Subordinated

The choice was between serving human beings and serving history, between thinking ethically and thinking strategically. [Dwight] Macdonald criticized Marxists for the same reason he criticized the liberal class: both subordinated ethics to another goal. By serving history and power, the liberal class, like the Marxists,surrendered their power and moral authority to the state. The capitulation of the liberal class, as Irving Howe noted, has bleached out all political tendencies: "It becomes a loose shelter, a poncho rather than a program; to call oneself a liberal one doesn’t really have to believe in anything."

--Chris Hedges, "Death Of The Liberal Class", page 112