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The Death of the Liberal Class

3.98 of 5 stars 3.98 · rating details · 881 ratings · 153 reviews

The liberal class plays a vital role in a democracy. It gives moral legitimacy to the state. It makes limited forms of dissent and incremental change possible. The liberal class posits itself as the conscience of the nation. It permits us, through its appeal to public virtues and the public good, to define ourselves as a good and noble people. Most importantly, on behalf o...more

Hardcover, 248 pages

Published October 19th 2010 by Nation Books (first published September 23rd 2010)

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Feb 10, 2013 Will Byrnes rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction, american-history, economics

Updated - 11/8/11 - see bottom

CSI: Democracy

That piercing stench is the aroma of failure and betrayal lying in a dumpster outside a lobbyist’s condo. Chris Hedges, toting his kit, approaches the body and examines it for evidence of foul play. A uniform steps aside, giving Hedges room. He bends down and opens the surprisingly fat wallet. It is clear that the vic was once a powerful presence, as Hedges can see from the wallet’s contents, scattered about the corpse. The Social Security card is worn...more

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Feb 28, 2011 Bakari rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2010-books-read, cultural-studies, left-politics, ibooks, ebook

"Death the Liberal Class" is the first book I've read by Chris Hedges, though I've read some of his articles and heard a few of this speeches on YouTube. Though I agree with much of what he has to say, I'm very irritated by some of his analysis and approach addressing the problems he writes about.

Hedges is certainly correct that the liberal class has abandoned the historical objectives of liberalism—that of defending real, progressive democratic reform—but he greatly generalizes the differences...more "Death the Liberal Class" is the first book I've read by Chris Hedges, though I've read some of his articles and heard a few of this speeches on YouTube. Though I agree with much of what he has to say, I'm very irritated by some of his analysis and approach addressing the problems he writes about.

Hedges is certainly correct that the liberal class has abandoned the historical objectives of liberalism—that of defending real, progressive democratic reform—but he greatly generalizes the differences between the the old left movement and the liberal class of today. First off, the term liberalism itself, from what I understand, is a very general term in political science. Hedges points to writers, intellectuals, and activists of the Popular Front of the 1930s whom I don't think labeled themselves liberals. They were left progressives who sought revolutionary change, while the real liberal class only sought reform.

Modern liberalism developed as a compromise between capitalism and the objectives of real socialism. Historical liberalism supported so-called free market enterprise, but it wanted to keep a safety net for the working class and disenfranchised sectors of society. Staunch anti-war activists also came out of the liberal class. But again, Hedges generalizes a lot of this history. Readers of this book who don't have background knowledge about the Popular Front and communist movements of the 1930s are not getting the full picture from this book.

In fact, Hedges would have been better off leaving out much of this cursory history of the old left. I think he should have expanded the last chapter of his book, "Rebellion," into an entire book itself. This is why: Similar to Noam Chomsky, Hedges spends pages and pages—now book after book—bemoaning the wrath and downfall of the imperial empire. Both writers are not wholly wrong in their analysis, but unlike critics such as Marx and Lenin, labor union activists, W.E.B Du Bois, Martin L. King, Malcolm X, members of SDS, etc, these activists wrote from the vantage point of political organizers, not simply as journalists, scholars, speakers and writers. They fought the power structure by talking and writing about the imperial empire, but also they fought for real solutions. If Chomsky or Hedges are members or leaders of any political organization or political party, I've never heard of them.

The only person Hedges writes about with any history of activism is Ralph Nader (well, also, Dorthy Day). And again, Hedges would have been better off devoting much of the book comparing Nader to say Obama, which would have more clearly illustrated how and why Obama can't bring about the so-called "yes we can" objectives that he ran on, and why we need leadership like Nader.

Anyone with a real understanding of left politics in this country should have realized that Obama could not bring about the real effective change, because Obama simply did not have the political movement and organization behind him to do so. Hedges could have used Obama as an example of what the liberal class has failed to do; that is, build a strong cadre of students and working class leadership that will fight for structural changes in the political economy.

When Hedges starts writing as an activist and an organization builder, rather than some spiritual Jeremiah, he'd start pointing his readers to take specific actions. When he writes as an activist, he doesn't spend countless pages bemoaning corporate media; instead, he spends pages outlining all the progressive media that people can tap into, no matter how small. He doesn't just talk about the problem, he talks and the solution.

This is exactly why I stopped reading Chomsky years ago. Chomsky has pretty much said the same thing over and over. And as far as I know he hasn't written one book about the solutions to all the problems he writes and speaks about.

Don't get me wrong, Hedges is a great writer, with a strong voice. But when he writes books like this that try to cover way too much in relatively small number of pages, it's get frustrating to read.

In the final chapter of the book, he also critiques the problems of the Internet, mainly by referring to critics. While I agree with that that those who run and control the Internet are profiting from lots of free information from artists, writers, professional critics (e.g. content producers), this critique of Internet really needs an entire book as well. He greatly glosses over the potential of the Internet and digital technology as democratizing tools. Though Google's YouTube, for example, has largely become a tool for its advertisers, its space has not yet been limited the just corporate media producers. Thousands to millions of people can be reached with the savvy produced content. This is just a small example. The corporate media owns the airwaves, but ordinary citizens can have a voice on the Internet.

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Nov 02, 2011 Dave Lefevre rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: political

How can someone get 95% of a book so right and get the rest so wrong?

