The Establishment Shows its Hand  

The more thoughtful leaders of the American establishment realize that serious economic problems will be inherited from the Reagan administration. These include enormous budget and balance-of-trade deficits; a banking structure weakened by deregulation and vast indebtedness not only of developing …



Brendan Sexton 1911-1988  

When I first met Brendan Sexton in the mid-1930s, he was pure flame: an activist in the then still-vital Socialist party, a leader in the unemployed movement, a young man full of blazing energy. I saw him from a distance, …



From the West Bank: An Arab Voice  

After twenty-one years of Israeli occupation, the status quo in the West Bank and Gaza lingers on, with dire implications for the future of the entire area. Palestinians and Israelis compete in denying each other’s interests and aspirations, or, on …



Central America–Pain and Struggle  

The astonishing thing about the Reagan administration’s policy toward Nicaragua is its resiliency. Twice in the space of a year, it appeared that the administration’s sponsorship of a proxy war was on the brink of failure: in November 1986, when …



Glasnost in Eastern Europe  

Lech Walesa says that glasnost makes him uneasy. “In my twenty-five years as an electrician I’ve had to tighten and loosen many screws. When tightening them I’ve broken only one, but I must have broken several hundred in my attempts …





The Myth of Free Trade  

Free trade is a myth. It does not exist; it never did exist, with the possible and limited exception of a brief period when Britain practiced it as well as preached it to expand its near-monopoly over world manufacture. It …



After the Party  

Since the depths of the Volcker-Reagan recession of the early 1980s, the U.S. economy has followed a course of economic expansion that has heartened supporters of the Reagan administration and put its critics on the defensive. In terms of the …



Theology Bashing  

Neoconservative Michael Novak, once a man who decried U.S. military and political encroachment in other lands, has written another apologia for U.S. policy in Latin America in the guise of a critique of Latin American liberation theology. Novak charges, with …









The Road to Moscow  

The road from Leningrad to Moscow stretches some 450 miles, a distance that I, on advice of my doctor, my conscience, and a consuming curiosity about some hidden aspects of Soviet life, set out to walk recently, in the company …



British Labour After Defeat  

Recent events in Britain offer little cheer for anyone committed to democratic socialism. After what was widely held to be Labour’s most effective election campaign in twenty years, Labour gained a share of the vote that was only 3.5 percent …



Toward a Postindustrial Politics  

The most important political issue—in peacetime—is always the economy. This basic truth will only intensify over the coming decade, as the United States continues its painful transition from an industrial economy built on assembly-line manufacturing in large, stable firms, to …