In other words, in 1919 relatively few people could become disenchanted with liberal modernity because only a tiny minority had enjoyed the opportunity to become enchanted with it in the first place. Since then, however, billions more people have been exposed to the promises of individual freedom in a global neo-liberal economy that imposes constant improvisation and adjustment – and just as rapid obsolescence.
-- Pankaj Mishra (Prologue: Forgotten Conjectures)

Importance: This quote eloquently summarizes Mishra's argument that the rise of industrial capitalism caused disorder in multiple ways, and that this disorder sparked the discontentment which now fuels violent rejections of the status quo and the taken-for-granted liberal world order. Mishra states that industrial capitalism allowed for the creation of and recognition of entrenched inequalities among those who experienced it and had held higher hopes for its success, yet that it also disenfranchised those who became exposed to it more recently in emerging economies and who struggle to keep...