I really liked most of this book. It's a great work for anyone that wants to understand the outrage that has kindled movements like Occupy Wall Street. Piece by piece Hedges indites the liberal institutions that are supposed to make us think and edge progress along. He rightly points out that what we tend to call liberals today (and are yelled about on such outlets as Fox news) have basically sold out to corporate culture in or...more How can someone get 95% of a book so right and get the rest so wrong?

I really liked most of this book. It's a great work for anyone that wants to understand the outrage that has kindled movements like Occupy Wall Street. Piece by piece Hedges indites the liberal institutions that are supposed to make us think and edge progress along. He rightly points out that what we tend to call liberals today (and are yelled about on such outlets as Fox news) have basically sold out to corporate culture in order to have a good life and remain in the power structure. They are tolerated as long as they don't go to far and criticize dogma from today such as "free markets" (also known as unfettered capitalism). He's right. It's because of this movements like OWS and the Coffee Party are coming about because no progressive thought is allowed in many of our "liberal" institutions and now corporate thought has become sacrosanct everywhere.

But then Hedges lets goes into a Harlan Ellison-like "pay the author" rant about the Internet. Hedges basically doesn't see any good in the Internet because the author doesn't get paid directly. He doesn't have any sense of the Internet's history or purpose (the "expert" he talks to doesn't either) and gets several key ideas wrong. He rightly points out that is a lot of hatred, name-calling, and general bad debate on the Internet, but he fails to see that the Internet actually is a mirror of society itself and there are plenty of spaces where true debate and deep thinking are happening.

He also fails to recognize one of the major positives of the Internet: that it's one of the very few spaces where people can speak to a wide audience without corporate mediation, getting around the very corporate censorship he is writing about! It's one of the few places that the constant corporate propaganda can be debunked. (An interview Hedges did himself a few weeks ago itself was used to debunk the anti-OWS bias in the media where Hedges eviscerated personal attacks made by his interviewer, a Wall Street fraudster. It's more proof that the Internet is one of the major ways people in modern America can get people the truth when it is being actively suppressed by a corporate gatekeeper.)

He also forgets that the Internet gives average persons the ability to get to more knowledge than ever before in history, and even though most might not search out the answers it's like a library: it's existence sure doesn't hurt. In the case of his ill-informed Internet opinions he lets a personal bias get the best of him and he gets incredibly sloppy and incorrect.

Hedges, while right about most everything in this book, has this horrible blind spot (some of which is a Luddite streak based on how I read it) and for that reason I won't be reading any more of his books. Someone who can't see why the Internet's freedom of information is important must be wrong about other things as well.(less)

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Jul 25, 2011 Michael rated it 4 of 5 stars

Hedges sees the truth of our age! Wow! Hedges is a war correspondent who has clearly seen the light and shines it blindingly on the problems we are collectively struggling with in our globalized culture. Hedges focusses on problems in the US. But we all know the US' problems are the world's problems and as you read this book you see how Canada is suffering from the same affliction. (Harperites beware.) Hedges points out how privileged interests took advantage of the new powers of propaganda in t...more

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May 12, 2013 Ademption rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction

Chris Hedges writes an angry, dirge-like polemic against liberals, yet The Death of... is chiefly aimed at corporatist politicians of both stripes. His thesis is that since progressive, labour, socialist, and communist movements have been rendered irrelevant, previously sold-out by the liberal class, US liberalism is now being hallowed out and discarded. Liberals have no more support in either wing of the political spectrum. For example, when the president threatens war, as Bush did in Iraq and...more Chris Hedges writes an angry, dirge-like polemic against liberals, yet The Death of... is chiefly aimed at corporatist politicians of both stripes. His thesis is that since progressive, labour, socialist, and communist movements have been rendered irrelevant, previously sold-out by the liberal class, US liberalism is now being hallowed out and discarded. Liberals have no more support in either wing of the political spectrum. For example, when the president threatens war, as Bush did in Iraq and Afghanistan, liberals/democrats argue tactics rather than whether or not to wage war. In other words, what is currently considered liberal is a party of deluded sockpuppets offering token resistance on finer, nearly irrelevant points, like political correctness, instead of actual opposition to the dominant ideology. Liberalism asks for inclusion on methods instead of pushing its own answers to foundational questions, which are solely left to moneyed corporate culture.

This book will not sway political die-hards either way, but it does go to great lengths to explain and justify the right-wing's frothy hatred of liberals, i.e. liberals have not addressed the needs and realities of the working-class since the New Deal and are even now abandoning the plight of the shrinking middle class, killing its own base. Neither party delivers, but republicans at least pretend to hear this large and politically invisible segment of society out, enabling them to rant as tea partiers and giving them Fox News for their daily rage-gasms. Democrats don't even attempt to listen, but take a paternalistic approach, promising to help everyone, not listening, and being snobbishly dismissive while not delivering.

Instead of being a check on conservative aggression and dominance, liberal politicians have become a mouthpiece, selling a conservative viewpoint with a soft touch for corporate donations, or in the case of academia, using deliberately obscure and masturbatorily banal rhetoric, i.e. saying nothing much, in the hopes of not offending and therefore securing grants from corporations.

While certainly polemical, Hedges does not lack the courage of his convictions. In 2012, he personally sued the Obama administration and members of congress regarding indefinite detention. The issue and the ongoing case don't seem to be addressed much by politicians and media, even though Hedges successfully won a permanent injunction on the detention powers while the case continues.

As with most journalists and political critics, Hedges diagnoses the problems he sees well, but offers few solutions, other than progressives should withdraw, but stay connected to like-minded others as the angry get angrier and more disenfranchised, and those with power seek increasingly fascist methods of quelling dissent, until we live in an age of open barbarity, which we must all weather in closed communities.

