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Reply to Porter and O'Hearn
“Sam Porter and Denis O’Hearn (hereafter poh) accuse us of radically misrepresenting the current situation in Ireland in the interests of sectarian Ulster unionism and British imperialism. They claim that our explicit and implicit agenda is the maintenance of the union of Northern Ireland with Britain, and . . .” read more
The Suffrage Campaign
“Catherine Hall’s article on the circumstances surrounding the 1867 Reform Act (nlr 208) could not, as your editorial notes, be more relevant to political debate today. It is truly a history of the present day. As Hall suggests, the issues of race, class and gender which are . . .” read more
Social Democracy and Full Employment
“‘The voters, now convinced that full employment, generous welfare services and social stability can quite well be preserved, will certainly not relinquish them. Any Government which tampered seriously with the basic structure 0f the full-employment Welfare State would meet with a sharp reverse at the polls’ (Antony Crosland,1956). . . .” read more
Harnessing the Market
“The clearest and most concise statement of John Roemer’s project in A Future for Socialism occurs at the end of his book. In its concluding chapter he summarizes his argument as pivoting on two ‘crucial ideas’—the idea that ‘socialism is best thought of as a kind of egalitarianism, . . .” read more
The Quota Demand and Feminist Politics
“There is not much of a women’s movement in Germany today, in either West or East. A strong backlash can be felt from the relatively united male sector of the population against the achievements of the women’s movement over the past twenty years, and also against the hopes . . .” read more
The Fall of the House of Windsor
“When Charter 88 was founded, six years ago, the issue of the monarchy was conspicuously absent from the programme of political and constitutional reform which it put forward. The omission was deliberate and could hardly have been otherwise. To embark on a campaign to modernize the archaic but . . .” read more
Rethinking Imperial Histories: The Reform Act of 1867
“In Birmingham, Britain’s second city, the Art Gallery celebrates the civic heritage of a place which became rich in the nineteenth century. The gallery itself is a beautiful Victorian building. It was a part of the new town centre designed by Joseph Chamberlain, at that time the Liberal . . .” read more
Back to Socialist Basics
“On 24 November 1993, a meeting of Left intellectuals occurred in London, under the auspices of the Institute for Public Policy Research (ippr), which is a Labour-leaning think-tank. A short document was circulated in advance of the said meeting, to clarify its purpose. Among other things, the . . .” read more
The Plausibility of Socialism
“Socialism itself must be viewed as part of a democratic movement which long antedates it, but to which socialism alone can give its full meaning. The idea of democracy has been drastically narrowed in scope and substance in capitalist societies so as to reduce the threat it posed . . .” read more
Contentious Commitments: French Intellectuals and Politics
“As Sunil Khilnani observes, in a characteristic turn of phrase, the marxisant intellectual culture of France after the Liberation ‘came to play a fundamental role in the entire afflatus of Western progressive thought’. Nettled by the Anglophone fashion for French modes in the 1960s and 70s, which invariably . . .” read more
'C'est la lutte initiale': Steps in the Realignment of the French Left
“In the last two years, a string of elections and the Maastricht referendum have confirmed the rapid realignment of forces on the French Left. The Socialist Party has been brutally expelled from government, at the end of a decade that saw it tarnished and compromised by office and . . .” read more
The Agonies of Liberalism: What Hope Progress?
