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Crosscurrents

After decades of hawkish neoliberalism, the British Labour Party has become the stage for an unprecedented experiment. To what extent has Corbyn’s leadership been able to transform Blair’s party into a vehicle for egalitarian renewal? Can his project survive the maelstrom of the UK’s Brexit crisis?

America’s New Left

Five members of Democratic Socialists of America give their views on the organization’s dramatic growth and the strategic dilemmas it must address—above all, relations to Sanders and the Democratic Party.

The Corbyn Project

Given the imbalances of the UK economy—overblown financial sector, gaping current account, delirious levels of debt—what structural changes might a Corbyn government effect? Robin Blackburn discusses prospects and proposals for an egalitarian shift.

Much to be Modest About

John Newsinger on John Bew, Citizen Clem. Hawkish celebration of Labourism’s post-war hero.

The Portuguese Experiment

The coordinator of Portugal’s Left Bloc traces her trajectory from theatre to the political stage. The prominence of women in the party’s leadership, the social achievements wrested so far from the grip of the Portuguese establishment, and the prospects for extending those gains or seeing them reversed by Brussels and Berlin.

Luso-Anomalies

How and why has Portugal differed from Spain since the downfall of their respective dictatorships in the mid 70s? The course of political and economic development since the Revolution of 1974 was contained, and its current discrepant outcome: a conventional social-democratic government obliged to break with Euro-austerity under the pressure of a pact with the radical left.

American Brumaire?

The electoral watersheds of 2016 signalled a rejection of the global-neoliberal formula of rule, but no viable establishment alternative exists. In its absence, Riley argues, Trump may offer a neo-Bonapartist substitute for a coherent hegemonic project.

Politics of Insecurity

Exploration of the fractured subjectivity, racialized legacies and multiple, entwined insecurities of the American working class—the millions taken for granted by Clinton, relentlessly wooed by her opponent.

Passing the Baton

Leaving the White House with record ratings, why couldn’t Obama’s efforts secure it for his former Secretary of State? The legacy that helped Trump into office—and prospects for America’s newest left.

Oppositions

After years of economic crisis and social protest, the cartel parties of the extreme centre now face a challenge to their dominance from outside-left forces in a number of Western countries. Contours of the emergent left oppositions, their platforms and figureheads, from Tsipras to Corbyn, Sanders to Mélenchon, Grillo to Iglesias.

Who Is Delhi’s Common Man?

The Aam Aadmi Party emerged from mass anti-corruption protests to sweep the board in regional elections for India’s capital city. Can its rule in Delhi open up space for popular mobilization on the national stage, challenging the rise of communalism, or will the party be sucked into humdrum parliamentary routines?

Project Jacobin

Opening a series on new radical media, the founder of the most imaginative, and successful, US socialist journal of the new century explains how it was created, what its editorial and political strategy has been, and why it has met such a warm response.

Parti Pris

Gregory Elliott on Lucio Magri, The Tailor of Ulm. The trajectory of Italian communism, analysed by an unillusioned participant-observer.

California’s Fields Ablaze

Paul Buhle on Frank Bardacke, Trampling Out the Vintage. Chronicle of the United Farm Workers and their mercurial leader, Cesar Chavez.

'What exists cannot be true'

The Argentinian historian of the Mexican Revolution recalls his life as a roving agitator. Worlds of rebel workers, from the barrios of Buenos Aires to the Bolivian altiplano and Guatemalan jungle, Lecumberri Prison to the streets of Paris and Rome.

Good Riddance to New Labour

As the British general election approaches, a balance-sheet of New Labour’s thirteen years in office. The record of Blair and Brown—imperial wars abroad, subservience to the City at home—as so many reasons to cheer their downfall.

The Third Crusade

Richard Gott on Anthony Seldon, Blair. As ‘Iraq’ joins ‘Munich’ and ‘Suez’ in the lexicon of British foreign-policy disasters, does the Labour Prime Minister have his own neo-imperial programme?

Workers of the World

Kim Moody on Beverly Silver, Forces of Labour. Investigation of the historically shifting frontiers of working-class resistance, from 1870s Northern heartlands to the newly industrializing periphery of South Africa, Brazil and South Korea.

