American economic institutions are an anachronistic barrier to achievable liberation

Evidence

United States society offers all the material, technical, and organiza­ tional preconditions for a new stage in human liberation, but its economic institutions prevent progress from taking place. While there is nothing inevitable about a democratic socialist movement bursting through the fabric of irrational social relationships, the possibility grows yearly. More and more frequently and in ever-wider spheres of social life— of which education is merely one— the anachronism of our social institutions is impressed upon us. — Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, Schooling in Capitalist America, 256

Categorization

• XREF: Applied instance of Marx’s historical-change criterion from location 251 — the US is argued to be in just such a blocked-progress period. — connects to: Fundamental social change erupts when progress is blocked by anachronistic institutions — Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, Schooling in Capitalist America:…, 251; US capitalism bypassed feudalism because private property arrived with colonization — Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, Schooling in Capitalist America:…, 609; Liberation from technological domination requires preserving the technological base — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the…, 812 (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• Institutions constitute citizens’ freedom from domination rather than causally producing it #complicates (0.78) — Philip Pettit, Republicanism, 518
• Liberation from technological domination requires preserving the technological base #qualifies (0.75) — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 812
• Altruism is a scarce capital best saved for contexts institutions cannot handle #corroborates (0.72) — Russell Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, 515
• Capitalism co-opts opposition and must be escaped rather than confronted #expands (0.72) — Andrew deWaard, Derivative Media, 468