Nothing could be more foolish than to blink the extent of the defeat we have suffered in the recent election. By “we” I have in mind both the larger “labor-liberal” community and the smaller “democratic left.” If Carter’s defeat can …
There is no contemporary figure of international public life more closely associated with a thorough, rigorously elaborated political economy than I am. Hence when Lionel Abel writes [in Dissent, Fall 1980], “… the lack of foundation for LaRouche’s position in …
For years, H. L. Mitchell worked at the center of the farm labor movement. In the early 1930s Mitchell earned a local reputation by collaborating with the Tennessee Socialist party in an investigation of sharecroppers and by organizing a union …
My German dictionary says that Schadenfreude is a feeling of malicious delight in the discomfort of others. The element of Schadenfreude was especially strong in the recent sad election, especially among some of our liberal friends. And almost all of …
As a participant and survivor of the labor and radical struggles of the 1930s and 1940s, Bert Cochran has substantial credentials for undertaking this major study. The result is a fascinating, controversial, and important book. Cochran knows politics, trade unionism, …
“Proletarians of all countries, unite—as long as it’s possible!”Attributed, whimsically, to Lech Walesa, Head of Solidarity And so, for the fourth time in three decades, Poland again seems to be teetering on the brink of disaster. A society, held together …
Liberals and leftists often find themselves in the uncomfortable position of either defending welfare programs they know to be insufficient or running the risk of losing the modest benefits those programs provide. This was the situation last spring when the …
In war, the Greek historian Herodotus once explained, truth is the first casualty. But sometimes where questions of war and militarism are concerned truth departs from the scene long before the first shot is fired. So it is with the …
DETROIT — The nation’s auto workers did not rush to join the 1980 blue-collar “revolt” against Democrat Jimmy Carter. Instead, there was early evidence that the UAW rank and file “came home” to the Roosevelt-Democratic coalition and, in the end, …
The Prague Spring of 1968 remains one of the traumatic experiences of the left. It revealed both the tensions at work beneath the surface of the Soviet-dominated world and the Russians’ determination to maintain their control regardless of cost. Zdenek …
When Thomas Jefferson declared that each generation must water the tree of liberty with the “blood” of rebellion, and then later defined the life-span of the “will” of a generation as lasting 19 years, James Madison reminded him that members …
Nothing could be more foolish than to blink the extent of the defeat we have suffered in the recent election. By “we” I have in mind both the larger “labor-liberal” community and the smaller “democratic left.” If Carter’s defeat can …
In war, the Greek historian Herodotus once explained, truth is the first casualty. But some- times where questions of war and militarism are concerned truth departs from the scene long before the first shot is fired. So it is with …
Among American socialists, “market socialism” (a publicly owned economy relying mainly on the market mechanism for its allocative decisions) has commonly been considered a misnomer—when it has been considered at all. But in France a faction of the Socialist party, …
One of the many useful by-products of the War on Poverty was the revival of interest in greater economic and political equality. Although initiated by Michael Harrington and other socialist writers on poverty, the revival came about because researchers and …