A Weightless Hegemony

Causes and consequences of Britain’s distinctive contribution to the repertoire of latter-day neoliberalism. The domestic and foreign record of the Blair regime, and its hybrid role in a shifting Atlantic order.

Treading Water?

McKibbin argues that New Labour's constitutional tensions are inherited from the Thatcherite project of centralizing power in order to promote a neoliberal political economy; and Labour's previous commitments to devolution. Tocqueville's view of constitutional inheritance and evolution is cited in opposition to Mair's model of a coherent Blairite strategy.

Revisiting the Blair Paradox

Responding to Peter Mair’s article in NLR 2, David Marquand suggests that Blair’s ambition to consolidate power as a ruler above partisan strife is less new than it seems. Baldwin’s regime in the thirties offers some surprising similarities.

Corporate Populism and Partyless Democracy

Are there more tensions in New Labour’s constitutional reforms than Peter Mair’s model of a ‘partyless democracy’ allows? Anthony Barnett argues that the style of Blair’s government is actually closer to that of a large media corporation—bound to come to grief on the variegated realities of modern Ukania.

Partyless Democracy

New Labour’s rule in the UK is often held to offer a paradox: devolution of power to regions and cities, concentration of power in the central executive and support structures. Peter Mair suggests there is no contradiction—Blair’s project is a ‘consensual’ system above politics, gutted of traditional parties.

Pounding Out a DRUM Beat

Dearly beloved, read more

New Labour and its Discontents

The week before the European Union summit in Amsterdam, Tony Blair delivered a Thatcher-style lecture at the Malmö gathering of European socialist parties. ‘As I said to the Labour Party a few years ago, we must modernize or die,’ he declared; there was no choice for the European . . . read more

Reflections on Blair’s Velvet Revolution

The comprehensive defeat of the Conservatives in the General Election must be a source of satisfaction, indeed jubilation, to the Left everywhere since the administrations of Thatcher and Major were global pioneers of the free market blight and particular foes of social progress in Europe. In the politics . . . read more

Labour Governments: Old Constraints and New Parameters

It is good to be able to explore again the pattern of constraints likely to beset a Labour Government. For a long time now, such concerns have been definitely off our collective agendas because of the string of heavy electoral defeats for Labour. The bulk of the read more

Supply Side Socialism: The Political Economy of New Labour

Over-arching concepts, like the stakeholder economy, have their value both in determining the ground upon which political debate takes place and broadening the basis of support for the party which successfully employs them. There is considerable electoral virtue in a concept open to disparate interpretations and satisfying a . . . read more

The Disintegration of a Labour Tradition: New Zealand Politics in the 1980s

On 27 October 1990, New Zealand’s Labour government suffered one of the heaviest defeats in the country’s electoral history. Labour lost twenty-seven of its fifty-six seats, and its share of the vote was the lowest since 1931. It was a humiliating but not inappropriate end for a government . . . read more

A Reply to Staughton Lynd

When Staughton Lynd told me that he was writing a review of both my book, An Injury to All, and David Montgomery’s, The Fall of the House of Labor, I quipped that he had put me in some fast company. After all, David Montgomery is not only an . . . read more

Trade Unionism in the USA

These are difficult days for the labour movement in the United States, and the situation is even worse for the radical labour movement. Trade-union membership in the non-farm labour force has declined from over 30 per cent in the early 1950s to about 17 per cent today. The . . . read more

The Limits of Labourism: 1987 and Beyond

Labour’s campaign for the next election started on 12 June 1987, the day after the Party’s third successive defeat at the polls. Neil Kinnock said as much, and although many politicians make declarations of this sort Kinnock was for once not indulging in rhetoric. He made a similar . . . read more

A Strategy for Labour: Four Documents

The papers reproduced in this issue of nlr were all submitted to, and rejected by, the National Executive Committee of the Labour Party. The arguments contained in them reflect some of the concerns and views of a very substantial body of opinion, not accepted by the leadership . . . read more

