Matt McManus is a lecturer in political science at the University of Michigan and the author of The Political Theory of Liberal Socialism and The Rise of Post-Modern Conservatism among other books.
A new history of libertarianism challenges the conventional understanding of the tradition by spotlighting its radical currents. Unfortunately, there’s barely a remnant of that history today — most libertarians threw in their lot with the Right long ago.
Buried for many decades by the dominance of liberal thought, the republican tradition of freedom as nondomination has been excavated in recent years. Democratic socialists should embrace it.
The capitalist work ethic insists that we keep our heads down and work endlessly, even if our job is degrading. Democratic socialists want to free workers from drudgery so we can develop our full human potential and simply enjoy the one life we have.
The conventional understanding of Marxism as doggedly anti-religious is wrong. In fact, as the philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre argued, Christianity and Marxism have at times inspired in humanity a radical sense of hope to build a more just world.
The eminent philosopher Raymond Geuss wants us to think about ways of being that exist entirely outside of liberalism. But the most feasible egalitarian project is not one that rejects liberalism, but one that goes beyond it — through democratic socialism.
Ludwig von Mises, the influential right-wing economist, thought of himself as a sober, scientific critic of socialism. In reality, he was a free-market ideologue, using dressed-up dogma to prove why workers should bow before their capitalist masters.
The radical idea at the heart of republicanism is a challenge to private bosses and public tyrants everywhere: that we can live free from the whims of arbitrary power. Democratic socialists should embrace the radical currents of this ancient philosophy.
Conservative Mark Levin has climbed the best-seller list again with his right-wing tract American Marxism. It’s a plodding mess of a book, with page after page of recycled slogans and analysis so thin you have to squint to find any substance.
Liberal democracy gives us essential rights like free speech and civil liberties. But without challenging the domination of capital, liberal rights will always be curtailed by the power of the rich.
James Lindsay has a best-selling book out called Race Marxism. Reading the book, you soon learn that Lindsay has a shallow understanding not just of Marxism or racism in the US but the classical liberal tradition he seeks to defend.
Karl Marx believed in the self-emancipation of the working class, while Friedrich Nietzsche had nothing but disdain for the masses. But a provocative new book claims the two thinkers can be read together to develop a socialism for today.
Paul Tillich was perhaps the most towering Christian theologian of the 20th century. His religious thought is well remembered today — but his resolutely socialist thinking and agitating is not.
Since the French Revolution, the Right has deployed a common set of arguments to resist the drive to democratize economic and political power. The Left will only win if we analyze their rhetoric — and counter it.
As the 1 percent internalized the sense that they alone were responsible for their success, so too was everyone else made to feel like the cause of their own failure. This formula was baked into the neoliberal philosophy from the beginning.
Conservative thinkers like Roger Scruton defend traditional hierarchies as natural and inescapable. But our social order is the product of human decisions — and it can be remade to benefit the many rather than the few.
Capitalist “liberty” is just another word for private tyranny. Workers, not capitalists, should control economic enterprises.
Canadian thinker C. B. Macpherson insisted that capitalism’s “possessive individualism” constrained human flourishing. In its place, he wanted a democratic socialist society where people could build meaningful relationships and express the kaleidoscope of human individuality.
Slavoj Zizek has made some serious missteps in recent years — but he remains an important theorist for the Left in our postmodern, neoliberal era.
John Stuart Mill might have lots of libertarian fans, but his idiosyncratic ideas, despite their limitations, had more in common with democratic socialism than pro-capitalist ideologies.
At the heart of socialism is the simple idea that everyone, no matter where they’re born, is worthy of a dignified life — and that the fate of workers everywhere is linked together. Turning our back on that idea by dropping our internationalism would be a grave mistake.