The Depression radicalized British intellectuals toward socialism and communism

Evidence

A British radical intelligentsia, comparable to the long-established continental intelligentsias, did not appear until the nineteen-thirties. In the main British intellectuals had always been Liberal or Conservative. Then between 1928 and 1933 a change occurred in their outlook. Just before the opening of the new decade, G. D. H. Cole sensed ‘a disquieting insecurity’ among young intellectuals. Their pursuit of pleasure ceased to be satisfying. A new seriousness came to the fore in the place of the former joie de vivre. Increasing attention was given to politics. Whereas sex and aesthetics had been the major topics of conversation, now everybody began to talk politics. As time passed the politics of the intellectual moved leftward to socialism and communism. What began as a political awakening became a great radicalization. — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 2369

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Even Friedman rejected Hayek’s do-nothing policy as harmful in the Depression — Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion: Reinventing Free…, 82; The Great Depression’s financial storms convinced intellectuals that humanity was one indivisible economy — Quinn Slobodian, Globalists: The End of Empire and the…, 294; 1930s British scientists equated communism with scientific method itself — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 77 (+1 more)