Tag Archives: inequality

How to Live with a Progressive Conscience

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Many progressives reading this post are, like me, privileged members of highly unequal societies. Although precarious employment with limited benefits afflicts many others, we are in secure jobs with secure futures. We can look forward to retirement. We do not need to worry that one bad illness will drive us into bankruptcy. The economies from which we benefit and our daily activities and pleasures also spew out prodigious volumes of carbon dioxide. Yet we are fairly well insulated from global warming, whereas the poorest and most carbon-frugal people, at home and abroad, are not. Most of us would welcome a drastic leap to a more egalitarian, secure, just and sustainable world, but that leap isn’t likely to happen soon. Continue reading →

The Fascist Virus

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In an unpublished article circa 1934 entitled “The Fascist Virus”[i] Karl Polanyi sketches a theory of fascism that remains relevant. This theory is further elaborated in an article entitled “The Essence of Fascism”[ii] and in The Great Transformation (1944). In light of current politico-economic trends, this theory is worth revisiting. Continue reading →

Youth: Vanguard for the Next New Left?

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With the decline of the traditional working class and its growing defection to right-wing populism, progressives have searched for an alternative social agent. Could it be youth? Continue reading →

Is Donald Trump a Fascist?

Fascism is much in the news. In Central and Eastern Europe, Russia, Turkey and elsewhere, we read reports of the rise of right-wing nationalist-populism, while, in the Middle East, “Islamo-fascism” is blamed for vicious and unending wars. In the United States, Donald Trump is now routinely dismissed as a #fascist. Is the US falling into the same deadly pattern so evident elsewhere? Continue reading →

Pursuing a Passion for the Possible

Albert Hirschman’s challenge to social scientists in A Bias for Hope (1971) to embrace a “passion for the possible” has largely been ignored in the mainstream disciplines. That is a pity for, in this age of high anxiety and disaffection, don’t we desperately need perspectives that transcend the limiting confines of liberal democracy and the commodification of everything? Continue reading →

Socialism: A Journey, Not a Pre-determined Destination

An article by #MichaelWalzer (Dissent, Summer 2010) offers a clear and practical understanding “of the only #socialism we will ever know.” Striking off in a new direction, he purposely elides the distinction between “socialism” and “social democracy” while adopting a critical stance toward both. He rightly emphasizes the progressive nature of the goals of the latter – participatory democracy, regulated markets, and a universalistic welfare state – even though we need to be very critical of the actual practice of current social democratic parties in the West. Although many readers will feel that there must be more to it than that, Walzer advances the view that movements aimed at extending the three goals and defending existing achievements is actually what a practicable socialism is all about. I agree. Continue reading →

Can Moderate Social Democracy be Progressive? A View from the Global South

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safe_imageCA0A40E3Progressive movements divide into two types. On the one hand, there are leftist parties with a moderate strategy that aim, or at least resign themselves, to implement redistributive programs with the acquiescence of the elites. On the other hand, we find parties that believe that only unrelenting confrontation of existing power structures and inherited privilege will bring the desired results. The division between class compromise and class struggle is fundamental. Continue reading →

The Politics of Taking Sustainability Seriously

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NOTES FOR A LECTURE

I. INTRODUCTION

(a) The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), as developed by the UN Open Working Group on Sustainable Development in 2014, represent nothing less than a depiction of the Good Society. Continue reading →