May 1, 1997
In this space in last summer's double issue of MR, we directed attention to the work of a worldwatch Institute in Washington, D.C., especially its annual State of the World, the first issue of which was published in 1984. The latest (1997) of these reports came out in February. By now this series is being translated into all the world's major languages and constitutes what is probably the most comprehensive and available source of information on the global environment.
July 1, 1995
Many people from divergent ethnic backgrounds, speaking various languages, and possessing different cultures now share a common experience of inequality in the United States. Yet there is an absence of unity among these constituencies, in part because their leaders are imprisoned ideologically and theoretically by the assumptions and realities of the past.
April 1, 1994
In my opinion, American capitalism no longer has any use for, let's say, 40 percent of the population. These are the descendants of folks who were brought over here in one way or another during the period of capital accumulation. They're now superfluous human beings.
November 1, 1992
Over the last few years, I have asked hundreds of college students, "When was the country we now know as the United States first settled?"
December 1, 1989
That there are good and honorable people who believe that the Democratic Party can be turned around. I don't. Our major task is to change the entire nature of political discussion in the country. In my view that's just not going to happen within the Democratic Party.
July 1, 1986
In bourgeois society a violation of property rights is the supreme injustice. Hybrids provided a solution in agriculture. Commercial hybrids decrease the yield of the following generation. This means that farmers have to renew their seed every year. Hence, hybrids create a perpetual market for seed.
September 1, 1983
Sol Yurick writes radical novels, good ones, and loves to speculate on how culture gets inside people's bones. In the early 1970s, Sol and I spend a lot of time musing over Monopoly, a game many leftists love to hate, others hate to love, and practically everybody plays. According to Shelly Berman, the comedian, "Monopoly evokes a unique emotion, the surge of thrill you get when you know you've wiped out a friend." But what else is going on as we accumulate property and scheme how to beggar our neighbors? Are we simply expressing some atavistic urge for power, or tuning in, consciously or unconsciously, to the attitudes that are most highly prized in our business-oriented society?