Hedges shares a political kinship with Noam Chomsky. Both rail against US militarism, corporatism, and the narrow political spectrum currently deemed acceptable by corporatist media. Hedges is informed by his progressive Protestant education and upbringing, while Chomsky is an atheist. As such, Hedges interviews and quotes religious progressives in addition to atheist/agnostic progressives like Chomsky, Howard Zinn, and Ralph Nader. Hedges also implies that faith is needed to maintain endurance in the struggle. Father Daniel Berrigan is invoked throughout the book as a model shit-disturber and true blue progressive. Also Hedges seems to genuinely detest the power he rails against. Chomsky, while railing in an analogous vein, seems to secretly admire such power's concentration and expression.

It's a well-reasoned polemic, explaining much of the entrenched political divide in the US as corporatist power theatre.(less)

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Mar 28, 2013 Jacob Campbell rated it 5 of 5 stars

As I generally do, I was listening to National Public Radio (my driving companion when I'm not listing to gangster rap) and I first heard a story Hedges Laments The 'Death Of The Liberal Class'. I was struck listening to Hodges talk about his life and the liberal class. It was a soon after that that I ended up being at Barnes & Nobel and quickly bought the book when I saw it. You must understand that this is about a year (I don't know why it took me so long to read it, it was really good), a

...more

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Feb 06, 2013 Aurochz rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: history, politics

A great work detailing the systematic dismantling of true liberal ideas and movements. Although a lot of it gets restated by Hedges over and over in lectures, interviews and debates, there is still enough he doesn't state on those venues here to make it a more than worthwhile read. There is also Hedges supreme talent of oratory that comes out in his writing and gives his ideas a unique sermon like quality that no doubt comes from his training as a minister much earlier in life.

I agreed with alm...more A great work detailing the systematic dismantling of true liberal ideas and movements. Although a lot of it gets restated by Hedges over and over in lectures, interviews and debates, there is still enough he doesn't state on those venues here to make it a more than worthwhile read. There is also Hedges supreme talent of oratory that comes out in his writing and gives his ideas a unique sermon like quality that no doubt comes from his training as a minister much earlier in life.

I agreed with almost everything so it would be pointless for me to point out the books positives as I see them. I did however majorly disagree with his assessment of the internet near the end and I cringed a lot when I realized his source on this information was Jaron Lanier, who seems to have literally zero experience of being on the net while also simultaneously working as a programmer. It must take a special talent to stay as ignorant as Lanier does on this subject and yet stay so close to it. Though I think the real problem is that he benefits far too much from anti-internet culture forces to acknowledge how stubborn and behind the times his ideas are. Especially when his proof is that he couldn't immediately become a moderator and correct his wiki page of one or two errors and that Wikipedia is supposedly trying to become a "dictatorial collective of knowledge," a completely false view that can be debunked by merely seeing that Wikia's had initially been created for a format that had allowed others to use their system to create countless other iterations of wiki sites, thus disseminating and decentralizing information at a rapid pace. Wikipedia was not even the first of these and Jaron can easily make a "wiki Jaron" if he really thought getting the truth out was so important. Which out of that batch of Wikia sites just to remind people includes Wikileaks, a site no doubt more important then any Lanier has ever worked on for some corporation or other dictatorial form of knowledge creation, as the only sites he defends are the handful he has some personal connection to. Paid advertiser?

I think this is an important concern of mine, because I know on a personal level, without the internet I wouldn't know who Chris Hedges is and further I wouldn't know much about anything. I remember how I conceived of my future before the internet, I thought I would work at something like a fast food place or a movie rental store and live in an apartment. I saw little chance of learning anything or moving beyond my town/station in life. Had the internet not been around to debate on, I would of had no impetus to learn more or aim for higher aspirations in life. I think because both of them are so wedded to the old system of media, they tend not to see those who had little chance of higher learning in any regard without it. My life would be drastically different without the internet and mostly in the negative.

I hope Hedge's mind changed in this regard a little after seeing the success of the "Arab Spring" or the occupy protests, which he came to be highly involved in. Both of which owe a great deal to the power of the Internets use as a communication and information dispensing tool.

I still greatly enjoyed the book other then this disagreement over the Internet and would highly suggest others read it, if they're interested in American politics and the history of progressives/liberals. (less)

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Oct 20, 2012 Carole Yeaman rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites, non-fiction, own-owned

Overwhelming, exhausting -- there's enough material in here to expand into a dozen books. It contains much that we subliminally or clearly are aware of. At the same time Hedges dares to hammer home the truths that seldom, sometimes never, get into widely-circulated print. The book is built around the indisputable fact that for many decades (at least as far back as the Reagan era) in the U.S. - and now the entire globe -- powerful corporations & their lobbyists have been the unchallengable de...more

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Jul 24, 2012 Christopher David rated it 4 of 5 stars

Hedges' polemic about the abdication of the liberal class of its responsibility as a check between the excesses of elites and the masses is timely, incisive, and wide-reaching, and while he openly acknowledges his bias (he was fired from the New York Times for exercising the sort of liberal rebellion he advocates in this book) I was troubled by the tone of the book. Hedges could have written an academic work on this thesis, and at many, many points his history and analysis is of that sort of cal...more

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Jun 12, 2012 Gordon A. Long rated it 2 of 5 stars

