DEATH OF THE LIBERAL CLASS

Former NEW YORK TIMES foreign correspondent Chris Hedges—who won a Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of global terrorism—takes aim at the “unfettered capitalism” he feels is leading the U.S. to an almost feudal system of social inequity. In his brutal assessment, Hedges asserts the redundancy of “the liberal class”—for instance, the labor unions, who, he claims, have betrayed the class struggle and social upheaval that once made them relevant institutions to become “domesticated negotiators with the capitalist class.” The politically correct bastions of higher learning receive no less of a skewering for their capitulation to an idealized nonconfrontational version of “equality.” Such a polemic could be strident in the hands of a more histrionic reader, but Arthur Morey’s approach is almost musical, with his unwavering timbre and smooth cadences making a symphony out of Hedges’s jarring manifesto. J.S.H. © AudioFile 2011, Portland, Maine [Published: FEBRUARY 2011]