"The story of the rise of radicalism in the early nineteenth century has often been simplified into a fable about progressive social change. The diverse social movements of the era—religious, political, regional, national, antislavery, and protemperance—are presented as mere strands in a unified tapestry of labor and democratic mobilization. Taking aim at this flawed view of radicalism as simply the extreme end of a single dimension of progress, Craig Calhoun emphasizes the coexistence of different kinds of radicalism, their tensions, and their implications."

"Apparently the demonstrators have had some unkind words to say about capitalism. I have my doubts as to whether very many of them are serious about wanting to abolish it. Put me down as opposing any effort to overthrow capitalism in America. But American capitalism is overdue for reform more drastic than anything under current consideration within the polite mainstream. As I've been trying to point out lately, many of the more forceful criticisms are coming from the capitalists themselves. We need to resist tax simplification if it means reducing rather than increasing the number of tax brackets, because as the income share of the top 1 percent increases new tax brackets are needed for the highest incomes just to keep up. We need to revive the private-sector labor movement in this country, a goal most mainstream liberals are unwilling to take seriously. We need to break up the biggest banks, so that we won't be in danger of having to bail them out again in the future. We need to impose some form of federal price controls on college tuition increases, because, like health care, higher education has unmoored itself from the laws of supply and demand. I promise you the liberal establishment at college campuses across the country isn't going to take that one sitting down.

A year ago I wrote, from my former perch at Slate: "Today, the richest 1 percent account for 24 percent of the nation's income, yet the prospect of class warfare is utterly remote. Indeed, the political question foremost in Washington's mind is how thoroughly the political party more closely associated with the working class (that would be the Democrats) will get clobbered in the next election. Why aren't the bottom 99 percent marching in the streets?" Well, now they are marching in the streets, waving signs that say "We Are The Bottom 99 Percent." Do I wish they were paying more attention to the Federal Register so they could properly support the writing of forceful regulations under the undeniably valuable Dodd-Frank financial reforms? Of course. Do I wish they'd stop occasionally trying to perform the latter-day equivalent of trying to levitate the Pentagon? What do you think? But until they give me a concrete reason to feel otherwise, I'll be glad that protesters are finally taking notice of America's 30-year income-inequality binge. It's long overdue."

Hear, hear!

I am happy to endorse this, despite having read and admired Gross & Levitt's book as soon as it came out.  In retrospect, there was a fair amount of quarreling among natural allies "while Sauron was gathering his forces in Mordor" (as Krugman put it) going on in the 1990s.  (Which is not to say that irritating relativists weren't and aren't irritating, and wrong, just that they were never the real threat.)

"challenges the conventional wisdom that participatory democracy is worthy in purpose but unworkable in practice... social movements have often used bottom-up decision making as a powerful tool for political change... also highlights the obstacles that arise when activists model their democracies after familiar nonpolitical relationships such as friendship, tutelage, and religious fellowship... brought into their deliberations the trust, respect, and caring typical of those relationships. But it has also fostered values that run counter to democracy ... exclusivity ... aversion to rules ... have been the fault lines ... the fragility of the form less to its basic inefficiency or inequity than to the gaps between activists' democratic commitments and the cultural models on which they have depended ... The challenge ... is to forge new kinds of democratic relationships, ones that balance trust with accountability, respect with openness to disagreement, and caring with inclusiveness."

I can't believe I'm agreeing with William Saletan, but I am: "A party that loses a House seat can win it back two years later, as Republicans just proved. But a party that loses a legislative fight against a middle-class health care entitlement never restores the old order. Pretty soon, Republicans will be claiming the program as their own. Indeed, one of their favorite arguments against this year's health care bill was that it would cut funding for Medicare. Now they're pledging to rescind those cuts. In 30 years, they'll be accusing Democrats of defunding Obamacare. ... Politicians have tried and failed for decades to enact universal health care. ... In 2008, Democrats won the presidency and both houses of Congress, and by the thinnest of margins, they rammed a bill through. They weren't going to get another opportunity for a very long time. It cost them their majority, and it was worth it. And that's not counting financial regulation, economic stimulus, college lending reform..."

Yes, yes, and again yes!

Today's reminder that nothing I will ever do will really matter.

That'd be Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), not a misprint for "White House".

Huge PDF. Looks interesting.

PK: "[Even] if I do have some brilliant academic insight, what are they going to do, give me a Nobel Prize?"

Memo to self: write that essay on how complex systems:physics::cultural studies:literature.

Galbraith jr. arguing for the combination of free trade & progressive labor policies at home.

"In A Darwinian left Peter Singer aims to reconcile Darwinian theory with left wing politics, using evolutionary game theory and in particular a model proposed by Robert Axelrod, which shows that cooperation can be an evolutionarily successful strategy. In this paper I will show that whilst Axelrod’s model can give support to a kind of left wing politics, it is not the kind that Singer himself envisages. In fact, it is shown that there are insurmountable problems for the idea of increasing Axelrodian cooperation within a welfare state. My surprising conclusion will be that a Darwinian left worthy of the name would be anarchistic." --- Or: Kropotkin lives!

Herbert Gintis gave this a very favorable review: http://amzn.com/review/R1EU5DRYGVF13T (thanks to Steve Laniel for finding the link for me!)

Comparing the military's integration of blacks and whites during the Korean War with the integration of women and men during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

There are some slips here --- Kolakowski was 12 when the war began, so hardly active in pre-war politics! --- but nonetheless good.

This is too good to be true. But I want it to be.

all of this has happened before...

Krugman's long-form take on what Obama should do, domestically, in year 1. Where do I sign up to help pressure Obama to do all this?

(And, in a "why oh why can't have a better press" moment, why does our leading public intellectual have to publish this in Rolling Stone, of all places?)

Scott McLemee vivisects Bernard-Henri Levy. I am at a loss as to why anyone takes the latter seriously, but he has at least provided an opportunity for this demonstration of McLemee's skill.

Do go read _Which Side Are You On?_ as soon as possible.

Not the whole thing - but wonderful as always. (Doesn't match my memory of Besterman's translation, maybe text from an 18th century one? No source given.)

"Such hope as there is ... for ... a world [with] less systemic injustice, more freedom, less poverty, greater equality, rests in significant part on the kind of populations that developed capitalist economies increasingly put in place ... educated, incre

Hooray for the dock workers!

"Putting together everything we've learned over the past 10 days about high finance in Manhattan, one thing is clear: If Eliot Spitzer had saved all the money he apparently paid "Kristen" and her co-workers at the Emperors Club, he could have bought Bear

Lessig contemplates a Congressional run on a good-government platform.

"When confronted with bad things accomplished in the name of the law, the best response is not to undermine law as a fraud. The best response is to demonstrate that these offensive applications betray the ideals about right and justice that law espouses a

Thomas Geoghegan's truly excellent book about the labor movement and its travails, on sale cheap. Extremely strongly recommended.

Some of us learned this point at our parents' knees, but it bears repeating...

George Scialabba on Edmund Wilson

Nice point about Christian Democracy (though my understand was that they had very little pre-war political traction...)

With reflections on witchcraft and conspiracist thinking.

Krugman summarized

Sounds calculated to appeal to my prejudices; hence, interest but wariness.

The US needs a truth-and-reconciliation committee

Larry Lessig reviews Bob Reich's new book