“We meet on a triple anniversary: the 25th Anniversary of the founding of Kyoto Seika University in 1968; the 25th Anniversary of the world revolution of 1968; the 52nd Anniversary of the exact day (at least on the us calendar) of the bombing of Pearl Harbor by . . .” read more
Overcoming the Past
“I would like your very different biographies and your experiences with the European Left to encounter each other as it were in a discussion on Germany, on ‘overcoming the past’, on the legacy of socialism, on Europe and the lack of synchrony between Germany and Poland. The . . .” read more
Reinventing Federalism: Europe and the Left
“Europeans have lived for so long in the warm cocoon of the Community system that we have almost forgotten what our history was like before the astonishing burst of institutional inventiveness that culminated in the Rome Treaty a generation ago. If present trends are allowed to continue we . . .” read more
Second-Hand Dealers in Ideas: Think-Tanks and Thatcherite Hegemony
“[T]he ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually the . . .” read more
Democracy and the Ends of Marxism
“The relationship between socialism and democracy has been a complex and a contested one. To large numbers of socialists it was axiomatic that their project, both the goal of socialism and the movement for it, must be democratic. They saw socialism as the heir to older, liberal and . . .” read more
Shaping Ends: Reflections on Fukuyama
“Francis Fukuyama’s The End of History and the Last Man has been widely regarded as a celebration of the triumph of the West. Its message, on the accepted view, is that, with victory in the Cold War and the death of Communism, the Western way of life has . . .” read more
Our Post-Communism: The Legacy of Karl Kautsky
“Recently, as a result of preparing for this paper, I read for the first time Karl Kautsky’s Bolshevism at a Deadlock, published in German, in September 1930, as Der Bolschewismus in der Sackgasse—which we could better translate perhaps as No Way Through for Bolshevism. I found this an . . .” read more
Radicalism after Communism in Thailand and Indonesia
“One might think that ‘after Communism’ is an uncomplicated idea, experience, or socio-political condition, but in the two countries of South-East Asia which I intend to discuss—namely, colonized, Muslim Indonesia, and uncolonized, Buddhist Thailand—‘after Communism’ has markedly different meanings, which therefore in turn affect the imaginary of contemporary . . .” read more
Class Analysis, History and Emancipation
“In both the popular press and the scholarly media we hear a lot about the crisis of Marxism, even of its death. Frequently the collapse of regimes ruled by Communist parties is equated with the collapse of Marxism as a social theory. However, while there is unquestionably a . . .” read more
Representing Solidarity: Class, Gender and the Crisis in Social-Democratic Sweden
“The 1991 Swedish election produced the victory of a coalition of four bourgeois parties dedicated to bringing about a ‘system shift’. Their preparedness to break with the Swedish social-democratic model stands in marked contrast to the bourgeois governments of 1976–82. The change can be understood only in relation . . .” read more
The Balance Sheet of the Left
“In nlr 194, Göran Therborn, adopting a broad historical-comparative perspective, tried to draw up an overall balance sheet of the achievements and failings of the Left. One of his major arguments was that the crisis of both the social-democratic and the Communist Left was more conjunctural than . . .” read more
The Personal and the Political
“Sheila Rowbotham: Your new book, Outsiders, suggests to me a general feature of your work—an awareness of class as a general feature of society but also of the cultural nuances which bind or separate people into or between classes. Was there something in your family background . . .” read more
Reply to Mouzelis
“To assess the complex historical experience of what has claimed to be socialism, or efforts in a socialist direction, is an enormous task, which will take a long time, deep digging and hard thinking. It will be enlivened by controversy. Nicos Mouzelis’ reply to my initial bird’s-eye . . .” read more
The Sole Survivor
“This Review is two hundred issues old. All sorts of things can be hung on commemorative hooks, and one of them is rueful retrospect. About five crises ago I found myself before an audience of us academics, trying to persuade them that a National Government would be . . .” read more
The Entrails of Thatcherism
“Margaret Thatcher was leader of the Conservative party for almost sixteen years and Prime Minister for eleven years. Under her leadership the Conservatives won three general elections and re-established themselves as the dominant party in the British state, while Labour declined to its interwar level of support. It . . .” read more
The Life and Times of Socialism
“As the light of socialist hopes and expectations fades, and the need for clear vision and historical perspective grows imperative, we might look to the owl of Minerva, trusting she will neither be dazzled by the fires of capitalist celebration (or crisis?) nor succumb to the absolute darkness . . .” read more
Toward a More Representative Voting System: The Plant Report