“The Death of the Liberal Class” is a sad book. Not that we require all books to have pleasant subjects. There are plenty of unhappy things that need to be said. This book is sad for another reason; it is sad that it came to be written at all.
Chris Hodges is a radical. He is a vociferous critic of what is wrong with America and the human race, and many of his ideas strike a receptive chord in a lot of people who don’t go quite as far as he does, but still appreciate his thoughts. For the most...more “The Death of the Liberal Class” is a sad book. Not that we require all books to have pleasant subjects. There are plenty of unhappy things that need to be said. This book is sad for another reason; it is sad that it came to be written at all.
Chris Hodges is a radical. He is a vociferous critic of what is wrong with America and the human race, and many of his ideas strike a receptive chord in a lot of people who don’t go quite as far as he does, but still appreciate his thoughts. For the most part, those people make up the liberal class.
As he explains in his book, the usual process of change in a democratic society is that the radicals present the ideas, but are too few in numbers to take effective action. The radical thinkers depend on attracting the attention of the more mainstream liberals, who have the numbers to effect the change they desire in a methodical and incremental fashion.
In “Les Miserables”, the cry of the rebels on the barricades is, “The people will rise.” Like “Les Mis,” this book is the story about what happens to the radicals when the people don’t rise.
In reading through “The Death of the Liberal Class,” I see the sad spectacle of a tired and discouraged reformer who has given up on the possibility of making any of the changes of his dreams, and has instead turned his invective against those upon whom he depended for support, but who, in his view, have failed him.
The book is thus a constant stream of denunciation. It is a list of all the atrocities that this widely experienced journalist has encountered in his life, all described with professional skill. Responsibility is then laid directly at the feet of, not those who caused society’s ills (the “power elite”), but of the liberal class who failed to live up to the author’s expectations, because they did not rally behind him as he hoped.
This book lists America’s constant state of war (all the way back to WWI), the McCarthy era, the dispossessed and unemployed of America, the plight of civilians in Afghanistan, the decline of the written word, the increasing spectacle of the political scene, and many other ailments of our society. One by one, these are all recounted and their cause laid directly at the feet of those who know better, but have not acted.
The specific problem with this book is that while these things probably need to be said in order to light a fire under a complacent group of people, Hodges has chosen to forgo the usual pattern of philosophical argument: set up a scenario, make a connection, then point out a solution. In almost every case he uses his skill to set up a scenario that makes our blood boil, then skips the necessity of making a connection, and goes straight to “it’s all the fault of the liberal class.” As a result, there is sense that Hodges is too tired to discuss or argue any more. He only wishes to blame.
Instead of logical argument, his one technique to support his theories is a constant stream of references to the opinions of people most of us have never heard of, who think the same way he does. Another trick not really meant to persuade anybody of anything.
The book has its share of factual errors (Canada has no Labour party) and faulty logic, leading the reader to suspect that it was not aimed at the logical thinker. In fact, one is constantly led to wonder for whom this book was really written.
It is not until the very end of the book, when Hedges begins to discuss the duty of the rebel to stand with the dispossessed, that we see the fire and enthusiasm that has driven this writer to achieve his much-deserved reputation for excellence in thought and expression. Unfortunately, 5 pages of inspiration do not make up for over 200 pages of invective and anger.
If you read this book, it will only sadden you, that one of America’s great social critics has reached such depths of despair as to turn against his necessary partners in the functioning of democracy. It is one of those rants that would have been a great way for the author to blow off steam, but should have then been put on a shelf. And left there.

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Jun 01, 2012 Rick rated it 2 of 5 stars

I'm sorry I didn't like this book more. It started off really promising. But ultimately I'm disturbed by the fact that after 200 plus pages I still don't know who Chris Hedges really means when he says "The Liberal Class". He seems to cast such a wide net with that phrase... and yet most of the people he actually names are, well, either conservatives, or academics / artists whose work he fully admits he doesn't understand. (There's something tragic about the passage where he quotes some "incompr...more

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Mar 25, 2012 Dan rated it 4 of 5 stars

I really enjoyed my first Chris Hedges (having listened to speeches and talks of him previously). His writing is great, though not always explained fully. For example, he mentions that Nixon was able to change something within the Democratic party which would keep anyone like McGovern from being able to cinch the nomination, but Hedges doesn't actually explain it was Nixon actually did. As another reviewer mentions, Hedges casts a wide net and it would've been well if he'd differentiated more be...more

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Nov 11, 2011 Kathy rated it 5 of 5 stars

First of all, my dust jacket cover and title page read "Death of the Liberal Class"--no "The," and the ISBN number is slightly different from the one displayed here. I know the paperback edition dropped the "The," so I wonder about the publishing history and where the edition displayed here come from.

All that aside, this book belongs in the hands of all of us who call ourselves liberals as a reminder of all the selling out that we've done to the corporate state and as a challenge to resist it. I...more

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Mar 18, 2012 Greg Bates rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2012

If this book had just been the chapter about Iraq/Afghanistan expanded to novel length, I would've given it five stars. Hedges is right about the decay of the American Empire more often then he's wrong, and when he writes about war it really feels like his decades of experience in South America and the Middle East shine through and you're hearing a transmission from a clear-eyed prophet, but unfortunately this fantastic prose just makes the majority of the book look worse by comparison. Death of...more

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Dec 17, 2011 Marcus rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: politics, political-philosophy

A liberal, by Hedges' reckoning, is part classical liberalism, which insists on basic human rights such as freedom speech and civil rights, combined with many of the social and economic ideas of Marxist socialism. The free market, capitalism and corporations are, by contrast, the source of most evil, and in this utopian vision, they would not exist.