Proportional Representation: A Socialist Concept

I submit that proportional representation is a fundamental socialist concept. I argue, furthermore, that no socialist seriously committed to democratic, accountable representation can advocate any other electoral system. My argument, however, is completely different from that put by the sdp/Liberal Alliance. When we look back across the . . . read more

Labour’s Future and the Coalition Debate

Slightly adapting Dr. Johnson, we can say that the prospect of political execution concentrates the collective mind wonderfully—on the elementary need to survive. This has been the preoccupation of the Labour Party, especially its leadership, in the wake of its catastrophically poor performance in the 1983 general election. . . . read more

The New Revisionism in Britain

Since the late seventies, and particularly since the arrival in office of the Thatcher government in May 1979, a vast amount of writing has been produced on the left to account for the troubles which have beset the Labour Party and the labour movement as a whole. The . . . read more

The Miners' Strike in Easington

In the summer of 1983 the newspapers were filled with the rumour that the new Chairman of the National Coal Board would be Mr Ian MacGregor. MacGregor had been head of the US mining company Amax which, after its strike-breaking activities at the Belle Ayr open cast mine . . . read more

Why Labour Lost

Before discussing the post-electoral situation in Britain and its possible consequences for the Labour Party, I would like to ask you just one ‘personal’ question. Soon after you were elected Leader of the Greater London Council (glc) you spoke at a left-wing rally where you shared . . . read more

Problems of the Coming Period

The title I was given for this talk was ‘Problems of the Coming Period’! When this was set, some six weeks ago, the coming period that was in mind was the twenty years or so up to and through the millennium; that term which we still have to . . . read more

Socialists and the Labour Party

Labour’s defeat in the General Election offers a profound challenge to the Party. It clearly calls for a period of sober reflection in which a serious analysis of the results can be made. We must forge new links with those too often thought of as natural Labour supporters. . . . read more

Canvassing for Socialism

Immediately after June 9th I went round in a daze, feeling like an alien, not a citizen of this country at all. I half expected everybody to have turned bright blue, or to hear military music blasting out of unseen amplifiers. Now, oddly enough, after this initial period . . . read more

The AFL-CIO’s Second Century

The American Federation of Labor celebrated its centenary last year. It is one of the world’s great conservative institutions, with a stability of internal rule and ideology that might make even the Bank of England gasp. Although the United States has had nineteen presidents since the founding of . . . read more

On the Political Economy of the Socialist Transformation

There are many questions which refuse a reassuring answer. This is no less true within socialist theory. The issue of whether socialists and Marxists should work within the Labour Party has preoccupied the British Left throughout this century. The Social Democratic Federation decided to disaffiliate in the early . . . read more

Socialists and the Crisis of Labourism

British politics today no longer lags behind economics. Hitherto, the hundred-year decline of British capitalism’s relative strength in the world economy, so often analysed, so rarely even temporarily checked, has been accompanied by a relative stability of the country’s political system. Of the major imperialist powers, only two . . . read more

The Choices Before Labour

Eric Hobsbawm is a distinguished scholar and an original thinker, a historian of the first rank and a Marxist of great eminence. The collection of essays provoked by the Marx Memorial Lecture he gave in 1978 on the state of the labour movement in Britain contains some interesting . . . read more

Labourism and the Transition to Socialism

In New Left Review 126 Michael Rustin analysed the constitutional changes currently taking place in the Labour Party and suggested that they contained at least the potential for the transformation of that party into a serious vehicle for socialist advance. Though he was very critical of the narrowness . . . read more

Solihull: Death of a Car Factory

Nationally and internationally the motor industry has been catastrophically affected by the present recession. There have been massive layoffs, plant closures and redundancies with little resistance by the workforce. In Britain in the late sixties and early seventies, the workers at British Leyland were considered very militant and . . . read more

The British Crisis--Can the Left Win?