“Reform of the British electoral system has been much discussed in recent years. It is advocated by all centre parties—by the present Liberal Democrat Party, by its predecessors the Liberal and the Social Democrat Parties, and by the Green Party as well. The Labour Party, as a body, . . .” read more
The Question of Electoral Reform
“Representative government in the United Kingdom has a very special character with respect to that elsewhere in Western Europe. In the first place, the British House of Commons at Westminster is the only parliament in Western Europe which neither now nor in the recent past has been elected . . .” read more
The Future of Socialist Legality: A Reply to Hunt
“My book The Concept of Socialist Law challenges the view that an ideal socialist society would have no need of law. While thinkers on the Left advocate socialism in the name of justice, they have traditionally dismissed those legal institutions which have provided some measure of justice in . . .” read more
An Encounter with Fukuyama
“In conversation after a television discussion of his The End of History and the Last Man, an occasion somewhat deviated by the interventions of a bibulous Labour dignitary, Francis Fukuyama revealed that his maternal grandfather had studied in Germany under Werner Sombart. The grandfather had subsequently purchased Sombart’s . . .” read more
No Exit from Capitalism
“Francis Fukuyama’s The End of History and the Last Man is the book of its historical moment, of Western triumph, as Paul Kennedy’s Rise and Fall of the Great Powers (1988) was of a slightly earlier phase of American self-doubt. Its thesis, that capitalist democracy is the final . . .” read more
A Socialist Interest in Law
“The momentous events that have taken place in the Communist world since 1989 have underlined, even though it may prove to have been too late, the necessity for socialists to take law seriously. I understand the slogan ‘taking law seriously’ to embrace the following ideas: one, contrary to . . .” read more
The Crisis of Today’s Ideologies
“I have been asked to speak on ‘the crisis of ideology, culture and civilization’ today—an enormous subject, and one not easy to define. Yet very few people will doubt that there is today such a crisis, even if they cannot say precisely in what it consists. So let . . .” read more
Citizenship and Charter 88
“The great written constitutions, from which the idea of constitutional reform unavoidably borrows some of its aura, have set out to redefine the fundamental relationships of citizens, society and government as these were perceived at the time of their writing. The American Declaration of Independence asserted the rights . . .” read more
The Ruins of Westminster
“Britain, or the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland as it is still officially known, resembles an ungainly, dilapidated, half-refurbished Victorian pile threatened by the simultaneous onslaught of subsidence, storm damage, woodworm and dry rot. This year brings an election that could be dangerously inconclusive and . . .” read more
The Autonomy of Scottish Politics
“The Scottish Assembly referendum in 1979 took place in the context of intense political divisions. All sections of the labour movement were divided on the issue, and particularly in local government where many local councillors supported the ‘No’ campaign. The Scottish National Party was divided: although official policy . . .” read more
The Case for Dismantling the Secret State
“smear, which describes in meticulous detail the activities of the security services, over many years, in seeking to discredit and destroy the Left in British politics, and Harold Wilson in particular, is by far the most important book that has been published on this subject. It . . .” read more
The True Realm of Freedom: Marxist Philosophy after Communism
“This article is an attempt to consider the implications for Marxist philosophy of the collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. It would be well to start by saying what Marxist philosophy is taken to be here. A convenient map of the field is provided . . .” read more
The Ecological Challenge to Marxism
“Contemporary Marxism has responded in a number of ways to the challenge posed by ecology. Broadly speaking, three currents of thought can be distinguished. The first I shall call the ‘Marxist dissident’ response. Its proponents have abandoned central elements of Marx’s theory, claiming that the new questions posed . . .” read more
The Gulf War, Iraq and Western Liberalism
“The states of the North Atlantic have, since the days of Palmerston, frequently hoisted the flag of liberalism on their way to war. But rarely since 1945 have the principles of right, law and justice been invoked as strongly as in the call to arms for Desert Storm. . . .” read more
Whose Left? Socialism, Feminism and the Future
“Political generations appear and disappear with astonishing speed. Thirty years ago, a budding anarchist and sixties student radical, I shared with certain others of my generation and class a politics of generalized anti-authoritarianism and free love. In Australia at the time, coming out of the rigid conformity of . . .” read more
Fin de Siecle: Socialism after the Crash
“As we enter the last decade of the twentieth century, the ruin of ‘Marxist-Leninist’ Communism has been sufficiently comprehensive to eliminate it as an alternative to capitalism and to compromise the very idea of socialism. The debacle of Stalinism has embraced reform-communism, and has brought no benefit to . . .” read more