By that definition, it's easy to take most of todays politicians who claim to be liberals to the cleaners for neglecting, or outright defiling, their...more A liberal, by Hedges' reckoning, is part classical liberalism, which insists on basic human rights such as freedom speech and civil rights, combined with many of the social and economic ideas of Marxist socialism. The free market, capitalism and corporations are, by contrast, the source of most evil, and in this utopian vision, they would not exist.

By that definition, it's easy to take most of todays politicians who claim to be liberals to the cleaners for neglecting, or outright defiling, their purported values. Hedges does not hesitate to do so. The Death of the Liberal Class is about how almost every item on the liberal agenda is flawed. From healthcare reform to foreign relations, especially the wars we're in, to welfare to civil rights to public radio and television. None of it goes far enough. He advocates a peaceful revolution of civil disobedience that would overturn all corporatism, put the power back in the hands of the workers through unions and wealth redistribution and use government funding for socially conscious programs that didn't only pay lip service to equality, but that actually implement it. His heroes are Malcolm X (over MLK Jr.), Ralph Nader (though he thinks he's lost much of his former prowess in recent years), Noam Chomsky and Michael Moore (how he can intellectually justify that, I don't know). He excoriates Obama, Gore and every other so-called liberal politician almost without exception.

His idealism is appealing. He is passionate and seems to be intellectually honest (to a point) and a compassionate person. He has witnessed war first hand and he hates it. The chapters on the horrors of war are the strongest in the book. His arguments are vehement and convincing. He brings home the awfulness with incredible clarity.

His critiques of liberals should embarrass anyone who voted for or supports Obama. He convincingly shows how Obama gives lip service to idealism but is just as much in the pockets of corporations as Bush was.

One of the closing chapters on the dreary future we face due to climate change and the coming economic collapse caused by our fiat currency is dark and harrowing and is an effective call to action for anyone who agrees with his premises. The writing throughout the book flows so smoothly from the circumstantial to the philosophical that the pages fly by.

On the other hand, the chapter on the Internet should have been left out of the book. Almost every sentence has some technical error or misrepresentation.

I think that Hedges, as so many other idealists, fails at convincingly meshing his ideology with human nature. At one point in the book he briefly gives lip service the human nature, but takes for granted that the reader agrees that socialism is a more natural state than capitalism. He never explains how a society with no competition is to work economically or how such a strong human instinct will be suppressed to bring about his idea of utopia. It feels like he consciously decides to stop short of a practical analysis of the implications of his ideas once carried beyond the initial revolution. As far as I can tell, he envisions a world of small, semi-isolated tribes sustaining themselves on primitive, low-impact technology and living in harmony with each other. This is never, of course, stated explicitly but for everything he advocates to have any semblance of possibility of working together I can't imagine any other way for the world to be structured.

The Death of the Liberal Class is worth reading because the historical analysis and critiques of our current political situation are novel and valid, and I'm excited to read his other books, but unless he is better coupling his ideals with the reality of human nature, I don't find his brand of idealism any more convincing than anarcho-capitalism or communism.
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Jul 27, 2011 Under_rubble rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: history, analysis, boh

It would have been called the ode to social democracy had it been written anywhere else, but it's known as liberalism or new deal liberalism in the US. There is a completely refusal to critique or periodize capitalism, so it is always used with an unhelpful adjective, or deal with why the agitation and organization of the 1930s was able to create such large institutional changes and the 1960/1970s was not. There is the standing beating up of the certain "left" academic writers but more important...more

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Jun 08, 2011 Mike Sheehan rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: favorites

This is the longest of my reviews but it's certainly worthy of the attention. Although often times when I read nonfiction books of a similar caliber-that is, books I consider incredibly urgent and important; which include other Hedge’s books and "The Green Zone: The Environmental Costs of Militarism," where almost every passage makes me want to just DO SOMETHING- I often just state it is necessary for everyone to read it and leave it at that. This time, instead of some random guy saying it must...more This is the longest of my reviews but it's certainly worthy of the attention. Although often times when I read nonfiction books of a similar caliber-that is, books I consider incredibly urgent and important; which include other Hedge’s books and "The Green Zone: The Environmental Costs of Militarism," where almost every passage makes me want to just DO SOMETHING- I often just state it is necessary for everyone to read it and leave it at that. This time, instead of some random guy saying it must be read, I’m going to take the more practical approach of trying to convince one to read this.

This book is of the stuff that keeps your blood boiling all throughout reading it. The past few days have been rife with anger. With every subject, Hedge’s demonstrates his political acumen with rarely matched potency and emotes feelings of incredible urgency. He touches upon a vast amount of topics: religion, origins of corporate take-over (namely World War I’s propaganda campaign against Germany. “’Sauerkraut became known as liberty cabbage… German clover appeared… as crimson or liberty clover…’ Dachshunds were renamed liberty dogs.” Sound familiar?), the internet, rebellion vs. revolution, the environment (“We face a terrible political truth. Those who hold power will not act with the urgency required to protect human life and the ecosystem.”), hypermasculinity (“Hypermasculinity crushes the capacity for moral autonomy, difference, and diversity… militarized culture attacks all that is culturally defined as feminine, including love, gentleness, compassion, and acceptance of difference.”), the 1960’s counterculture (which “shared commercial culture’s hedonism, love of spectacle, and preoccupation of self.” Which helps explain it’s abandonment of so-called rebellion when the war ended and the middle class, of which they were a part, stopped going off to war; few showed solidarity with working class struggle.), 2008’s economic meltdown (“’Why is it that a handful of thugs and plunderers can commit unthinkable atrocities and when it's time for their gravy train to crash under the weight of their gluttony and overwhelming stupidity, the force of the full federal government has no difficulty coming to their aid within days if not hours?’”), art, and many, many more.

