Socialist Register 2006: Telling the Truth

Since 1964, The Socialist Register has brought together leading writers on the left to investigate aspects of a common theme. Telling the Truth: Socialist Register 2006 examines how contemporary social and political debate is structured, how ideas and ideologies come to inform policy making, research, education, and our conceptions of truth more generally.

It also discusses the role of the state in intellectual life and the media, and the role of think-tanks, foundations, political parties and global institutions such as the World Bank in the dissemination of knowledge and ideas. Such questions are not always at the center of public debate, but are essential to establishing freedom for critical thought and reflection and for the formation of a new generation of intellectuals.

Table of Contents:

Leo Panitch and Colin Leys, “Preface”

Colin Leys, “The Cynical State”

Atilio A. Boron, “The Truth about Capitalist Democracy”

Doug Henwood, “The ‘Business Community’”

Frances Fox Piven & Barbara Ehrenreich, “The Truth about Welfare Reform”

Loic Wacquant, “The ‘Scholarly Myths’ of the New Law and Order Doxa”

Robert W. McChesney, “Telling the Truth at a Moment of Truth: U.S. News Media and the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq”

David Miller, “Propaganda-Managed Democracy: The UK and the Lessons of Iraq”

Ben Fine & Elisa Van Waeyenberge, “Correcting Stiglitz: From Information to Power in the World of Development”

Sanjay G. Reddy, “Counting the Poor: The Truth about World Poverty Statistics”

Michael Kustow, “Playing with the Truth: The Politics of Theatre”

John Sanbonmatsu, “Postmodernism and the Corruption of the Academic Intelligentsia”

G.M. Tamás, “Telling the Truth about Class”

Terry Eagleton, “On Telling the Truth”

Leo Panitch is professor of political science at York University in Toronto. Colin Leys was for many years professor of political science at Queen’s University in Canada. He is the author of Market-Driven Politics.