Max Fisher-

You have commended to us an article published by TNR in 1932 as among Edmund Wilson's "best stuff." And yet, in this same article, Wilson defends, at length, the Soviet Union, and, in particular, Soviet communism.

"Why should it be a matter for surprise or reproach that they [the Soviets] could not establish communism overnight?" writes Wilson. He then goes on to defend explicitly the Soviets' brutal dictatorship, even going so far as to equate the totalitarian nightmare with the "American tradition" of ruling "by tyranny and terror, with secret police, espionage and arbitrary executions."

Wilson also suggests that capitalism is incapable of reforming itself, and that there can be only one outcome to arise out of the chaos of 1932: "the establishment of a socialistic society" in America, a society that would have at least this "in common with Russia: that it shall aim to abolish social classes and private enterprise for private profit."

It occurs to me, Max Fisher, that there might have been a more intelligent (and, one hopes, more prescient) article from TNR's archives that you could have shared with your readers.

I was going to read that today, but there's a lot of very serious football on. Did it really say all that Joe? Wow, get stuck in Ed. Sounds like TNR was a lot more fun back then.

It's a pity Mr Wilson isn't around to see that socialistic society being enforced upon us all by the Marxist Elect.

Iggy Pop-

Yes, you're much better off watching football today (Giants/Redskins, Jets/Broncos) than reading Edmund Wilson's article.

And, yes, Wilson really did say all that. In fact, his central point throughout the entire article is that liberals, much to their discredit, are shying away from embracing the core principle behind the liberal cause: socialism, Marxism, Soviet communism.

If Joe the Plumber were to get wind of this, Wilson's piece would read like Sarah Palin's wet dream.

One more thing, Iggy Pop-

Here's an excerpt from a 2003 piece by Alex Ross in The New Yorker that details Edmund Wilson's love affair with communism:

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. . .he [Wilson] welcomed the Crash as a portent of the death of capitalism, and he embraced Marxism. He voted for the Communist candidate, William Z. Foster, in the 1932 presidential election; the same year, he signed a manifesto calling for "a temporary dictatorship of the class-conscious workers." . . . In 1935, after he began work on "To the Finland Station," he tried to persuade his friend John Dos Passos, whose radicalism had begun to cool, that Stalin was a true Marxist, "working for socialism in Russia."

Soon afterward, Wilson went to Russia himself. He published his journal of the visit, along with material about travels in the United States, in a book pointedly entitled “Travels in Two Democracies.” In fact, he had had to censor his diaries in order to conceal evidence of the fear and oppression he had seen in the Soviet Union.

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Here's a link to The New Yorker piece:

www.newyorker.com/.../030324crat_atlarge

Great selection, as true today as it was when it was written.  Except I think he underestimated FDR a little bit.

Giantsmisients Joe. I'm talking Chelski v Arsenal and the Manchester derby - proper football.

Ed's clearly a product of his time, but I do happen to welcome his central point that American Liberals, all too often, do shy away from a functioning social economy.

America's the only industrialised democracy in the world that doesn't have a party representing organized labour. I doubt if Obama's going to keep his promise on card check. These big scary red issues seem a lot easier to understand when you boil it down to basics. Take any - maternity leave in the US is 2 f*cking months! compared to 9-12 in Europe, annual leave, sick leave, job security, pension benefits and on and on. Even social mobility - supposedly the point of all that "flexibility" - has near collapsed in the Anglo-Saxon economies compared to the European model.

It's a good time to air that issue if Obama is to succeed in bringing us all back from the brink.

If we're supposed to throw long-and-deep on policy, then lets do that.

The whole rational behind the Anglo-Saxon model is that it increases opportunity, which can be measured by the level of social mobility.

See LSE's report on social mobility in the UK and US compared to the alternative: www.lse.ac.uk/.../LSE_SuttonTrust_report.htm

I would have thought that leads to a pretty easy conclusion on this experiment, which is what it is: it can be changed. I've some hope that Obama's centrist picks will equate to some easy wins on this front. It's about policy not personalities.

Iggy Pop-

You write: "Ed's clearly a product of his time, but I do happen to welcome his central point that American Liberals, all too often, do shy away from a functioning social economy."

Sorry, Iggy, but Wilson's central point is not, as you suggest, that liberals all too often shy away from a "functioning social economy." It's that liberals all too often shy away from Soviet-style communism.

There's a big difference. It's one thing to argue in favor of maternity leave, annual leave, sick leave, job security, and pension benefits. It's quite another thing to argue, as Wilson does, that history is on a preset course, that capitalism is literally destined to collapse, that the predetermined path of history provides the key to the meaning of life.

The former argument is rational. The latter is not.

Simply put, when one bases one's entire existence on a belief in a false religion, as Wilson did, one often closes one's eyes to any fact that may contradict one's beliefs, as Wilson also did. After visiting Stalin's Russia in the 1930s, for instance, Wilson "had to censor his diaries in order to conceal evidence of the fear and oppression he had seen in the Soviet Union."

All of which is to say, irrationality has its consequences. And those consequences have been well documented: tens of millions dead in the Soviet Union, tens of millions dead in the People's Republic of China, countless millions dead in Cambodia, Cuba, North Korea and Eastern Europe. All sacrificed on the altar of a false god, a false religion, a mass, collective hallucination: history, determinism, a presumed certainty as to the specific course of the future, a presumed certainty as to the meaning and purpose of all human life.

Well we can all agree that his love of totalitarianism is pathetic Joe. Maybe, TNR were hoping to get a reaction. Who knows, Jamie could well be working on a hit piece on him as we speak.