Author: Leo Panitch
Colin Leys/
Editor(s): Leo Panitch / Colin Leys
Publisher: LeftWord
Year: 2005
Language: English
Pages: 285
ISBN/UPC (if available): 1583671374
Description
A generalized pathology of chronic mendacity seems to be a structural condition of global capitalism at the beginning of the 21st century. The lies told in Washington and London about the invasion of Iraq are only a conspicuous case of the general problems of legitimacy generated by neoliberalism and empire. Honesty and plain speaking by politicians have become exceptional, and the journalistic profession is shamefully complicit.
The empty language and sales-pitch mentality of corporate culture increasingly pervade all areas of life. Hardly less important is the growing subordination of scientific research to commercial ends, and the deliberate abdication of a significant segment of the academic intelligentsia from the vocation of telling the truth. Fifteen leading writers explore the problem of truth and the lack of it in thirteen original essays on:
The cynical state.
Capitalist democracy
The business community
Welfare reform
Law and order
The media and the Iraq war
Global poverty statistics
Development economics
The politics of theatre
Academic postmodernism
Socialists and the problem of class
The history of truth.
Contents
PREFACE
COLIN LEYS
The cynical state
ATILIO A BORON
The truth about capitalist democracy
DOUG HENWOOD
The business community
FRANCES FOX PIVEN & BARBARA EHRENREICH
The truth about welfare reform
LOIC WACQUANT
The scholarly myths of the new law and order doxa
ROBERT W MCCHESNEY
Telling the truth at a moment of truth: US news media and the invasion and occupation of Iraq
DAVID MILLER
Propaganda-managed democracy: the UK and the lessons of Iraq
BEN FINE & ELISA VAN WAEYENDBERGE
Correcting Stiglitz: from information to power in the world of development
SANJAY G REDDY
Counting the poor: the truth about world poverty statistics
MICHAEL KUSTOW
Playing with the truth: the politics of theatre
JOHN SANBONMATSU
Postmodernism and the corruption of the academic intelligentsia
G M TAMAS
Telling the truth about class
TERRY EAGLETON
On telling the truth