Is fiction inherently capitalist? And has American foreign policy really raised moral standards in world affairs?
Political-activist literary critics were once an endangered species. The rise of capital to absolute global dominion and the concomitant withering of socialist aspirations affected departments of literature throughout the 1980s and 90s, and by the turn of the millennium even the best political criticism lacked all conviction. Today, however, a new breed of politicized critic is emerging, full of the passionate intensity that springs from a righteous sense of historical vindication. They tend to be American, and to define their politics in opposition to what they regard as the effete intellectual culture of old Europe. They point out that neoclassical economics has implications for literature that are at least as suggestive as those offered by the Marxist tradition, and they argue that the social and political triumph of the market ought to be reflected in humanities departments. They unabashedly apply their political agenda to their intellectual endeavours, they eagerly proselytize to
