, no pressure from the left, no Soviet Union, only a tiny anti-war movement, no student movement. At the same time, the right opposition doesn't seem terribly coherent either. A left opposition could develop, but it would have to develop first. It's not out there right now. For better or worse, we're in a time of flux.
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