During a press conference held last January by the Hungarian writer Ignotus, a French surrealist poet (politically Marxist but anti-Stalinist) asked him what was the theoretical platform of the Workers’ Councils during the October uprising. It seemed that he needed …
To access Dissent’s complete Winter issue, please click here.
In her short stories, Ottessa Moshfegh chronicles downward mobility on the part of the privileged—and in so doing exposes their unfitness to rule, if not to exist.
One of the “hottest radicals” of the early twentieth century, Max Eastman is now largely left out of the pantheon of the left. Can we still learn from this idiosyncratic editor today?
The authoritarian offensive has primarily taken the form of attacks on racialized others. We must fight back accordingly.
Leftists have reason to be optimistic, not because demographics will save us, but because a growing number of progressives are rediscovering the value of good old-fashioned organizing.
One of France’s most influential contemporary thinkers, Marcel Gauchet manages to craft a compelling historical account of half a millennium, exploring how we arrived at today’s crisis—and how we might get out.
Andrés Manuel López Obrador is hardly the demagogue of his critics’ imaginations. The more relevant question is: if he becomes Mexico’s next president, will he actually bring the changes the country needs?
The destruction of habeas corpus—the constitutional protection against unlawful imprisonment by a state court—may be the most tragic development of the modern legal era.
Enacting a series of market reforms in the name of “equality of opportunity,” Emmanuel Macron’s program embodies the contradictions inherent in progressive neoliberalism.
Set on and around the New York City waterfront, Jennifer Egan’s new novel Manhattan Beach offers a feminism suited to the “lean in” age.
In a moment when the left remains small and weak, ideological purity is almost certain to be self-defeating. We need every ally we can find.
The Deuce, at its best, offers a 360-degree view of New York’s sex economy—but as the show progresses, Times Square’s street characters become a sideshow.
With ever more job-killing robots on the horizon, it’s time to demand a new public sphere: one that guarantees not just jobs but leisure too.
Conspiracism has traveled from the margins to the mainstream, infusing public life and altering the bounds of what is acceptable in democratic politics.
