Polio: The Blessings of … ?  

Sometimes cant harms no one but those who speak it; sometimes, as the wretched mishandling of the polio problem by the Eisenhower administration shows, it can endanger thousands of people. No one who remembers the hopes of April 12 when …





Co-Existence, Neutralism, Third Force  

I This comment on the international situation and plea that politically conscious Americans, especially non-Stalinists, should give more support to the development of a Third Camp starts with several assumptions. I shall not attempt to argue their validity, save in …



Proudhon, An Appreciation  

The extent to which Proudhon’s contributions to radical thought are overlooked even among radicals was impressed upon me by a recent article in DISSENT (Spring, 1954) in which Lewis Coser and Irving Howe discussed the differences between Marx and his …



The Folklore of Populism  

I. The Two Nations For a generation after the Civil War, a time of great economic exploitation and waste, grave social corruption and ugliness, the dominant note in American political life was complacency. Although dissenting minorities were always present, they …



Letters  

Editors: Since you have been good enough to announce the publication (in an abbreviated form) of a recent paper of mine on collectivism (see page 305) , I hesitate to take up more of your space, but the discussion of …



A Sampling of Opinions  

This book, says the author, was designed to “open a window into the mind of America” and perhaps it has succeeded even better than Mr. Stouffer had intended because, in a way, its motivation and conception, its mode of procedure …



Work in Progress  

G. D. H. Cole has undertaken the exceptionally difficult task of preparing a general history of socialist thought as distinguished from a history of the socialist movement. This work, to run to four volumes when complete, is presently at the …





The Domestic Temper  

THE VERY SUMMER which finds the Russian and American governments drawing closer together seems also to find the Russian and American people approximating one another, so far as one can tell, in the quality of their mood. Both give the …





Matusow: Boomerang Boy  

But cruel are the times, when we are traitors And do not know ourselves, when we hold rumour From what we fear, yet know not what we fear, But float upon a wild and violent sea Each way and move. …



Sidney Hook Chats with Karl Marx  

VISITS TO OTHER WORLDS have often been thought of as difficult, even traumatic experiences. Through the fantasy of spatial travel, the visitor would try to confront elements within his thought or feeling he had previously hesitated to acknowledge. But, apparently, …



With a Bang and a Whimper  

THE GREAT CRASH, 1929, by John Kenneth Galbraith. Houghton, Mifflin Co., Boston. 1955 212 pages. $3.00   When John Kenneth Galbraith, the noted Harvard economist, testified recently before the friendly Fulbright committee on the condition of the stock market, prices …



Letters  

“Dissent” in England Editors: May I as a British Socialist pay tribute to the really fine magazine that you publish in DISSENT? I have now read the first four editions, covering the first year of publication, almost from cover to …