We are all learning from the crisis of the British economy, not only about how the economy itself works but also about the links between this and the politics of our society. We certainly need to learn if we are to make an effective political response. For the . . . read more

Different Conceptions of Party: Labour’s Constitutional Debates

The Constitution of the Labour Party has for some years been the chosen terrain for an intensifying battle between left and right, over the issues of mandatory reselection of mp’s by their constituency parties, the determination of the party’s election manifesto, and the method of electing the . . . read more

The New Left and the Present Crisis

This paper is a reflection on the present condition of the Left, and on its recent history. It is meant to address our current situation, and indeed to suggest action, but I have not found it possible to do this without thinking about previous initiatives of the earlier . . . read more

The Winter '79 Strikes in Camden

Revolutionary socialists have traditionally assumed that it is among the strongly organised industrial workers that the first stirrings of a revolutionary consciousness would emerge and have identified this group as the backbone of the revolutionary process. This approach has often made them unable to appreciate the significance of . . . read more

On William Morris

Willard Wolfe writes: May I make use of your pages to protest against the tissue of misrepresentations and outright fabrications that forms the substance of E. P. Thompson’s attack on my book, From Radicalism to Socialism, in nlr 99 (September—October 1976), p. 85? Of course, I have . . . read more

Reply to Willard Wolfe

Edward Thompson replies: I did not ‘attack’ Willard Wolfe’s book, but cited it in passing as an example of the facility and confusion to be found in references to William Morris’s political thought in ‘reputable’ academic circles. I could no doubt have found elsewhere a dozen examples equally . . . read more

Notes on British Marxism since 1945

‘The neo-Marxist Left which now dominates the Labour Party’, said a speaker at this year’s Conservative Party conference. Or it may have been ‘near-Marxist Left’, given the difficulty of ruling-class English with the consonant ‘r’. In other speeches either qualification was dropped: the ‘Marxist Left’ now ‘dominates the . . . read more

Romanticism, Utopianism and Moralism: The Case of William Morris

Over the past two decades, my study of William Morris has come to be recognized as a ‘quarry’ of information, although in one or two instances it appears that it was a suspect quarry, to be worked surreptitiously for doctoral advancement. One ought not to object to this: . . . read more

Workers' Control and the Historians: A New Economism

Recently a number of labour historians have looked back into the industrial histories of Great Britain and the United States in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and have discovered what to them appears to have been the ability of certain categories of skilled workers to ‘control’ . . . read more

The General Strike: The 1931 Backlash

The year 1926 and the National Strike brought traumatic experiences for many people and it was then that I became deeply involved in politics as an individual. But when I reflect precisely how this came about I realize that it was strangely connected with some apparently purely domestic . . . read more

Rejoinder to Jean Monds

Jean Monds draws a valuable distinction between the workerist belief that ‘the struggle for power at the point of production leads to advances in class consciousness in and of itself and without the intervention of political organization in the working class’ and the correct assumption that ‘the key . . . read more

The New Unionism

First, could you tell us how you became a militant trade unionist? read more

Class Struggle and the Industrial Revolution

John Foster’s Class Struggle and the Industrial Revolution is a remarkable contribution to English historiography. It represents both a continuation of, and a stark contrast to, the impressive tradition of social history which has grown up in Britain in the last two decades. If the best work of . . . read more

Introduction to Motor Stewards Interview

The following interview explores the perspective of four trade-union militants on the development of the British class struggle in the factory and in society as a whole. In nlr 77 Anthony Barnett surveyed and analysed the upsurge of industrial militancy which culminated in the miners’ strike . . . read more

Politics and the Shopfloor

I would like to begin by asking you about this Sports and Social club we are in. It is very well equipped and pleasant but also rather dead. Could it be used more fully? read more

Labour and the Economy

Britain’s fifth Labour government came to power in October 1964 at a time of rapidly maturing economic crisis for the capitalist system. The political existence of the Labour Party, as of all reformist, social democratic parties, rests on its ability to gain reforms for the working class within . . . read more

The Fateful Meridian

‘The history of a party’, wrote Antonio Gramsci, ‘cannot fail to be the history of a given social class . . . writing the history of a party really means nothing but writing the history of a country from a particular, monographic point of view, throwing one aspect . . . read more

Memorandum on the British Labour Party and the MLF

Prepared by Richard E. Neustadt July 6, 1964 read more

Credo of the Labour Left

What was your original political formation? What special influences were at work? read more

