The failures of the welfare state in the sixties have served as stimulus for, and rationale of, the rise of neoconservative thought in the seventies. The neoconservative ideologues base themselves on what they regard as the data of the sixties, …
I n reacting to the criminal assaults on the democratic process and the Democratic party, it is essential that we contemplate—and act on—the polite, everyday and perfectly legal subversion of democracy which takes place when corporate economic power influences government …
The 1960s were a schizophrenic decade. During the first five years there were difficult struggles, but there was also a mood of hope, of possibility. The bloody exception was, of course, the assassination of John F. Kennedy. But even that …
The old Nixon and the new Nixon are one and the same man: the president of the United States. That is at least one secret of Nixonism. For, alas, it is now necessary to name an ism after a man …
I In recent years the American working class has been called conservative, militant, reactionary, progressive, authoritarian, social democratic and, the unkindest cut of all, nonexistent. Except for the last, all the labels fit. The labor movement—I sharpen the focus on …
Historical Remarks on the Paris Commune The misfortune of the French, even of the workers, is that they have great memories. It is necessary that events once and for all put an end to this reactionary cult of the past. …
I AM NOT, I HOPE, INDULGING in that most middle-aged of pastimes, boasting of how terrible things were when I was young. And yet, it must be said that, for all the current talk of repression in American society, what …
When the negotiations between the auto industry and the United Auto Workers began, the company spokesmen presented themselves as industrial statesmen. It was in the interests of the American economy, they said, to have a noninflationary settlement and they, as …
America needs socialism. Our technology has produced unprecedented wealth, rotted great cities, threatened the very air and water, and embittered races, generations, and social classes. Our vision of society, even when most liberal, is too conservative to resolve these contradictions, …
President Nixon’s speech on November 3rd almost certainly rallied a majority of the people behind his policy. But that vote of confidence is strictly limited as to time, as on a similar occasion Lyndon Johnson discovered; and if, as seems …
When four years of Republican rule end in January 1973, the United States of America is likely to be even more tom by internal crisis than it was in the last, shambling days of Lyndon Johnson’s Administration. I write this prediction …
In last year’s U.S. pavillion at the Montreal World’s Fair I noticed a sign reading: Hall of the Great Society —Emergency Exit. Let’s take that exit right now! After the obscene happening at Chicago that went by the name of Democratic …
The war in Vietnam has given rise to more agonies of conscience than any conflict in which America has participated during this century. The reason for this moral anguish is not hard to find. In the First and Second World Wars …
Many well-intentioned Americans are deceiving themselves and the public when they speak of abolishing the slums. The slums can be abolished, but not in the way they suggest. A number of programs have been proposed to end the scandal of …
The democratic Left must help finish the creation of the world. The world—and I borrow here from Peter Worsley’s imaginative way of speaking—is scarcely begun. The globe has, of course, existed for eons, and humans project their various histories more …
