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A reader aimed at revitalizing left legal and political critique.

The current status of the political Left is examined. Belief in socialism stems from outrage over social injustice. Zeal & moral outrage do not in themselves produce a socialist; a true socialist must act on this zeal, following a coherent political philosophy that identifies not only symptoms but also causes of social injustice. Though the collapse of Eastern European regimes suggests the end of socialism, it will remain as long as power is concentrated in the hands of the few & social injustice persists. The content & form of socialism may change with changing social & political conditions, but socialism is founded in the commonsense proposition that the world is a better place if each individual is allowed to make his or her full contribution to society. D. Generoli

Criticizes the journal's coverage of Irish affairs, both in terms of quantity and quality. Includes 2 responses to the changes.

"Left melodrama" is a form of contemporary political critique that combines thematic elements and narrative structures of the melodramatic genre with a political perspective grounded in a left theoretical tradition, fusing them to dramatically interrogate oppressive social structures and unequal relations of power. It is also a new form of what Walter Benjamin called "left melancholy", a critique that deadens what it examines by employing outdated and insufficient analyses to current exploitations. Left melodrama is melancholic insofar as its use of older leftist critical methods disavows its attachments to the failed promises of left political-theoretical critique: that it could provide direct means to freedom and moral Tightness. Left melodrama is melodramatic insofar as it incorporates the specific melodramatic narrative, style and promise of the text that stands in for its disavowed attachments: the Manifesto of the Communist Party. Whereas the Manifesto's critical power promised radical political transformation, left melodrama incorporates the Manifesto's melodramatic style in an effort to revivify that promise. It thus inhibits the creation of new critical methods appropriate to our current historical moment and occludes Marx and Engels' warning that the possibility of radical transformation is diminished when the past furnishes the vision for the future. Left melodrama can be found in the texts of Giorgio Agamben, Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri; their reincorporation of the Manifesto's melodrama both contributes to their widespread success and undercuts their critical capacities to examine and challenge the inequalities, injustices and unfreedom that shape the present moment. Adapted from the source document.

A series of presidential elections in Latin America has brought to power new political leaders with a left-of-centre political orientation &, in some cases, strong anti-market & anti-Washington rhetoric. Many commentators have viewed this as a sort of regional left turn. When countries are embracing market friendly policies, competitiveness & globalisation virtually all over the world, is there a risk that the region is going back to the future, embarking on old fashioned economic measures? Adapted from the source document.

Re : generations -- Generation left (behind) -- Generation explosion -- The electoral turn -- Reinventing adulthood.

A key terrain of political controversy remains the concept of multiculturalism. Here, Eriksen and Stjernfelt critically examine its impact, both in Malaysia and in Europe, in The Democratic Contradictions of Multiculturalism, published by Telos Press in 2012. Part of their argument involved an examination of a specifically leftist variant. Their rebuttal, challenging the left to face up to its own Jacobin legacies: given the checkered history of more than two centuries of leftism, there is no reason not to see multicultis on the left as the current heirs of a strong and immanent tradition within the left, going all the way back to Robespierre's populism and anti-individualism. The tendency on the left to identify, if not reduce, individuals to simplistic collective categories, such as class, economic position, culture, and ethnicity, has simply been there all the time, and it has been able to merge seamlessly, in different combinations, with other classical leftist ideas such as substantial equality, paternalism, anti-capitalism, anti-Americanism, anti-bourgeois lifestyle recommendations, etc. In other words, multiculturalism is definitively a left-wing phenomenon, when it inherits the worst of the left tradition. The current return to politics will therefore have to address a legacy of repressive behavior, or else it will repeat it. Adapted from the source document.