In all of American labor history, there have been five national labor organizations —the Knights of Labor, American Federation of Labor, Industrial Workers of the World, Trade Union Unity League, Congress of Industrial Organizations—or six if we count the merged …
Anti-Zionism Editor: As a new reader of Dissent I am interested in the inclusion of Walter Laqueur’s article (December 1971), “Zionism, the Marxist Critique, and the Left” in a journal “devoted to radical ideas and the values of socialism and democracy.” …
Essays on Sex Equality, by John Stuart Mill and Harriet Taylor Mill; edited and with an introduction by Alice S. Rossi. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 242 pp. At last John Stuart and Harriet Taylor Mill’s writings on the condition …
Perhaps it is presumptuous for those of us who were often sharply critical of the New Left to address ourselves now to its scattered and disorganized followers. Yet among them are future friends and allies—who have begun to make criticisms …
A notable cultural event occurred in Atlanta on January 28 and 29 with the world premiere of Treemonisha, a long-neglected folk opera by the black ragtime composer Scott Joplin (1868-1917) . Under the overall direction of Robert Shaw and the …
Looking through a good deal of the literature about communes, one is persuaded that something important must be afoot, and that the writers have not discovered in what the importance consists. About one thing there can be no exaggeration: communes …
I PROSECUTOR: You confirm the fact that you wrote denunciations against Soviet citizens? THE INFORMERS: Yes, in a way. PROSECUTOR: Do you admit you are guilty of the deaths of innocent Soviet citizens? INFORMERS: No, we categorically deny it. The …
A Question of Madness, by Zhores Medvedev and Roy Medvedev. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. 223 pp. “As a matter of fact, I have observed that your brother suffers from a split personality. He is a biologist, but is also …
One of the most puzzling questions future historians will have to deal with is why the United States ever got involved in the contemporary struggle for Indochina that has been going on since 1945. Did the considerations that determined the …
Cultural Pluralism in the Working Class It is a truism among liberal academics that we have a lot to learn from the blacks, a truism I fully concede. Yet, does any liberal academic believe in his heart that we have …
On a Greyhound speeding through a dark, icy night toward Chicago, I return to old memories of packing lunch bags and pulling on greasy overalls each morning before rushing desperately to beat the factory time clock—months and months of this …
Most students of the American worker begin their portraits with the same basic conceptual division: blue-collar manual workers on one side of the divide, white-collar nonmanual workers on the other. Jobs, people, and classes may change, but the distinction between …
“It’s us they is always chokin’ so that the rich folks can stay fat.” —A 28-year-old Kentucky miner on the “freeze.” New York Times, September 24, 1971 What are the facts about the American workers—especially white workers? Of the 77.902 …
Toward More Effective Working-Class Strategies Categorical thought is rarely avoided even among those who know better. Thus, social analysis has characteristically been concerned with “the Negro,” then “the poor,” now “the working class,” all collective nouns followed by singular verbs …
Just as an occasional disaster is required to call the nation’s attention to conditions in its coal mines, so it was necessary that Joseph A. (“Jock”) Yablonski, his wife, and daughter be murdered to call attention to conditions in the …
