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Part II The Third Way, economics, equality and the State One major theme in discussions of New Labour and the Third Way more generally has concerned the Third Way’s credibility as a social democratic force. As Part III shows, that credibility is based in part on its appeal to community, although there are some doubts about whether the appeal is a convincing one or whether community is
bottom of the most refined constructs in economic and legal action. However, exposing the irrational is not where the analysis ends, in the spirit of Carl Schmitt's decisionism, but where it begins. 4 Neither theory is aimed simply at denouncing the elaborate practices of justification and calculation in economics and law as being merely an ideological mystification of power constellations. 5 On the
In liberal democracies there is a belief that citizens ought to take an active interest in what is happening in the political world. Political debate in modern Western democracies is a complex and often rowdy affair. There are three fundamental political issues: 'politics', 'power' and 'justice', which feature in almost all political discussions and conflicts. The book assesses the degree to which the state and state sovereignty are disappearing in the modern world of 'globalised' politics, economics and culture and new international institutions. The main features of the nation and the problems of defining it are outlined: population, culture, history, language, religion, and race. Different types of democracy and their most important features are discussed. 'Freedom' is usually claimed to be the prime objective of political activity. The book discusses equality of human rights, distributional equality, equality before the law, the claims for group equality on the grounds of race, gender, class. Rights, obligations and citizenship are closely associated. Ideology is the driving force of political discourse. The book also discusses nationalism's growth and development over the last two centuries with particular reference to its main features and assumptions. It outlines the development of conservatism as a political ideology and movement in Britain during the last two centuries. An overview of liberalism, socialism, Marxism, anarchism, and Fascism follows. Environmentalism and feminism are also discussed. Finally, the book talks about how ideological change occurs and stresses the importance of rationality in politics.
Civilising Rural Ireland examines how modern Ireland emerged out of the social and economic transformation prompted by the rural co-operative movement. The movement emerged in response to systemic economic problems that arose throughout the nineteenth century and coincided with a wide-ranging project of cultural nationalism. Within a short space of time the co-operative movement established a swathe of creameries, agricultural societies and credit societies, leading to a radical reorganisation of rural Ireland and helping to create a distinctive Irish political economy. The work of overlooked co-operative experts is critically examined for the first time and reinserted into the process of state development. The interventions of these organisers, intellectuals and farmers built up key institutions that shaped everyday life across rural communities. The movement weathered war and revolution, to become an indispensable part of an Irish state infrastructure after independence in 1922. The strained relationship and economic rivalry that developed between Irish and British co-operators is also explored in order to illuminate the changing relationship between Ireland and the United Kingdom from an economic perspective. Civilising Rural Ireland will appeal to a wide audience interested in modern Irish history and readers are introduced to an eclectic range of personalities who shared an interest in co-operation and whose actions possessed important consequences for the way Ireland developed. The creative use of local and national sources, many of which are examined for the first time, mean the book offers a new perspective on an important period in the making of modern Ireland.
Public ownership is far more widespread and popular in the United States than is commonly understood. Despite decades of ideological hostility, public ownership not only persists in such well-known large-scale forms as Amtrak and the Tennessee Valley Authority, but is expanding at the local level and in important sectors. Based on years of research, this book is the most comprehensive overview and up-to-date analysis of the scope and scale of U.S. public ownership, uncovering its prevalence at all levels from local municipalities on up. Drawing upon additional examples from the UK and elsewhere, it debunks frequent misconceptions about its relative efficiency and performance vis-à-vis the private sector. It also reviews how public ownership is treated in the emerging field of alternative systemic design. In a world plagued by inequality, instability, and ecological limits, this book argues that public ownership offers powerful, flexible solutions and should be restored to its rightful place on the full menu of public policy options. It ends with a vision of deploying new forms of democratized public ownership broadly, across multiple sectors, as a key ingredient of any next system beyond corporate capitalism. This book is a valuable, extensively researched resource that sets out the past record and future possibilities of public ownership at a time when ever more people are searching for answers. It situates public ownership squarely within existing, real-world experience, suggesting why, after decades of privatization, it is making a comeback—including in the radical agenda of Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party in Britain.
commodities or objects or outputs, a common way of seeing in economics. Then we reimagine ideas familiar to economists such as substitutability, excludability and rivalry through the lens of systems thinking, as opposed to the commodity-focused approach from mainstream economics. Not only do we work to detach these ideas from commodity-focused imaginations, we also use these ideas to show the limits of ideologies attached to institutional type and scale. Finally, we bring the two parts together in a series of questions which offer an initial – and partial
perpetual rights on those who Have or those who Acquire. The world is not so governed from above that private and social interest always coincide. It is not so managed here below that in practice they coincide. It is not a correct deduction from the Principles of Economics that enlightened self-interest always operates in the public interest. Nor is it true that self-interest generally is enlightened; more often individuals acting separately to promote their own ends are too ignorant or too weak to attain even these. Experience does not show that individuals
coincided neatly with a wide range of spiritual and cultural developments that gave a powerful ethical, almost religious, dimension to the issue. These ranged from criticisms of the dehumanising effects of society and large-scale industrial enterprises, such as Fritz Schumacher’s Small is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered (1973), to alternative ‘New Age’ religiosity, and a widespread scepticism, especially among the
market (which is not to say, however, that they don’t embrace some modicum of planning). For some, ownership forms, while important, are a somewhat secondary concern. As such, several market socialist models envision public ownership as part of a spectrum of possible ownership forms. For instance, in The Economics of Feasible Socialism (1983) the late economist Alec Nove described five ownership forms: 1) state enterprises that would be operated directly by the government; 2) ‘state-owned (or socially owned) enterprises’ that would be autonomous from direct government
Although Marxism and even anarchism are sometimes treated as if they are simply varieties of socialism, we consider that they have sufficiently distinctive characteristics to warrant separate treatment. Starting with Marxism, we examine Marx’s theories of history, economics and politics before discussing the controversies within Marx-inspired political organisations in the