This thinkpiece argues that we cannot build a new progressive political program on the circumstances of the bottom 10 per cent of the population.We need to found a new progressive politics in the social conditions as we find them, and the dominant characteristic of liberal democracies is not deprivation but its opposite affluence.The causes of unhappiness and distress today are predominantly the diseases of affluence, overwork,fragmentation of relationships, the emptiness of consumerism, psychological disorders and a pervasive anomie that challenges the solidity of our sense of self. Capitalism, and particularly its neoliberal variant, has been highly successful in meeting the objectives it set for itself; but the deeper promises of self-realisation and true freedom have not eventuated.