Marx as Sociologist  

KARL MARX, SELECTED WRITINGS IN SOCIOLOGY AND SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY, edited with an introduction and notes by T. B. Bottomore and Maximilien Rubel. Watts & Co. London, 1956. 268 pp. 21 s. This book is required reading for all DISSENT readers. …



The Tragedy at Parris Island  

OVER THE YEARS, I have had a few mixed feelings about the Marine Corps. It is not easy for me to defend them, yet in a curious way I suppose I respect the Marine Corps more than the Army. Discounting …



Human Rights in Okinawa  

Top military men.., believe that Okinawa has decided advantages over Japan and the Philippines as a site for American air bases. They point out that in Japan and the Philippines the US must deal with independent governments which may not …



The “Power Elite”: Two Views  

In Power Elite one may discern three tasks: (1) to describe the locus of power and its organization in American society, (2) to interpret this power configuration, explain its causes and the direction of its movement, (3) to pass judgment …



First Hearing on “Subversive List”  

EIGHT YEARS AGO the Truman administration issued the first list of governmentally proscribed organizations in American history. At the time the Attorney General’s “subversive list” was published, the proscription was supposed to extend only to government jobs for persons who …



Viewing a World Conflict  

It is Sidney Lens’s contention that not two but three socio-economic systems confront each other in the world today. They are communism, capitalism and feudalism. The first is present in Russia, its satellites and China; the second in the U.S., …



Russia and the Monthly Review  

IT WAS ONLY after the second world war that one became aware of a new political type—the public figure who spoke favorably of Russia not because he had illusions about the nature of Stalinism but beause he did not. One …



The Politics of Psychological Testing  

In September 1954 Fortune magazine ran an article severely criticizing the use of psychological “personality tests” on business executives. It was not simply a run-of-the-mill attack upon science as science, or even upon pseudo-science as science. Instead, it was relatively …



The Economics of War and Peace  

Any contraction of the Cold War and ensuing attempts to “normalize” international relations raise fresh hopes for a peaceful solution of the prevailing imperialist antagonisms. For the Western world this involves new evaluations of the Bolshevik regimes and their aggressive …





Letters  

Democracy and Planning Editors: I read Stuart Hampshire’s article, “In Defense of Radicalism,” (DISSENT, Spring ’56) with great interest and agree essentially with his notions of the function of the radical in society. However, Mr. Hampshire seems to have overlooked …



The Haunted Hall: I.W.W. of Fifty  

You don’t remember the Wobblies. You were too young. Or else not even born yet. There has never beeii anything like them, before or since. They called themselves materialisteconomists but what they really were was a religion. They were workstiffs and bindlebums …



America as a “Mass Society”  

The one issue that seems most important this year to politicians and public alike is the President’s Health. If the apparent lack of substantive issues means that the major difference between the parties lies in the names of the candidates …



A Letter to Picasso  

This open letter to Picasso originally appeared in the June, 1956 issue of Preuves and is published with permission of both its author and the editors. This letter to you, Picasso, is not a personal letter. You are a genius, …