The debate over surrogate mothering is often seen as a debate over the meaning of motherhood and the status of women in general. Both court decisions and the writings of feminist theorists center on questions about the value of mothering, …
A far-reaching transformation of global politics has made the world a freer but messier place. The cold war was never tidy, yet superpower competition did impose a simplicity—often an unfortunate simplicity—on perceptions of events, if not on the events themselves. …
Allard Lowenstein was a liberal insurgent at the heart of the civil rights protests and the antiwar protests of the sixties. His gift was for organizing and speaking, and he had command of the great ability a reformer needs—of turning …
When Ed Sadlowski retired a while back, his friends tried to throw him a surprise party. They failed as far as the honoree was concerned—people on the street in South Chicago just kept telling him they’d see him Saturday night. …
Peter Glotz’s reply reminds me of the old witz: the young boy is asked, “Hans, where is your right ear?” “Right ear?” He raises his left hand, reaches over his head, and touches his right ear. So, with the reply. …
Europe is not lost yet. Daniel Bell’s arguments are good, but not convincing. Bell’s basic error lies in his hidden suspicion of the shape of the European welfare state. Without a doubt, in the next ten years the social welfare …
Forty years ago in Dissent, Irving Howe and Lewis Coser wrote: “To will the image of socialism is a constant struggle for definition.” Ever since then one of the distinguishing characteristics of Dissent has been that “struggle for definition.” The …
Out on the high plains and mountains of Montana and Idaho, the gray wolf is returning to part of its old homeland. Responsibility for the wolf’s comeback ought to rest with the many government land agencies that have spent millions …
There has been a certain rapprochement between the American and European lefts over the past several years—a rapprochement in weakness and uncertainty, perhaps, but one marked also by a recognition of common interests and values, and common problems, too. One …
Midway through Year Two of Bill Clinton’s presidency, the most striking aspect of his tenure in office is the demobilization, the silence, of the coalition that brought him to power. As far as the nineties are concerned, the Schlesinger thirty-year …
In front of the Mississippi State Capitol, resting securely between the artillery that points toward Mississippi Street, is a statue dedicated “to the women of the Confederacy whose pious ministrations to our wounded soldiers soothed the last hours of those …
One of the fault lines within political economy is between theorists of continuity and theorists of discontinuity. The former argue that current institutions are a continuation of the past with only superficial changes. The latter argue that big changes are …
Politically it may be correct for American foreign policy to be “involved” without being “overexpanded,” as Stanley Hoffmann advises and as Clinton’s waffling already makes a foregone conclusion. Our foreign economic policy, by contrast, has been aggressive, not just in …
The American left has proved very adept at identifying the misuses of American military power and the distortion of national priorities that defense spending has entailed. But despite the left’s consistent attention to military matters, it lacks a coherent approach …
The Clinton administration’s 1993 decision to establish a Commission on the Future of Worker-Management Relations has opened a far-ranging debate about the U.S. collective bargaining system. Organized labor generally argues that its priority should be strengthening workers’ rights to organize …
