As for the various religions, there's no doubt that they are very meaningful to adherents, and allow them to delude themselves into thinking there is some meaning to their lives beyond what we agree is the case. I'd never try to talk them out of the delusions, which are necessary for them to live a life that makes some sense to them. These beliefs can provide a framework for deeds that are noble or savage, and anywhere in between, and there's every reason to focus attention on the deeds and the background for them, to the extent that we can grasp it.

If you take an economics or a political science course, you're taught that humans are supposed to be rational wealth accumulators, each acting as an individual to maximize his own wealth in the market.

In fact, what were called the socialist countries in Eastern Europe were the most anti-socialist systems in the world. Workers had more rights in the United States and England than they had in Russia, and it was somehow still called socialism.

The educational system is pretty much geared to passing the next exam. You're educated to pass tests and not to understand.

The people we call the prophets I think are the earliest dissident intellectuals, and they're treated like most dissident intellectuals - very badly. They're imprisoned, driven into the desert. King Ahab, the epitome of evil in the Bible, condemned Elijah as a "hater of Israel." This is the first self-hating Jew, the origin of the term. It goes right up to the present. That's the history of intellectuals.

There are all the activist groups on every imaginable topic - solidarity groups, environmental and feminist groups - sectors of these movements do very valuable work.

Starting with [Ronald] Regan it became quite open, the attack on unions. It wasn't the Pinkertons anymore, but it was just not applying the laws.