Early on, Hedge’s opines that fear is what drives us to (perhaps/usually unconsciously) consent to ludicrous defense budgets, immense losses of individual liberty, inequitable power structures, &c., whilst speaking of the corporate strategy of permanent war. “The corporations that profit from permanent war need us to be afraid. Fear stops us from objecting to government spending on a bloated military. Fear means we will not ask unpleasant questions of those in power. Fear permits the government to operate in secret. Fear means we are willing to give up our rights and liberties for promises of security. The imposition of fear ensures that the corporations that wrecked the country cannot be challenged.” Whether through fear or apathy “citizens, rather than authentically participating in power, have only virtual opinions… They are reduced to expressing themselves on issues that are meaningless, voting on American Idol or in polls conducted by the power elite.” (see: “participatory fascism,” “inverted totalitarianism”).

Hedge’s adequately assays how the liberal institutions (especially the major one: the Democratic Party) have betrayed and/or blackballed a number of freethinking liberals, mostly for challenging power, overstepping the boundaries that corporate power vis-à-vis the liberal class, have ascribed. The black list includes:

Noam Chomsky- “Chomsky’s courage to speak on behalf of those whose suffering is minimized or ignored in mass culture, such as the Palestinians, is an example for anyone searching for models of the moral life. Perhaps, even more than his scholarship, his example of moral independence sustains all those who defy the cant of the crowd, and that of the liberal class, to speak the truth.” Moral independence is a major no-no in the modern liberal class, which Hedge’s goes through pains to elucidate.

Howard Zinn- “Zinn knew that if we do not listen to the stories of those without power, those who suffer discrimination and abuse, those who struggle for justice, we are left parroting the manufactured myths that serve the interests of the privileged. Zinn set out to write history, not myth. He found that challenging these myths, even as a historian, turned one into a pariah.”

Ralph Nader- I’m sure many remember the rage expressed towards Nader after the 2000 election, all I can say is I came out of Nader’s passage with the utmost respect for him. “I don’t care about my personal legacy. I care about how much justice is advanced in America and in our world day after day. I’m willing to sacrifice whatever ‘reputation’ in the cause of that effort. What is my legacy? Are they going to turn around and rip seat belts out of cars, air bags out of cars?” This quote was a perfect way to cap off Nader’s impressive legacy (which may be only surpassed by his humility) that is mentioned in the few preceding pages.

There’s also a fantastic section on Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X who Hedge’s claims would’ve become pariahs, had they not been assassinated, for espousing ideas of economic justice (among other things), since “’Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness’ was, as King and Malcolm knew, a meaningless slogan if there was no possibility of a decent education, a safe neighborhood, a job, or a living wage.” Further, today “they would have denounced liberals who mouth platitudes about justice while supporting a party that slavishly serves the moneyed elite.”

Michael Moore, Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul are also covered, though the latter two with a bit more brevity.

The liberal class has its hands in ostracizing all these independent thinkers, and they aren’t ostracized solely by conservatives, but by everyone who bows to corporate power- those who make decisions for personal gain, to further their careers- rather than do what is right. It’s America’s pathetic liberal class, that left itself powerless and thus useless through collaborating with the corporate elite. “The failure of the liberal class to adjust to the harsh, new reality of corporate power and the permanent war economy, to acknowledge it’s own powerlessness, has left the liberal class isolated and despised.”

I think the thing most telling of liberal weakness is in what can be and is often accepted as defining an American “patriot,” whose modern definition is filled with illiberal and even undemocratic beliefs. “The ‘patriotic’ citizen, although abused by the actual policies of the state, unfailingly supports widespread surveillance and permanent war. The ‘patriotic’ citizen does not question the $1 trillion in defense-related spending. The ‘patriotic’ citizen accepts that the eighteen military and civilian intelligence agencies, most of whose work is now outsourced to private corporations, are held above the government. The ‘patriotic’ citizen accepts the state’s assertion that it needs more police, prisons, inmates, spies, mercenaries, weapons, and troops than any other industrialized nation. The ‘patriotic’ citizen objects when anyone suggests that military budgets can be cut, that troops need to come home, that domestic policies need more attention than the pursuit of permanent war…. In the name of patriotism, the most powerful instruments of state power and control are effectively removed from public discussion.” Patriotism couldn’t plausibly be defined in such a way if the liberal class actually had a spine. “We endure more state control than at any time in U.S. history. And the liberal class, whose task was once to monitor and protest the excesses of the power elite, has assisted in the rout.” If all this isn’t clear in this review, you can count on Hedge’s masterful articulation to clarify everything.

“’There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can’t take part; you can’t even passively take part, and you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you’ve got to make it stop.’” This is very nearly how I feel two hours after reading this book, and hopefully it’s how everyone will feel after reading it. Death of the Liberal Class may be the most important book in our lifetimes.
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Jul 04, 2012 Rob rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: american, art, kindle, left, politics

Maybe 3 and a half stars.
If you want some sort of context to the awful politics in America at the moment this is not as bad place to start. Chris Hedges is morally outraged and he won't take it any more. It is a rant and a rant I mostly agree with but there is something lacking in the structure that makes this in the end a bit of a chore to get through.
The Liberal class in America has failed and it has been cowardly and stupid and basically bought off.
By Liberal I think Hedges means the intell...more

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Jul 18, 2011 Chris rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: debate

It is an interesting, if very pessimistic read. I think it's a good expression of the discontent and fears of the Left with the Democratic party and the co-opted "liberals" who are as much a part of the system as the right wing is; the Tom Friedmans who claim left credentials somehow, but always double down and support the causes of the right when it matters most (like in Iraq).

