The end of the Cold War should mean the end of the illusion that “free market capitalism” and communism are the only choices for a developed economy. The experiences of advanced European welfare states show that there are many more …
On Saturday, August 24, 1991, a huge crowd surrounded the buildings of the Central Committee of the Communist party of the Soviet Union (CC-CPSU) on Staraya Square in Moscow. The defeat of the conservative putsch that had begun on August …
While liberals have been talking about resuming the War on Poverty, elected officials are doing something very different: waging a war on the poor. Even the riot that took place in Los Angeles in early May did not interrupt that …
The bipolar world is gone. The world’s states are careening toward some new equilibrium— or so we imagine, for no one can foretell what the new order will be. All that we know for sure is that it won’t resemble …
More than a year ago Legrand Clegg—president of a media watchdog organization, the Coalition Against Black Exploitation—was applauded at the NAACP convention in Los Angeles when he charged that “the century-old problem of Jewish racism in Hollywood” denies blacks access …
After Frederick Douglass gave a rousing speech at the First Woman’s Rights Convention at Seneca Falls in 1848, the press pilloried him as an “Aunt Nancy Man,” the nineteenth-century version of a “Mama’s boy.” When men joined women in suffrage …
During most of the abortion struggle in this century, the main political actors have considered the issue a matter of principle. Either the right to choose abortion stands as principle or it does not. Principled issues are clean, easy to …
The television reporter on the scene was incredulous. A looter, unconcerned with television cameras, police, or the stares of fellow neighborhood residents, walked by, arms laden with stolen property. The reporter raced after, trying to shove her microphone in the …
In 1986 Lawrence Mead catapulted to prominence with the publication of Beyond Entitlement, which argued for enforcing work obligations on welfare recipients. Used widely to support federal workfare, the book’s lasting significance lay in the intellectual foundation it provided for …
In the course of duty your culture commentator finds himself in L.A., attending yet another gathering of the stars who either make us what we are or reflect our dreams of glory. He wanders past banks of refrigerators, among indoor …
Most historical work on Austrian socialism in the interwar years is inclined to praise it, often somewhat over-enthusiastically. Helmut Gruber’s intention in this book, however, is to bury it. There was no doubt a strong tendency among socialist commentators in …
It now seems highly likely that within the near future, some say within the coming year, a new constitution will be inaugurated in South Africa. For any new constitution to gain a semblance of legitimacy either locally or internationally, it …
Omar Bongo, the president of the West African state of Gabon, was once famous on the continent for his fashionable clothes and colorful lifestyle. Bongo was never a model democrat, yet today the man is famous for freedom-sounding political remarks. …
It might not be fair to blame as well-intentioned an event as Bob Geldof ‘s Band Aid,’ which was staged to raise awareness of the plight of drought victims in Ethiopia, and even raise funds for them. But there is …
No phenomenon lasting for a decade deserves to be labeled a “crisis.” It has thus become acutely embarrassing to speak in 1992 of the third-world debt “crisis.” Certainly a chronic condition; arguably a cancer; some even say a conspiracy—but a …
