Fall 2024

All politicians these days run for office scared. It’s harder and harder to get elected. But now we have the sight of a politician “running scared” for nomination to office! And three years to go!

I think it is altogether appropriate, and to me welcome, that Irving Howe has stated his views on “American Forum” frankly, openly and without equivocation. It is doubly welcome that he also writes “without rancor” and without ruling people like …

The editors of DISSENT have, for the most part, had little concern with the parochial quarrels, maneuvers and synthetic “activity” which characterize the life of the few remaining radical groups in America. Our interests have usually been elsewhere; our ideas …

So you have decided to leave the party. And you have written to tell me about it. What should I answer?

Editors: I thought the following little item might be of interest to you: The Danish Communist party, at its “extraordinary” 19th national congress, just concluded, adopted by a vote of 300-odd to 2 a resolution supporting Soviet action in Hungary. …

In a concluding section, the authors of Union Democracy (subtitled “The Internal Politics of the International Typographical Union”) observe, “For men of good will, there is much to learn in the history, institutions and arguments of American printers.” Such “men …

All men are equal, only some are more equal than others. By the same token, man’s situation is always extreme, only sometimes it is more extreme. If we ever thought that, although human beings were individually mortal, the species itself …

A close study of Mr. Gabriel Kolko’s article, “The American ‘Income Revolution’ ” in the Winter 1957 issue of DISSENT shows its scientific apparatus to be faulty; but I shall confine my criticism to the tables on pages 48-49, which …

In the folklore of American liberalism, the only figures more maligned than the Rotary president and the real estate salesman are the fullback and the first baseman. There are certain unreasonable reasons why this should be; but because no one …

A sound political system must facilitate the resolution of potential political conflicts or crises. Where such resolutions are inhibited the threatened political crisis may be compared to the conditions which may lead to an economic crisis if not corrected. Since …

My friend S, a renowned Austrian economist, banking expert and financial ambassador (if there is such a title), insists that the U.S. is dashing toward economic disaster through overproduction and inflation. “How much longer,” he demands, “can we go on …

Probably, we will never he able to determine the psychic havoc of the concentration camps and the atom bomb upon the unconscious mind of almost everyone alive in these years. for the first time in civilized history, perhaps for the …

In his article on “Subtopia,” William Newman has provided a vivid picture of the modern suburb. He has based his picture on Crestwood Heights, a remarkable and extremely important book which has thus far received much attention from sociologists but …

And what do the Masters find? How are their wives and children living in the utopia designed for them? Anyone who has lived in a suburb at one time or another can tell something of the life of a suburb—of …

Early in 1953, so a Washington fable goes, a blackboard in one of the government office buildings was discovered bearing the chalked observation: “The Republicans have been in long enough. It’s time for a change!” Over four years have passed …