But it's only an expression; it won't convince anyone who isn't inclined to believe this way already. I buy about a th...more

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Jan 19, 2013 Geoff Smith rated it 5 of 5 stars

For decades liberalism was a rampart against the ravages of capitalism. Liberals stood for things like mandatory laws forbidding child labor, women's suffrage, improved working conditions in factories, the right to unionize, housing for the poor, and a social safety net including programs like Social Security. But with the rise of the corporate state, liberal class institutions--the press, universities, organized labor, liberal religious institutions, and the Democratic Party--have disintegrated...more

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Feb 10, 2012 Azrielq rated it 5 of 5 stars

We're doomed- dooooommmmmeeeedddd!

Despite a fair amount of hyperbole, Hedges makes a fair argument that we are currently living in a corporate controlled "inverse totalitarian state" in which the progressive movement, once so strong during the early part of the the 19th century has been completely co-opted and is now impotent to make any real political changes without radical civil disobedience.

One thing that I enjoyed about this book was its vignettes of different progressive historical movemen...more

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Nov 22, 2010 Tom rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: commentary

Chris Hedges is an angry man (see Empire of Illusion). He is angry with what he calls the liberal class who he holds responsible for the unfettered rise of corporatism in America. In his view the liberal class sold out to corporate interests and in doing so, failed to live up to its purpose in providing a counterweight to the worst excesses of capitalism.

Quoting John Gray, classical liberalism has four principle features or perspectives: it is individualist, in that it asserts the moral primacy...more

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Nov 16, 2010 Kenneth E. Harrison, Jr. rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: cultural-studies-and-social-critics

Perhaps Hedges' most uneven book, though I suspect that as he continues to work through his ideas there will be sharper writings to come. The most insightful parts of Hedges' thesis concentrate on the "dismantling" of liberal ideas from WW I onward--and he makes a convincing case. The ever more bizarre dearth of dialogue and real change in U.S. politics and the rise of corporate interests over the interests of citizens is a grim reality, but it is a reality, to steal a phrase from Steven Salaita...more Perhaps Hedges' most uneven book, though I suspect that as he continues to work through his ideas there will be sharper writings to come. The most insightful parts of Hedges' thesis concentrate on the "dismantling" of liberal ideas from WW I onward--and he makes a convincing case. The ever more bizarre dearth of dialogue and real change in U.S. politics and the rise of corporate interests over the interests of citizens is a grim reality, but it is a reality, to steal a phrase from Steven Salaita, "the Democrats have played a large role in forming and supporting." Hedges does not offer any solid solutions (yet), but I can't quite fault him.

Many of Hedges' most scathing insights are here--the shift from print to image-based media, a society merrily ensconced in collective delusions of unlimited growth, the public's gleeful self-entrenchment in various distractions--but the most important pages here are on the war in Afghanistan. The worst pages are his odd, misguided critique of the Arts. But I like Hedges' ideas concerning "inverted totalitarianism":

There is no national institution left that can accurately be described as democratic. Citizens, rather than authentically participating in power, have only virtual opinions, in what Charlotte Twight calls "participatory fascism." They are reduced to expressing themselves on issues that are meaningless, voting on "American Idol" or in polls conducted by the power elite.

Cornel West, in his Democracy Matters, asks, "Where are the Christian voices outraged at the greed of corporate elites while millions of children live in poverty? Do American Christians even know that the three most richest men in the world have more wealth than the combined gross domestic product of the bottom forty-eight countries or that the personal wealth of the 225 richest individuals is equal to the annual income of the poorest 47 percent of the entire world's population?" The same might be asked of all citizens, Christian or otherwise.

I have no ending for this "review." Just thinking aloud, I suppose. (less)

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Jul 02, 2012 Anthony rated it 2 of 5 stars

This is not a book that leaves one inspired or hopeful. It is a sad book.

In many ways, there is a lot of valuable stuff here. Hedges does provide some concrete explanations that illuminate how America’s social structure underwent a fundamental shift once the US entered the first World War and journalism morphed from a system of balanced truth into a propagandizing system that like a puppet-master, pulled on emotional strings that influence human behavior rather than provide balanced truth that f...more This is not a book that leaves one inspired or hopeful. It is a sad book.

In many ways, there is a lot of valuable stuff here. Hedges does provide some concrete explanations that illuminate how America’s social structure underwent a fundamental shift once the US entered the first World War and journalism morphed from a system of balanced truth into a propagandizing system that like a puppet-master, pulled on emotional strings that influence human behavior rather than provide balanced truth that fosters rational judgement. “Print-based culture, in which fact and assertion could be traced and distinguished, has ceded to a culture of emotionally driven narratives where facts and opinions are interchangeable,” (207).

Much of what Hedges is right and true. However, the way that he expresses these thoughts are problematic. Hedges frequently uses the term “liberal class” but he denies the opportunity to define the constituents of this class. From page one he launches into a vindictive diatribe about the failure of the liberal class as the source of all of America’s cultural depravity, however Hedges rarely acknowledges that he, himself is a member of this class. Only until the final paragraph does he begin to use the term “we” to promote change and influence, but it is to little to late. This is a very sad book and one that only frustrates with little hope for inspiration.

