
Unlike Marxism, the Leninist one-party state is not a philosophy. It is a mechanism for holding power. It works because it clearly defines who gets to be the elite — the political elite, the cultural elite, the financial elite. In monarchies such as prerevolutionary France and Russia, the right to rule was granted to the arist…
… until the end of eternity, that arrangement still mostly prevails.) And let’s not prettify things. Maternity can be impoverishing — the result of yet more social decisions. Female-headed households are overrepresented in families living below the poverty line, and black m…