Michael Walzer

A testament to what it means to be liberal by one of the most prominent political philosophers of our era There was a time when liberalism was an ism like any other, but that time, writes Michael Walzer, is gone. "Liberal" now conveys not a specific ideology but a moral stance, so the word is best conceived not as a noun but as an adjective, one is a "liberal democrat" or a "liberal nationalist." Walzer itemizes the characteristics described by "liberal"...

Razón, política y pasión lleva a cabo una crítica del liberalismo desde el interior del liberalismo mismo, pues, tal como indica su autor, parte del supuesto de que es necesaria una teoría que pueda explicar y apoyar la movilización y la solidaridad democráticas, y tal teoría, si es que es posible, ha de ser una teoría liberal. Walzer analiza la desigualdad alojada, por así decirlo, en las asociaciones involuntarias, cuya importancia rara...

Foreign policy, for leftists, used to be relatively simple. They were for the breakdown of capitalism and its replacement with a centrally planned economy. They were for the workers against the moneyed interests and for colonized peoples against imperial (Western) powers. But these easy substitutes for thought are becoming increasingly difficult. Neo-liberal capitalism is triumphant, and the workers’ movement is in radical decline. National liberation...