Industrial Democracy in Britain

‘To develop a strategy of advance’ say the authors of this book ‘is the crucial task of the left today.’ (page 407). It is in the search for such a strategy that a new interest in industrial democracy and workers’ control has arisen. This was evident at the . . . read more

The Motor Industry

Turner, Clack and Roberts have written an excellent book. They show that two distinct general demands have arisen among carworkers: for ‘fair wages’ based on principles of comparability, and for ‘job rights’ based upon a conception of property in the job. Both of these challenge the traditional prerogatives . . . read more

The Role of Militancy

Interview with Hugh Scanlon read more

India and the Labour Party

Many questions suggest themselves about the influence that India may have had on the Labour Party, a good deal stronger in all probability than the party’s influence on India; about India as one of the taproots of the peculiar British social-democratic mentality. It could be argued that the . . . read more

The State of the AEU

Last October the Amalgamated Engineering Union counted 1,146,865 members. This is a powerful total: even if the Transport and General Workers’ Union is bigger, it probably does not include quite so many members working in the growth sectors of the economy, and it almost certainly does not embrace . . . read more

Witch-Hunt

Not surprisingly, the Labour Government is trying to protect itself from the consequences of its own capitulations, by seeking to victimize the Left. Wilson’s McCarthyite intervention in the seamens’ strike was followed up by a Downing Street conference between the Prime Minister and Carron together with a coffle . . . read more

Australian Labour

Ian Turner’s Industrial Labour and Politics: The Labour Movement in Eastern Australia 1900–1921 is a major re-interpretation of the development of the Australian Labour movement. It is a useful model of the proper examination of labour movements in general and it is one of the few studies in . . . read more

The Clydesiders

The task of rescuing the ilp in the inter-war years from the obscurity which shrouds unsuccessful political movements is already well under way; but it is in several ways unfortunate that The Clydesiders should be the first book to be published on the subject. Mr Middlemas has . . . read more

Labour Imperialism

Unique among governments of the Left, the Labour Government has done more than fail its friends: it has even disappointed its enemies. Disillusion over its foreign policy is almost universal. The liberal opponents of socialism have been criticizing its inert conservatism for some time; now even the pillars . . . read more

The Labour Aristocracy

Tom Nairn and Perry Anderson, in their articles recently published in nlr, have identified the third quarter of the 19th century as the period in which ‘corporativism’ gained its fatal grip on the British working class. The socialist revival of the 1880’s was an aberration which quickly . . . read more

London and the Revolutionaries

In a valedictory tribute to the first International in 1874, Engels considered that it had belonged to the period of the Second Empire, ‘when the oppression throughout Europe prescribed unity and abstention from all internal controversy for the labour movement, then just awakening. It was the moment when . . . read more

The Resurgence of the Labour Party

After 13 years, the biggest and most influential socialist party in the West has returned to power. What are the likely consequences of this event, in Britain and on the international scene? It is obvious to anyone who has followed at all closely the internal battles and evolution . . . read more

The British Left

Any analysis of the state of the Left in Britain must begin with an analysis of the nature of the Labour Party. For here is a mass party, based on an essentially undivided trade union movement. For at least the last 20 years, it has been always a . . . read more

Labouring Men

Eric Hobsbawm’s latest book is unlikely to have the general appeal of The Age of Revolution. There are few generalizations; elaborate synthesis is not its purpose. Common themes remain implicit rather than stated. Each essay remains a discrete entity, the connections must be made by the reader. Again, . . . read more

The Nature of the Labour Party (Part II)

What is the main justification of Labourism, put forward by socialists at its birth and still advanced by its apologists? What is the cry that rings out at every Labour Party Conference, to repress all serious dissent and maintain the incredible system intact? That Labourism attains the unity . . . read more

Draft Proposal for Socialist Centres

Surely when it was faced with a tacitly hostile Establishment in Whitehall and an actively hostile press in Fleet Street it (the Labour Government 1945–51) should have felt the need for a politically conscious and educated rank and file, such as was beginning to emerge in the . . . read more

