As any good teacher knows, the methods of instruction and the range of material covered are matters of small importance as compared with the success in arousing the natural curiosity of the students and stimulating their interest in exploring on their own.

...free enterprise, [is] a term that refers, in practice, to a system of public subsidy and private profit, with massive government intervention in the economy to maintain a welfare state for the rich.

Capitalism is based on the principle that everything has to be privately owned; it can't be held in common. There is even a dogma, which is today called, the "tragedy of the commons" which holds that if things are held in common they are going to be destroyed. If they're privatized, like you give them to Bechtel or Monsanto or ExxonMobil, then they'll be preserved because that's the capitalist's religion.

South America has virtually broken away in the last decade. That's an event of historic significance. South America just doesn't follow US orders. In fact there isn't a single US military base left there.

The Sanders campaign showed that a candidate with mildly progressive programs could win the nomination, maybe the election, even without the backing of the major funders or any media support. There's good reason to suppose that Sanders would have won the nomination had it not been for shenanigans of the Obama-Clinton party managers. He is now the most popular political figure in the country by a large margin.

I don't like the intellectual label.

The tendencies are considerably weaker in the natural sciences, which, for the past several centuries, have survived and flourished through such constant challenge, and therefore, at best, seek to encourage it. Serving the status quo in political and socioeconomic realms is a different matter.