I feel that the book would have had a better premise if it was titled the ‘Decline of the Liberal Class’ and that Hedges provided a chronological thesis that demonstrated how the effectiveness of the liberal moral movement has declined as the corporate power and war state has risen in power. However that is not the book that Hedges wrote. His book is highly disorganized and often comes off as a rant full of demonstrative and emotionally charged adjectives to describe the liberal class as anemic, ossified, and of course dead. Although he professes that liberalism, or rather the class of liberalism is dead, Hedges is inconsistent in illuminating the actual moment when the liberal class died. He says it happens the day Woodrow Wilson entered the US into ‘the war to end all wars’, he says it arose when fascist hatred turned toward communist hatred and fear-mongering during the forties, he says that the death arose when arts subjected themselves to pithy worship of self and celebrity through the beats, the sixties, and the seventies avaunt-garde, he says that the liberal class died when the likes of Howard Zinn, Raplh Nader, I.F. Stone were followed by the FBI and silenced, he says the liberal class died when journalism subjected objective truth for propaganda and sensationalism. Over and over again Hedges provides concrete examples for the decline of the liberal class, but his writing is so streaked with contempt and anger that he fails to put it altogether into a concise argument and he is so convinced that the liberal class is dead that he fails to acknowledge that through the 20th century there has been a movement that has persisted and continues to thrive. True, the movement lacks the unification of the socialist union movement prior to the first World War, but the world changed and the movement has had to change with the changing world.(less)

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May 27, 2012 Jeff Eggleston rated it 4 of 5 stars

This was a good book and interesting. It got a little "conspiracy theory-ish" for my taste but overall it has an interesting premise. I am a stanch liberal so I enjoyed the historical perspectives as well as the calls to action. It is a bit too leftist though for my taste. Progress is, and has been made. Is it ever enough? No I think not. But that's no reason to start getting down on ourselves. I get it, you don't like Obama because he's not enough of a "lefty". But at least acknowledge we have...more

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Mar 07, 2012 Chris rated it 3 of 5 stars

I liked where Mr. Hedges was going with this book, but it was lacking in substantial argumentative strength. The basis of his argument is valid, but there were several weak points argued (i.e. he blasts the internet as the mechanism by which corporations will deplete liberal academics ability to earn momey from their productions, considering the fact that I bought his book online for my Kindle), and I think for the most part, his theology tends to overwhelm the cultural and politic. The best par...more

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Mar 26, 2013 Nick Dupree rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: nonfiction

Death of the Liberal Class by Chris Hedges presents overwhelming evidence of the Left’s “death.”

The disconnect between the liberal establishment and the realities for the rest of us has increasingly widened as the Left courts the same donors at the top of the corporate food chain, the .05%. That disconnect upsets me the most. It means they’re not encountering the world, not seeing the painful realities and unintended consequences of their policies. The hermetically-sealed bubble they live in is...more

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Feb 23, 2011 Derek Busch rated it 3 of 5 stars

I don't know what to say about this book. It wasn't what I expected. It is a narrative on how the power elite of the USA has destroyed the liberal class, those that have watched after the workers of our country and protected them from corporate greed. Corporations are the enemy, according to Hedges. He makes some very powerful arguments, but at times the book almost has an X-Files conspiracy feel to it. I felt depressed while reading the book, but it also energized me somewhat to try to do more...more

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Feb 13, 2011 Brian rated it 3 of 5 stars

Hedges writes about a very profound topic: the failure of the liberal class in modern American society. Unfortunately, Hedges lets others do all the work for him. This book is mostly a series of quotes from others. Hedges contributes less than a quarter of the words to the narrative (this is by no means a rigorous statistical study of the words). If only Hedges would have used the quotations more sparingly and filled in between them with his own ideas and contexts, one could say they had read an...more

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Mar 15, 2012 Derek rated it 3 of 5 stars

I'm giving it 3 stars because I had mixed reactions. The beginning and the end of the book are, quite frankly, horribly depressing - society is screwed, the planet is screwed, there is nothing we can do about it, and things are only going to get progressively worse - but there is some valuable information in here that I didn't know before (the brief history of propaganda and its origins in the U.S. is a perfect example).

It's also obvious that the book is a snapshot in time (it was published in 2...more

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About Chris Hedges

Christopher Lynn Hedges is an American journalist, author, and war correspondent, specializing in American and Middle Eastern politics and societies.
Hedges is known as the best-selling author of War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning (2002), which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction.
Chris Hedges is currently a senior fellow at The Nation Institute in New York Ci...more

More about Chris Hedges...

Books by Chris Hedges

Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle

American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War On America

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“If we really saw war, what war does to young minds and bodies, it would be impossible to embrace the myth of war. If we had to stand over the mangled corpses of schoolchildren killed in Afghanistan and listen to the wails of their parents, we would not be able to repeat clichés we use to justify war. This is why war is carefully sanitized. This is why we are given war's perverse and dark thrill but are spared from seeing war's consequences. The mythic visions of war keep it heroic and entertaining…

The wounded, the crippled, and the dead are, in this great charade, swiftly carted offstage. They are war's refuse. We do not see them. We do not hear them. They are doomed, like wandering spirits, to float around the edges of our consciousness, ignored, even reviled. The message they tell is too painful for us to hear. We prefer to celebrate ourselves and our nation by imbibing the myths of glory, honor, patriotism, and heroism, words that in combat become empty and meaningless.” — 34 people liked it

“We have to grasp, as Marx and Adam Smith did, that corporations are not concerned with the common good. They exploit, pollute, impoverish, repress, kill, and lie to make money. They throw poor people out of homes, let the uninsured die, wage useless wars for profit, poison and pollute the ecosystem, slash social assistance programs, gut public education, trash the global economy, plunder the U.S. Treasury and crush all popular movements that seek justice for working men and women. They worship money and power.” — 29 people liked it

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