The liberal ideology was able to create, from the French Revolution onwards, a legitimating geoculture for the capitalist world-economy. The rational reformism proclaimed by the liberals, and eventually adopted by the anti-system forces as well, have proved to be an efficient defence against the demands of the "dangerous classes" since 1789. Such defence, however, was destroyed by the revolution of 1968, the last act of which being the colapse of communism in 1989. The challanges to political action, presented by a situation in which the inequalities of capitalism can no longer be justified in the way they were in the past, are discussed.