Renewing Socialism: Democracy, Strategy, And Imagination

Politics & Social Sciences

Panitch, Leo

Politics & Government

Routledge

Renewing Socialism

The attempt to establish a 'new social contract' between the Government and the unions, with a view to stabilising the economy and restraining industrial militancy, emerged as a burning issues of contemporary British politics during the 1970s. This study uncovers the roots of this development in the incomes policies of successive post-war Governments, especially of the 1964-70 Labour Government, and traces the way in which wage restraint was secured from the unions, or imposed upon them, in the context of the attempted registration of the unions within the existing economic and political order. Professor Panitch concentrates on the crucial role of the Labour Party and shows how Labour's incomes policies, and industrial relations generally, have derived less from a concern with socialist economic planning than from the Party's 'integrative' ideology, its rejection of the concept of class struggle in favour of affecting a compromise between the different classes in British society.

Social Democracy and Industrial Militiancy: The Labour Party, the Trade Unions and Incomes Policy, 1945–1947

Business & Money

Economics

Cambridge University Press

<p>The attempt to establish a 'new social contract' between the Government and the unions, with a view to stabilising the economy and restraining industrial militancy, emerged as a burning issues of contemporary British politics during the 1970s. This study uncovers the roots of this development in the incomes policies of successive post-war Governments, especially of the 1964-70 Labour Government, and traces the way in which wage restraint was secured from the unions, or imposed upon them, in the context of the attempted registration of the unions within the existing economic and political order. Professor Panitch concentrates on the crucial role of the Labour Party and shows how Labour's incomes policies, and industrial relations generally, have derived less from a concern with socialist economic planning than from the Party's 'integrative' ideology, its rejection of the concept of class struggle in favour of affecting a compromise between the different classes in British society.</p>

Legal Theory & Systems

The Canadian State: Political Economy and Political Power (Heritage)

University of Toronto Press

Renewing Socialism: Democracy, Strategy, and Imagination

Renewing Socialism opens with an exploration of the contemporary meaning of revolution and reform, beginning by stressing the appropriation of both terms into the rhetoric of the political right. Panitch examines the failure to realize socialism’s revolutionary promise through an analysis of social democratic parties and the ‘politics of compromise’ they advanced and their loss of radical vocation today. Panitch turns to an examination of the limitations of the Communist regimes and offers an account, based on personal observations in 1990, of the demise of Communism in Russia. The failure of Radical intellectuals in the West failed to take sufficient responsibility for the improvement of Marxist political theory, and especially of its theory of the state in any transition to socialism. Indeed, one of the greater ironies of the socialist experience is that the remarkable relevance of the Manifesto for developing an agenda for the renewal of socialism in our own time really became clear after the demise the Communist regimes.Panitch argues the salience of class will have to be brought more centrally back into the analysis and strategy of the left. The capacities of working people, so stunted under capitalism, must be allowed to develop to the furthest extent possible through their own organizations that incorporate both the diversity and issues represented by the new social movements. The first the challenge before any process of socialist renewal is that of getting people to think ambitiously once again. This ambition means not abandoning Marxism, but rather reviving what Bloch called its visionary ‘warm stream’ alongside the ‘cold stream’ of political economy. It means adding a new layer to Marxist theory to help socialists appreciate that we need to figure out how to foster the accumulation of capacities in addition to analyzing the accumulation of capital.

Westview Press

Renewing Socialism opens with an exploration of the contemporary meaning of revolution and reform, beginning by stressing the appropriation of both terms into the rhetoric of the political right. Panitch examines the failure to realize socialism's revolutionary promise through an analysis of social democratic parties and the ‘politics of compromise' they advanced and their loss of radical vocation today. Panitch turns to an examination of the limitations of the Communist regimes and offers an account, based on personal observations in 1990, of the demise of Communism in Russia. The failure of Radical intellectuals in the West failed to take sufficient responsibility for the improvement of Marxist political theory, and especially of its theory of the state in any transition to socialism. Indeed, one of the greater ironies of the socialist experience is that the remarkable relevance of the Manifesto for developing an agenda for the renewal of socialism in our own time really became clear after the demise the Communist regimes.Panitch argues the salience of class will have to be brought more centrally back into the analysis and strategy of the left. The capacities of working people, so stunted under capitalism, must be allowed to develop to the furthest extent possible through their own organizations that incorporate both the diversity and issues represented by the new social movements. The first the challenge before any process of socialist renewal is that of getting people to think ambitiously once again. This ambition means not abandoning Marxism, but rather reviving what Bloch called its visionary ‘warm stream' alongside the ‘cold stream' of political economy. It means adding a new layer to Marxist theory to help socialists appreciate that we need to figure out how to foster the accumulation of capacities in addition to analyzing the accumulation of capital.

Studies of British and American Conservatism from a Socialist perspective. Includes an article on Pope John Paul II by Joel Kovel.

Socialist Register 1987

Miliband, Ralph

Saville, John (eds.)

Reference

Merlin Press Ltd

Socialist Register, 1990: The Retreat of the Intellectuals

Merlin Pr

Socialist Register 1995: Why Not Capitalism

Wood, Ellen Melksins

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