One synthetic way of capturing what I am after here is that the capitalism that emerged in the 1980s and was fully developed by the 2000s is marked by a logic of extraction in leading sectors, from mining to finance (see my Expulsions, Harvard University Press 2014). This is a radically different logic from that which marked the earlier mass consumption driven capitalism. A corporate economy in good part driven by mass consumption benefits from whatever maximizes the incomes of consumers. No matter how greedy the corporate bosses might have been, government initiatives to support households directly and indirectly made sense.

This changed radically in the 1980s when a new dominant logic emerges and begins to push governments in a very different direction. Mass consumption continues to be a factor. But finance became a dominant logic, which meant a strategic shift to the development of complex instruments aimed at financializing everything, from iron to real estate to student loans. This is a system that does not see its benefits fed by governments supporting the working and middle classes. It is extractive, and once it has extracted what it wants or needs, it moves on. Nor is it interested in making loans, as did the traditional banks, to enterprises or households. The earnings from interest payments on loans are nothing compared to the returns on financialization. And once it has extracted, it moves on to the next site for extraction, just like mining. Google also has some of this: it made its wealth by gathering existing information from and on people, firms, governments.

The world over, we need to return to economies of making rather than extraction. And to do that, we need large numbers of workers. All those who have been expelled from reasonable lives can be brought back in—not via the old tired political language, but by a new project-oriented language.

Mobilizing people who have either suffered the ravages of this system, or who are doing fine but are angered by the extreme injustices, becomes a critical step and a real possibility, as we have seen in the Sanders campaign.

We need to stop thinking in terms of a support base—that is far too easy and too inbred. We need to enter new terrain, armed with questions and proposals that address a much wider spectrum than the base, and we need to listen to those who have suffered so many losses—they have knowledge we need. Our listening will be a bridge towards trust.

Sociologist Saskia Sassen is a professor at Columbia University and chairs its Committee on Global Thought.