The Young Radicals: A Symposium

1.) The radical tradition has left us three things worth preserving. First, a complex of values related to the ideal of a democratic community of free and equal individuals. These values are by no means the exclusive property of the radical tradition, obviously, but they have received a distinctive formulation at the hands of the prophets of democratic socialism—see, for example, Professor Tawney’s Equality. Second, a sociology of power which provides the basis for a realistic critique of modern industrial society. The concepts of radical sociology—”class,” the “state,” “the means of production,” “ideology,”—were first developed in order to attack nineteenth-century capitalist society, and were used to expose the contradiction between liberal capitalist rhetoric and the actuality of coercive, exploitative social relations. These conceptions, democratic radicals in our century have shown, are equally potent in giving the lie to the ideology of totalitarian regimes which have appropriated the language of the socialist tradition to support new and more terrible forms of exploitation and tyranny. Finally, our predecessors outlined a rough program, suggesting a variety of means by which to democratize the economy, abolish class distinctions, and humanize society.

I would surrender none of these. The precise weight I give to the competing values within this tradition is my own—I am somewhat more drawn to cultu...