PrintMay 4, 2004
Prestige and the left
During the past century, the left managed to seize the commanding heights of those institutions which generate and grant prestige in American society. Control over higher education, arts organizations, charities, publications and broadcasters, as well as most major foundations and award—granting institutions, provides jobs and financial resources for activists, on the one hand, and a reward system to co—opt the energies and resources of a broad range of talented and successful members of the public, on the other.
Without its semi—monopolistic control of the institutional infrastructure of prestige, the left would be quickly decline to a level of powerlessness commensurate with the failures of the left in the real world. From the fall of Communism to the failure of the War on Poverty (followed by the stunning success of welfare reform), the ideas of the left have been repudiated by reality. Yet, instead of withering on the vine, the American left continues to...(Read Full Article)
