A purer form of democracy is in fact what many more contemporary American (or Western) socialists such as social libertarians have advocated. Again, I can't think of any instances where Zinn proposes a "solution" other then enlightenment (eg' understand that we, the readers and writers of books have mostly been the jailers'[1]) so I wouldn't charecterise him as part of any of those movements. I think that you would classify his work as a part of the Marxist family of intellectual endeavour for other reasons.<p>Since the most obvious effects of Communist thought were the political-economic systems inspired by it, we tend to think of Communism as being purely focused on these. But, an approach to historical analysis is as much a part of Marxist thought as economic analysis.<p>Howard Zinn was a historian.<p>[1] Quoted roughly &#38; ineloquently from memory.