num_pages: 216
description: Something that has been needed for a leftist foreign policy with a clear moral basisForeign policy for leftists used to be relatively simple. They were for the breakdown of capitalism and its replacement with a centrally planned economy. They were for the workers against the moneyed interests and for colonized peoples against imperial (Western) powers. But these easy substitutes for thought are becoming increasingly difficult. Neo-liberal capitalism is triumphant and the workers movement is in radical decline. National liberation movements have produced new oppressions. A reflexive anti-imperialist politics can turn leftists into apologists for morally abhorrent groups. In Michael Walzers view the left can no longer (in fact could never) take automatic positions but must proceed from clearly articulated moral principles. In this book adapted from essays published in Dissent  Walzer asks how leftists should think about the international sceneabout humanitarian intervention and world government about global inequality and religious extremismin light of a coherent set of underlying political values.
language: English
title: A Foreign Policy for the Left
publisher: Yale University Press