Eighty Years Since Bread and Wine: Ignazio Silone’s Christian Socialism
Ignazio Silone’s 1936 classic served as a moral compass to a generation of U.S. leftists seeking alternatives both to capitalism and to Soviet-style communism.
Winter 2024
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What Trump’s Rise Means for Democracy
Trump’s astounding rise isn’t the result of too much democracy, but of too little.
A World to Make: Eleven Theses for the Bernie Sanders Generation
Beyond the delegate race lies the Sanders campaign’s larger potential: that a rising generation will emerge from it to transform American political life in ways that until recently seemed impossible. Here’s where they might start.
Bogdan the Speaker
The first time I heard Bogdan Denitch speak, he intimidated the hell out of me. That wasn’t, I hasten to explain, his intent. Far from it. The occasion was a national board meeting of the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee in …
Memories of Bogdan Denitch
The man whom the folk-singer legend Dave Van Ronk, Bogdan’s old friend, called “the mad Montenegrin” was a larger-than-life figure with a uniformly kind heart that he often tried to mask.
The Path to Democratic Socialism: Lessons from Latin America
Significant change to our political economy will require significant change to our structure of government. It is hard to see how to get there without some kind of “populist” moment, fraught with danger to other values we believe to be essential.
Free Enterprise vs. Socialism: A Brief History
Business conservatives have demonized every piece of progressive legislation as “creeping socialism” since the 1930s. Now that a democratic socialist has called their bluff, they’re at a loss.
In Praise of Impractical Movements
Social change is seldom either as incremental or predictable as insiders suggest. Instead, movements win by changing the political weather, turning demands considered unrealistic into ones that can no longer be ignored.
Sanders and the S Word
Why does the white-haired firebrand from Vermont insist on identifying himself with socialism, a political faith that has never been popular in the United States?
Money Troubles
Personal budgeting advice promises to set us free, but only on an individual level. Instead we need social programs that would allow any woman to flip a finger to unsavory work situations and domestic abuse.
Socialism in America
If Bernie Sanders’s presidential run is to herald a new socialist movement, American leftists will have to overcome the combination of sectarianism, repression, and cooptation that doomed their predecessors.
From Sweden to Socialism: A Small Symposium on Big Questions
What’s the difference between socialism and social democracy? In 1991, Dissent convened several longtime contributors to answer that question, somewhat rephrased: what would distinguish socialism from a slightly improved version of Sweden?
[EVENT | February 5] Winter Launch Party
Join us on February 5 in Brooklyn for a celebration of our Winter issue!
Sanders and the Theory of Change: Radical Politics for Grown-Ups
Paul Krugman misunderstands the Sanders campaign’s theory of change. It isn’t that a high-minded leader can draw out our best selves and translate those into more humane lawmaking. It is that a campaign for a more equal democracy can build power, in networks of activists and across constituencies.
Who Pays Writers?
At its height, the American welfare state provided direct financial support to scores of writers. They used it to challenge the political status quo, revolutionizing literary form in the process.
