You're More Powerful than You Think

If we were now to pen the “New Federalist Papers,” based on contemporary society and our accumulated national experience, we would be tempted to rail against the failures of democracy, capitalism, and citizenship. After all, to be ruthlessly pragmatic, those ideas aren’t delivering much “cash value”—literal or figurative—to the 99 percent today. But if we were being as candid and self-critical as the framers were, we would have to admit that we haven’t really tried democracy yet. We haven’t really tried capitalism yet. We haven’t really tried citizenship yet. And certainly not all at once.