All political systems are subject to corruption, but not to the same kind of corruption. The corruptions of American democracy are determined by two things: the radically unequal distribution of wealth in our society and the private financing of political …
I end my article by calling for a better feminist conversation. Joanne Barkan’s response is what I have in mind, not because I agree with everything she says—I don’t—but because she meets the issues, and does so in a manner …
Is socialism—and if so, what kind of socialism—a necessary condition for true equality between the sexes?
Zelda Bronstein finds it odd that feminists like me, Anna Quindlen, Ellen Goodman, Katha Pollitt, and Blanche Weisen Cook would be delighted to have a First Lady like Hillary Rodham Clinton after twelve years of Nancy Reagan and Barbara Bush. …
This issue of Dissent continues our reconsideration of what it means to be “left,” with contributions by Anne Phillips and Amos Oz. Both pose sharp questions and recognize that these are difficult times for defining the left. Still, they uphold …
WHEN WORK DISAPPEARS: THE WORLD OF THE NEW URBAN POOR, by William Julius Wilson. Knopf, 1996. 352 pp. $26.00. Some years back Russell Jacoby introduced the term “public intellectual.” He used it to mean the sort of nonacademic, politically concerned, …
In Greek the hegemon is the leader, and from there it’s just a linguistic hop, skip, and jump to the notion of rule, authority, and dominance expressed by the word “hegemony.” Traditionally, the term was reserved for states. In the …
Recently, a number of French intellectuals endorsed an appeal urging Europeans to address seriously the negative consequences on social life of neoliberal economic trends. The following is an abridged version of their “Call,” translated and edited for a U.S. audience. …
On a warm afternoon in the autumn of 1996, a limousine pulled up at the gates of the Bayer AG plant in Berkeley, California, and a handful of young men piled out of the car, megaphones to the ready. “We …
By offering three alternative proposals on Social Security, the report of the presidential advisory commission last January performed an unintended service to the country. It did exactly what commissions appointed to provide advice on complex policy questions ought to do. …
When Erica Jong’s hymn to Hillary Rodham Clinton appeared in the Nation last November, it was only the latest in a series of feminist tributes to the First Lady. In a March 1993 double salute to Mrs. Clinton and the …
Relations between the United States and Cuba stumble from obsession to obsession. A few years ago, the reigning obsession was the flow of illegal Cuban immigrants to American shores—a flow now stanched by tacit agreement between the two countries. This …
The representation election is the hallmark of our labor law. Workers vote by secret ballot about whether or not they want union representation; if a majority votes yes, the union is certified by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), and …
Ever eager to see progressives detach themselves from the pair of miscreants in the White House, I welcome Zelda Bronstein to the growing circle of feminist Hillary-haters. But I do so only with grave misgivings. Bronstein has failed to sample …
When the Iron Curtain disintegrated, the newly freed lands of what was once the Soviet empire had to start from scratch. The civil structure of our societies was devastated, our political structures perverted, our perceptions distorted, our economies in shambles. …
