An Underpraised and Undervalued System

In: Worldview, Band 20, Heft 7-8, S. 9-12

Abstract

Socialism, it appears, is like the Volvo: the thinking person's ideology. It is, according to Irving Howe in World of Our Fathers, the vital inheritance of Jewish immigrants. It attracts many dissidents of Catholic origin, like Michael Harrington, Garry Wills, Rosemary Ruether, and the busy workers at the Center for Concern. According to Henry Ford II, it has come to dominate in the bosom of the Ford Foundation. On television shows corporate tycoons and small businessmen are invariably corrupt, and on the television news—that lucrative portion of one of the most profitable of all industries—profits in other industries are reported on with faint whiffs of moral disapproval.