Essays
The historical rupture marked by the Great War of 1914-1918 and its traces throughout the twentieth century have been more controversial in Germany than elsewhere. At the beginning of the century the German nation, recently unified under Bismarck, had rapidly adapted to modernity in every arena. Material progress underpinned by scientific creativity was quickly translated…
Read Full Article...For intellectuals of the left, no writer holds more allure than George Orwell, the man who got it right on imperialism, but then after his experiences during the Spanish Civil War also saw the truth about Stalinism as well, and told the world about it in simple, clear prose. It is an awesome legacy and…
Read Full Article...What does the Supreme Court’s five to four ruling in the case of Janus v. American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, Council 31, Et. Al.[1]mean for the future of organized labor in the United States? As the four dissenters stressed, the court’s majority overruled a precedent that had held for more than four…
Read Full Article...The murder of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officers ignited something. People protested. Cities burned. Though seemingly sympathetic to the cause, many feared the conflagrations in the streets. “Above everything else, I am a mother,” Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms remarked at a press conference she called after hearing “rumors about violent protests…
Read Full Article...In The Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels referred to the state as “the executive committee of the ruling class.” Reflecting the collective capitalist interest in maintaining its accumulation process, capable of forging compromises among competing sectors of its own and other classes, this committee was also meant to enforce legal norms, contracts, and other rules…
Read Full Article...In the 45 years since Roe, much has been written about the morality of abortion, and much has been written about the soundness of the legal reasoning in Roe. The aim here is not to join directly either of those arguments. We will leave aside, for example, the invocation of the “penumbra” and matters regarding…
Read Full Article...In the last few years the balance of power in the world has changed dramatically. Xi Jin Ping has declared that this is the era of China which, he said, “will take global centre stage by 2050”. Who can dispute that China’s star is rising, while the West is in decline? It is not only that…
Read Full Article...How can an identity strategy – that seeks to reduce oppression by prioritizing freedom over privilege – better unify the state power winning politics of the Bernie Sanders’-aligned forces, social movements, and the independent left? Exploring what might be gained and given up by the left, when Sanders’ anti-oligarch focused approach is engaged by this,…
Read Full Article...The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 was experienced as closing an historic period, that of revolutions inspired by the communist utopia, and marking the entry into the era of ‘natural capitalism’ and of the ‘self-regulating market.’ Naturalization of the current mode of production and exploitation and of the exchange system is the direct…
Read Full Article...But, if one has dreamed an empire, the empire of man, and if one dares to reflect at what a snail’s pace men are advancing toward the realization of this dream, it is quite possible” that the “activities of man pale to insignificance.” –Henry Miller Lemmings race ahead, focused on following the one in front…
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