The Nation Jun-02-14

Everything Is Piketty-Boo Timothy Shenk’s “What Was Socialism?” [May 5] was something you could sink your teeth into. Lefties are ambivalent about revolution. The revolutions of the twentieth century proved to be ephemeral flops that paved the way not for socialism but for a resurgent capitalism. They destroyed traditional societies, created working and professional classes, industrialized their countries and did the work of capitalism in record time. Those who benefited most are the plutocrats studied by Piketty & Co. Randy Cunningham Cleveland, Ohio _________________________ Shenk’s article on a revival of Marxism is long overdue. Marx’s analysis of capitalism seems much more persuasive now than it did in the early postwar era. Then we had at least some cooperation between capital and labor. Predictions of the immiseration of the working class…

When the New York Public Library abandoned its controversial renovation plan on May 7, we celebrated the power of journalism to shape policy and its ability to influence a progressive mayor who knows the importance of the city’s public institutions. In July 2011, we asked contributing writer Scott Sherman to profile the new president of the New York Public Library, Tony Marx. Sherman quickly discovered that the NYPL had embarked on a colossal plan to transform its main branch. The resulting article, “Upheaval at the New York Public Library,” published in December 2011, and his follow-up last September, “The Hidden History of New York City’s Central Library Plan,” sparked a major public debate. When candidate Bill de Blasio sought our mayoral endorsement, we challenged him to address the problems revealed…

The Jackson Rising: New Economies Conference, held on the campus of Jackson State University, went off without a hitch the first weekend in May. That, in itself, was testament to something new growing in the heart of the South.
 Conceived as part of Jackson Mayor Chokwe Lumumba’s plan to develop Mississippi’s crumbling capital from the bottom up, Jackson Rising ended up taking place just two months after Lumumba’s sudden death, less than two weeks after the election of a new mayor, and days after the key leadership of Lumumba’s administration—including many of the conference’s organizers—found themselves out of office and out of a job.
 Jackson is a pre–Civil War city whose city hall was built by slaves. With a population of 175,000, it is home to some of the poorest…

Sandra Tsing Loh is author of Mother on Fire, inspired by her hit solo show of the same name, which ran off Broadway for seven months. She’s a contributing editor at The Atlantic and host of The Loh Down on Science, heard weekly by 4 million people. Her new book is The Madwoman in the Volvo: My Year of Raging Hormones. This interview has been condensed. —Jon Wiener 
 JON WIENER: This is the only menopause book I’ve ever read. Are there others?
 SANDRA TSING LOH: The literature of menopause is the saddest, the most awful and the most medical of all genres. You’re sleepless, you’re anxious, you’re fat, you’re depressed—and the advice is always the same: take more walks, eat some kale and drink lots of water. It didn’t help.…

There are probably more than a few women, safely cloaked in anonymity, who are deeply frightened by Monica Lewinsky’s new essay in Vanity Fair. Lewinsky, after all, is far from the only political ingénue to have sex with a powerful man—and while most of these affairs presumably remain private, her story is a reminder of what can happen when a once-obscure person is involuntarily dragged into the spotlight, her secrets bared to a jeering global audience. Any past or present paramour of the players-to-be in the 2016 election must know that she could become a national punch line. Worse, as Lewinsky’s piece suggests, there may be no coming back from the experience. We still make it much harder for women to transcend sex scandals than men.
 Clinton’s reputation has largely…

The civil war in Syria grinds on, and conditions for Syrian civilians—those inside its borders as well as the millions forced to flee to neighboring countries—continue to deteriorate. As global and regional powers not only fail to help end the war but actively engage in arming and funding all sides in the fighting, we in civil society must sharpen our demands for a different position from that of our governments. 
 The crisis began with a popular call for an end to repression and a nonviolent movement demanding accountability from Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government and the release of political prisoners and detainees. Economic and environmental traumas, including a crippling drought and the slashing of key government subsidies, underpinned the crisis. The government responded with a promise of reform—which went…