Capitalism, fascism, communism, social democracy and the study of leisure: comments prompted by Ken Roberts' "Still speaking to ourselves"

This paper comments on an earlier paper by Ken Roberts published in the World Leisure Journal in which he analysed the relationship between research and commentary on leisure and the tensions generated by international political environments in three periods: 1900-1939; 1945-1989; and the post-1990, post-communism, era. This paper challenges Roberts' thesis that international political environments in the respective periods significantly affected leisure research and commentary or its reception by the wider public. It is noted that much leisure analysis has been ambivalent about totalitarian regimes and has been critical of liberal capitalism rather than supportive if it. Furthermore, it is argued that wider public interest in the outputs of leisure scholars is largely influenced by relevance to the concerns of ordinary daily living and the style and media of communications used.