The Addict And The Law  

More and more the drug addict is becoming both an avant-garde hero and modern scapegoat. The writing of Jack Gelber, William Burroughs, Alexander Trocchi and others has stimulated interest in the lives of “junkies.” Hipsters, according to Norman Mailer, may …



Return To India—1960  

It isn’t easy to return to India after a twenty-year absence. So much has happened and so much changed. There is a whole new generation that has known freedom since 1947. What will it be like? Will one find the …



England: Socialism And Apathy  

The British Labor movement has always been favored, or goaded, by a left wing which felt that Labor lacked full socialist consciousness; in the last decade or two this left wing found popular expression through the oratory of Nye Bevan …



England: The Triumph Of Primitivism  

If one believes, as I do, that it makes a difference whether the Tories or the Laborites govern Britain, the outcome of the Labor Party’s 1960 Conference at Scarborough has implications of historical tragedy. Indeed, I feel that Gaitskell’s defeat …



England: A View From The Left  

DEAR FRIENDS, You asked for a letter on the current situation inside the Labor party—from the point of view of the left. It’s late in the evening and I’ll simply write this out until I’ve finished: spontaneity may bring its …









Prediction  

If N beats K Or K beats N The electorate is bound to win The blessings of a four-year grin, A tusky joy—from film and page Teeth meet the issues of the age. Hail, autumn sun, by whose bleaching grows …



Concentration and Control  

Let it be admitted at the outset: If there is a theory of monopoly—in the sense of a unifying explanation with some factual basis of the gradual transformation of competitive into monopolistic market organizations—I do not know of it. There …



The Idea of Resistance  

The virtually total inability of ordinary citizens to affect decision making, leaves resistance as the only possible response to the misuse of governmental power and to decisions wrongly made.





Letters  

Editors: In the Summer 1960 issue, on p. 813, you introduce a writer as a “professional student of American military affairs.” I wonder about this “student’s” qualifications. Everyone should know that defensive weapons cannot be distinguished from offensive weapons. To …



Mobility And Status  

SOCIAL MOBILITY IN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY, by Seymour Lipset and Reinhard Bendix. University of California Press. 1959. Thanks mainly to the foundations, the empirical study of social stratification and mobility has expanded enormously in the past decade. Research teams have been …