Reflections on the future of the Left
By: edited by David Coates
Series: Building progressive alternatives; Building progressive alternatives
Publisher: Agenda
Published: 2017
Language: eng
Number of pages: 214
ISBN-13: 9781911116516; 9781911116523
Copyright date: 2017
Subjects: Socialism; Right and left (Political science)
Description: What is the future for progressive politics in advanced capitalism? With its political fortunes so low, how might the Left move forward? These essays from leading left intellectuals--Dean Baker, Fred Block, David Coates, Hillary Wainwright, Colin Crouch, Wolfgang Streeck, and Leo Panitch--reflect on the scale and nature of the task that the Left now faces. The contributors, whose experiences stretch back to the headier days of 1968, consider what it is that they should pass on to a younger generation of thinkers and activists tasked with taking progressive politics forward today. Their views and opinions vary--some are optimistic, some pessimistic--but all offer searching insight into the task the Left now faces and what, especially if it was complicit in the neoliberal settlement it has left to draw on, from its intellectual heritage and practical experience to deal with its contemporary challenges. Akin to The Forward March of Labour Halted published some thirty years ago, these essays represent a major statement on the future for center-left politics and a frank appraisal of the Left's current capabilities to keep conservatism at bay and radical politics in the ascendancy.--
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Introduction / David Coates; title: The political economy of an anti-rent-seeking equality agenda / Dean Baker; title: Towards a new paradigm for the Left in the United States / Fred Block; title: Trawling the past as a guide to the future / David Coates; title: A new politics from the Left: the distinctive experience of Jeremy Corbyn as leader of the British Labour Party / Hilary Wainwright; title: Social democracy in a dangerous world / Colin Crouch; title: Whose side are we on? Liberalism and socialism are not the same / Wolfgang Streeck; title: Class, party and the challenge of state transformation / Leo Panitch and Sam Gindin; title: Closing thoughts / Matthew Watson.