Gnosticism, the Dream Economy and the Prospects for Communism

Abstract

Time has run out for the “Vanguard Party”, but the growing disparity in wealth between the industrialized world and the less‐developed world and growing problems of income distribution and public order still give life to the “Dream Economy” proposed by Marxists and others. If the dream is not kept alive and made more rational, confrontations in many parts of the world will continue to increase. Argues that potential rational solutions do exist, but the danger in the present situation is compounded by the fact that there is a great temptation to revive what Eric Voegelin called the “new gnosticism” – the array of authoritarian Governments, of which the Marxist State was one, which were based on claims to special knowledge which provided all‐purpose solutions. Current disparities of wealth provide rich feeding grounds for such ideas.