"Marxism was discredited by the very history to which it appealed for vindication"

With the passing of Richard John Neuhaus, the editors of First Things chose some of their favorite RJN "Public Square" moments to reproduce.

Here's one from March 1998-- on the so-called "Third Way" between socialism and capitalism (as if we have anything close to capitalism now!):

Singin’ them old third-way blues....so bitterly disappointed by the failure of real-world, existing socialism, a.k.a. communism. The vicissitudes of history, however, have not dissuaded them from their earnest search for a “third way” between socialism and capitalism, namely, socialism.

An awesome line!

Among Catholics of the left, the complaint is that the capitalist neoliberals have hijacked Catholic social teaching, with the help of a none-too-alert pope who in the 1991 encyclical Centesimus Annus said the free economy is the way to go....

[Father Peter-Hans Kolvenbach, Father General of the Society of Jesus] and others have discovered that the global economy of neoliberalism has not benefited everyone equally. There are still poor people, he sadly notes. He says that the earlier liberation theology of the 1970s and 1980s had become “exhausted.” That is to say, Marxism was discredited by the very history to which it appealed for vindication....

Another awesome line!