President Obama has not responded adequately to the crisis.

He came in with too timid a stimulus package.

He reacted feebly to the housing crisis.

He reacted obsequiously to the banking crisis.

And he’s shown little appetite for the hearty re-regulation that the moment requires. Instead of fighting for economic justice, he’s leaving the fundamentals of the economy just as he found them.

In the short-term, progressives must demand a new New Deal.

In the medium term, there is plenty more restructuring that we can do. First and foremost, we need to return the making of monetary policy to the people—and take it out of the exclusive hands of the Federal Reserve Board.

In the long term, we need to reconsider capitalism itself and envision a different kind of society, not one that spends most of its energies trying to hold back the rampages of private companies, but one that dedicates its resources to serving the needs of its people.

Matthew Rothschild's whole story appears in the December/January 2010 issue. Subscribe to The Progressive for just $14.97 by clicking here for immediate access.