Decline and discontent: communism and the West today

Abstract

In this lucid and thought-provoking volume, Paul Hollander juxtaposes and examines two apparently unrelated phenomena and their possible connections: the sudden and unexpected collapse Communist systems during the late 1980s and the less spectacular erosion social cohesion and cultural values in the West and primarily in the United States since the late 1960s. The first part the book is devoted to the failures communism, or existing socialism, with special reference to malfunctioning characteristics these states, focusing on the Soviet Union and Hungary. The author also examines in a broad comparative framework the patterns deprivation and dissatisfaction these systems generate wherever they have been established. Among the sources dissatisfaction and loss legitimacy the author emphasizes not only the discrepancies between theory and practice, but-unlike many other students such systems-also the part played by the- implementation of Marxism-Leninism in the failures these systems. He notes the paradox that while Western authors developed lively and detailed scenarios about the impending decline the United States, few anticipated the crises and dramatic unravelling Communist systems. The second part the volume addresses the more elusive discontents found in the West and especially, the United States, articulated by intellectuals, educators, and opinion makers. Here the author considers the possibility that a wide variety highly personal discontents have in recent times taken social-political forms and found public expression. Specific topics in this section include the Institution for Policy Studies, an organization devoted to the production and dissemination social criticism for over a quarter century; the hostility to Western cultural legacy and values in higher education disguised late as multicultural studies; the possibility new political pilgrimages after the attractions Nicaragua waned; the pattern responses and moral evasions on the Left associated with the unravelling communism; the new antiwar movement inspired by the war with Iraq and its similarities to the antiwar movements the Vietnam era. Decline and Discontent will be interest to intellectual historians, political scientists, sociologists, and all those seeking a better understanding the complex and contradictory political and cultural trends in the 1980s and beyond.