Divide and Conquer

For three years, Britain lived in the shadow of one dominant fact: the bankruptcy of Conservatism. This was more than a political fact. It was social, cultural, personal: the end of a way of life, a distinctive conception of the world, the end of the peculiar type . . . read more

Workers University

Surely when it was faced with a tacitly hostile Establishment in Whitehall and an actively hostile press in Fleet Street it (the Labour Government 1945–51) should have felt the need for a politically conscious and educated rank and file, such as was beginning to emerge in the . . . read more

The Nature of the Labour Party (Part I)

The British Labour Party is obviously one of the greatest political forces of the capitalist world. With its six million and more members, it is by far the largest of social-democratic parties. The twelve million votes cast in its favour at the last General Election were the votes . . . read more

The Confed Package

The behaviour of the National Incomes Commission is beginning to reveal a somewhat subtle intelligence, which needs marking by the Labour Movement. This distinctly backhanded compliment is not intended as a form of thanks for the very substantial increase in university salaries of whichnic has rather unexpectedly . . . read more

Fabianism and Colonialism

Dear Sir, read more

Shop Stewards and Workers' Control

The growing debate on the question of workers’ control seems to have reached an impasse for many socialists. Doctrinally, the progress made in recent years is considerable, but the problem of a strategy for the implementation of even the first and pioneer stages remains obscure. read more

AEU Elections

The whole course of the next Labour Government may be very considerably affected by the outcome of two trade union elections which are to take place at the beginning of July. The million-strong engineers’ union, the aeu, is choosing its two chief officers, secretary and president. read more

Reply to Anthony Wedgwood Benn

It is a pity that I did not project the organizational work of the Society and its bureaus into the 1990’s and 1960’s (apart from the incorrect reference to pamphlets), thus giving the impression which, Anthony Wedgwood Benn has taken up, that my comments on page 81 covered . . . read more

Hugh Gaitskell

He had scarcely drawn his last breath, when the halo was stuck above his head. It was like some preposterous historical mistake. Who would have believed Hugh Gaitskell fit for such an exalted place in the national pantheon? Who, dredging through the speeches and few writings of this . . . read more

The Right to Strike

In a manner which is typical of the way these things are done in Britain, the House of Lords has emasculated the right to strike. This outrageous statement may seem to be a wild echo of something in the Peking Review or a gem from yet another new . . . read more

'Twelve Wasted Years'

Twelve Wasted Years. Labour Party Research Department, 10s. read more

The English Working Class

The English working class is one of the enigmas of modern history. Its development as a class is divided into two great phases, and there appears at first sight to be hardly any connection between them. read more

An Economic Policy for Labour

This article is written on certain assumptions. Explicitly these are that Labour comes to power in the latter half of 1964, and that it does not before the election add significantly to the sketch of its economic programme in Signposts for the Sixties and in recent speeches by . . . read more

Labour and Foreign Trade

The approach of the gatt (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade) ‘Kennedy’ Round, and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, is an appropriate time to recall the circumstances which surrounded gatt’s foundation. read more

Workers' Control

Whenever the Labour movement is able to abandon the defensive postures which have regrettably come to seem ‘normal’ during long stretches of its history, and whenever, then, it begins to step over the borders of its allotted prerogatives, one begins to hear again the noise of argument about . . . read more

The Labour Commonwealth

In his speech to the Labour Party Conference in 1962 Hugh Gaitskell put the party’s case for supporting the Commonwealth in preference to the European Economic Community in these terms: “It means something to us and to the world. Where would our influence be in the world without . . . read more

Missing Signposts

in the last issue of New Left Review, William Norman drew our attention to some significant omissions in Signposts for the Sixties—culture (especially the problems of the mass media) and “democratic control and participation in a mass industrial society” (especially the problems of bureaucracy and the trade . . . read more

Parliamentary Cretinism?

Parliamentary Socialism, read more

Wolfenden in the Wilderness

at the beginning of last year I wrote to a friend, a magistrate and fellow councillor with whom I had for some years worked closely on Ward Committee business and in the local elections. I indicated that, since the next meeting of the Ward Committee was invited . . . read more