Historical inevitability is back in vogue for the first time since the aftermath of the Great Depression. Now as then, a rather crude form of economic determinism is the single engine of this supposed inevitability, and now as then, too, it purports to offer simple and precise answers to a range of complex social and political questions. In its heyday, midway through the previous century, reductive materialism held up simple answers for emerging problems of class and political agency in a still-developing industrial world. Now this same reductive materialist approach claims to understand the apparent divide between open and closed …read more
Source: The American Interest
