The salient conflicts in the world today are class conflicts within states, rather than conflicts between them...The growth of manufacturing production and exports in a diverse range of countries undermined the identification of imperialism with neocolonialism and the development of underdevelopment...The relationship between politicians and activists on the one hand, and intellectuals and academics on the other, has invariably been framed by mutual mistrust, bordering on hostility...Intellectuals complain that politicians aren’t interested in ideas, while politicians protest that intellectuals aren’t interested in reality. Politicians don’t think – intellectuals don’t act. The former live only for today, the latter simply dream of utopia. Never the two shall meet. The result leaves the left weak on strategy and purpose, caught between pragmatism and abstraction– unable to master the big challenges or to capture the popular mood...
Posted on: Sun, 11 Jan 2015 00:41:45 +0000