During the Cold War, the radical anti-capitalist left (a group quite distinct from mainstream capitalism-taming liberals) was perpetually searching for a country that would prove by example the viability of socialism, defined as government ownership of all industry and major enterprises. The socialists in the West who had not already soured on the Soviet Union mostly turned against it by the mid-1950s, following revelations about Stalin’s atrocities.

There was a great article by Michael Lind recently on Salon.com, “The white South's last defeat.” His premise: the white South doesn't change until forced, making the rest of the country suffer. All based on some state right to oppress that I somehow ...

Calhoun represented the fears of the slave-owning agrarian South being outnumbered by the growing North. But the same style applies to other elites maneuvering to retain their power in the face of diminishing numbers. Michael Lind, in a Salon essay on ...