Abstract

Back in 1877, Engels, in Socialism: Utopian and Scientific, offered this opinion: “Their political and intellectual bankruptcy is scarcely any longer a secret to the bourgeoisie themselves.” Ninety years ago it required an Engels, perhaps, to see this; today the bankruptcy is announced by the defaulters themselves. Thus, in the summer of 1965, Richard Goodwin, then an Assistant to the President of the United States, said:

“We are not sure where we are going… We know there are new problems, but the intellectual resources of this nation — the historic reservoir of social progress — do not readily provide the answers.”