Utopia seems deader than a doornail—no better proof than the recent long academic monographs about its history. Yet, the spirit of utopia erupts again and again in the least expected places. While we are sophisticated to the point of scorning …
When journalists discuss the rise of the Sunbelt, they often invoke the metaphor of war. The editors of Business Week, for example, argue that growth in the Southern Rim and economic decline in the Northeast is a prelude to “a …
Everyone concerned with the relation of forms of ownership to political equality owes a substantial debt to Richard W. Krouse for his lucid analysis. It invites one to deal with the issues with the greatest clarity one can bring to …
Shortly before his death last April, Jean-Paul Sartre gave an extended interview–really, a full-scale review of his intellectual career to a young friend, Benny Levy. This interview appeared in Le Nouvel Observateur on March 10, 17, and 24, 1980, and …
The forcible super-imposition of Marxism as the orthodoxy of the Soviet state obliterated, for some three generations, the spontaneity of Russian thought, creating the unfortunate image of Russians as automatons printing out quotations from Marx and Lenin. In recent years, …
What is the relationship between capitalism, socialism, and political equality? Several recent essays by Robert A. Dahl on the ideal of “procedural democracy” in political and economic life have significantly advanced our understanding of this issue without, however, providing an …
There are today, in the poor countries of the world, roughly 900 million people who live in absolute poverty—”a condition of life [to quote Robert McNamara] so limited by malnutrition, illiteracy, disease, high infant mortality and low life expectancy as …
With the following comment we continue the informal discussion among Dissent editors regarding the changed international situation after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The next issue will carry further comment by other editors.—Eds The parochialism of American liberal intellectuals is …
The following is excerpted from H. W. Benson’s book, published last year by the Association for Union. Democracy cold entitled Democratic Rights for Union Members. Soon after George Meany became its president, the AFL embarked on a campaign against corruption …
In the spring of 1980, the Senior Tutor and the Master of Balliol College, Oxford, both philosophers, and an English schoolboy were expelled from Czechoslovakia, after interrogation, for attending the unofficial philosophy courses of Dr. Julius Tomin. The Oxford dons …
The old theme notwithstanding, it’s not East side-West side that separates New Yorkers. It’s inside and outside. Inside meaning those residents who depend on the city to provide their basic services: health, education, housing, child-care, income, recreation and other special …
Yvonne Kapp’s two-volume biography of Eleanor Marx chronicles both the personal and public life of a woman who played a distinctive role in the socialist, working-class, and feminist movements of 19th-century Europe. Before the publication of this biography she had …
In the 1960s, when I was a writer and organizer for the International Union of Electrical Workers, one of my jobs was to travel to communities where plants were closing (sometimes in the aftermath of a strike or other militant …
An exodus is not yet a revolution. In the case of Cuba, it comes as evidence of desperation and geographical convenience. Where the Hungarians and Czechs had to face Russian tanks, the Cuban escapees face Castro’s wrath, hazardous waters in …
We are seeing the wanton gutting of the nation’s heavy industrial plant. This tragic waste of blue-collar jobs and working-class lives will not cease as long as we allow government to abet the sacrifice of production facilities to the momentary …
