From The Archives Archives - Dissent Magazine

The Moon: Enough is Enough

H.P. ▪ September – October 1969

So we have left footprints on the face of the moon. An admirable feat. We can congratulate ourselves, we can be proud, we have shown that it can be done. Most likely, it had to be done even though the …

Banning Cars From Manhattan

Percival Goodman and Paul Goodman ▪ Summer 1961

This article first appeared in our Summer 1961 issue. We are republishing it following the New York state legislature’s recent approval of a congestion pricing plan for New York City.

What Socialists Would Do in America—If They Could

Michael Harrington ▪ Fall 1978

“Capitalism is dying,” wrote Michael Harrington forty years ago. “It will not, however, disappear on a given day, or in a given month or even year. Its demise will take place as a historic process that could lead to democratic socialism—or to a new kind of collectivist and authoritarian society.”

Socialism and Liberalism: Articles of Conciliation?

Irving Howe ▪ Winter 1977

Debates between socialists and liberals are not new. But nor, perhaps, are they completely irreconcilable. [From the archives]

The University and the Company Man

Tressie McMillan Cottom ▪ Spring 2014

Not so long ago, the social contract between workers, government, and employers made college a calculable bet. We built a university system for the way we worked. What happens to college when that social contract is broken—when we work not just differently but for less? And what if the crisis in higher education is related to the broader failures that have left so many workers struggling?

The Rise of Respectability Politics

Fredrick C. Harris ▪ Winter 2014

What started as a philosophy promulgated by black elites to “uplift the race” by correcting the “bad” traits of the black poor has evolved into one of the hallmarks of black politics in the age of Obama. In an era marked by rising inequality and declining economic mobility for most Americans—but particularly for black Americans—the politics of respectability works to accommodate neoliberalism.

Cockblocked by Redistribution: A Pick-up Artist in Denmark

Katie J.M. Baker ▪ Fall 2013

As infamous pick-up artist Roosh himself admits in “Don’t Bang Denmark,” Nordic social democracy doesn’t support his kind.

Post-Hysterics: Zadie Smith and the Fiction of Austerity

David Marcus ▪ Spring 2013

For Zadie Smith, the time had come for the radicalism of experiment and the realism of political economy—for a new social realism that was capable of capturing both the mechanics and experience of today’s growing inequality.

The Port Huron Statement at Fifty

Michael Kazin ▪ Spring 2012

The Port Huron Statement of Students for a Democratic Society is the most ambitious, the most specific, and the most eloquent manifesto in the history of the American Left.

A Right to Marry? Same-Sex Marriage and Constitutional Law

Martha Nussbaum ▪ Summer 2009

Marriage is both ubiquitous and central. All across our country, in every region, every social class, every race and ethnicity, every religion or non-religion, people get married. For many if not most people, moreover, marriage is not a trivial matter. …