Raymond Williams- Britain in the 1960s

Britain in the 1960s

1) Industrial revolution- technical phase- still continuing2) Cultural revolution- new technical developments3) Democratic revolution*- de-colonization- “defensive position”4) *- At home- “essentially completed- universal suffrage etc

All in all “industrially advanced, securely democratic, and with a steadily rising general level of education and culture” (seems a general consensus)- Crosland

However:

“this idea of a good society naturally unfolding itself may be exceptionally misleading”- emotional argument based on “selective reading”

Assertion established on “general patterns”- overall trends in political, economic, cultural behaviour- on closer analysis- “enable us to recognize….important contradictions within each of the patterns”

“ordinary optimism about Britain’s economic future can be reasonably seen as simply complacency”*

Industrialization of the hitherto unindustrialized areas- de-colonization/dependence on trade (“ominous signs”)

Generally good argument for planning in certain areas- “avoid waste…promote essential development…research and reorganization” etc however completely nullified by the democratic revolution “we reject the idea of this kind of economic system controlling our lives”

However:

We are still controlled by an economic system, though more conspicuously. Harder to identify, “very structure and ideology…appears to offer the feeling of freedom”

Some part of production may be unnecessary- Market’s adage- “It is needed because it is bought; if it were not bought, it would not be made”

Block figure of the “consumer”- partial view of economic activity and it creates the figure of the “individual”

We used to go to the market as customers, why now consumers?

Answer: in large scale industrial production it is necessary to plan ahead “market research”- advertising- PR Edward Bernaze (Third Phase of Power)- “stimulating and directing demand”

Importance of consumer- “ensuring that we consume what the industry finds it convenient to produce”….”society is not controlling economic life, but is in part being controlled by it”

If we were described as ‘Users’ we would see a different phenomenon- “consumption..tends to cancel these questions, replacing hem by the stimulated and controlled absorption of the products of an external autonomous system”

Consumer- and the individual- distorts are notion of the economy

Many things that we do not consume ‘individually’ but socially – disruption between these two (plenty of consumer) but social supplies in chronic shortage (Health, Books etc)

Individuals patters of use in the favourable terms of spending and satisfaction but social patters of use in terms of deprivation and taxation. Individuals could not exist without society.

“We are all, to some extent, in this position, in that our modes of thinking habitually suppress larges areas of our real relationships, including our real dependencies on others”

Cannot express some things in market terminology- What does a doctor do? He saves lives, increases health etc- However this is not the full story “have no discoverable exchange value”

Obscuration of the relationship- “fitting human being to a system, rather than a system to human beings”

“Capitalism’s version of society can only be the market, for its purpose is profit in particular activities rather than any general conception of social use, and its concentration of ownership in sections of the community makes most common decisions, beyond those of the market, limited or impossible”

wage-system tends towards the reduction of the meaning of work

example: Strikes

How can you expect workers to act in the interest of community, pulling together etc when it is manifestly true the striking is a part of capitalism as a means of bargaining

Work should mean the former “but it is hypocritical to pretend that it now does, all the way through”

“The moral disapproval of the strikers is shallow and stupid while the system of work is based on the very grounds of particular profit which we there condemn”

“visible moral decline of the labour movement”

NOW:

“Labour party merely an alternative power-group, and in the trade-union movement merely a set of men playing the market in very much the terms of the employers they oppose”

convert institutions of labour movement, TUs, co-operatives “to aims and patters which would not offer this kind of challenge”

“the choice now is acceptance in a subordinate capacity or the renewal of an apparently hopeless challenge”

Nationalization: “ The old valuable principle, of production for use and not for profit, has been fought to a standstill”

- Old Systems taken in that are no longer profitable (Coal, railways)- New systems requiring heavy investment (Airway)

Failed to alter the “profit before use”

Reproduced “with appalling accuracy, the human patterns, in management and working relationship, of industries based on quite different social principles”

“Emptied British socialism of any effective meaning”- makes sense to detach the Labour Party from any commitment to socialism- opposition to capitalism has been capitalism itself

“In fact the economy, while not controlled by ordinary sharholders, is not controlled by managers and technicians either, but by powerful interlocking private isntitutions that in fact command….’the commanding heights of the economy’. Even if the managerial revolution had occurred…the originally challenge would still be lost, for the direction of our common life would have been reduced to a series of technical decisions, without anything more than a market reference to the kind of society the economy should sustain”

organized market and consumer determine our economic life- with it much of our society.

“the challenge to create new meaning, and to substantiate them, will have to be if that apparently obvious future is in face to be realized”

II

“The aspiration to control the general direction of our economic life is an essential element of democratic growth”

Growth of man-managers (assertive leadership, decisionism, authority)- that is viewed favourably by the media despite in being invidious to the workings of a true democracy.

“Our main trouble now is that we have many of the forms of democracy, but find these continually confused by the tactics of those who do not really believe in it, who are genuinely afraid of common decisions openly arrived at, and who have unfortunately partly succeeded in weakening the patterns of feeling of democracy which alone could substantiate the institutions”

e.g. The Apprentice. I often watch that programme and think, I am supposed to respect this man, this del-boy done good. He’s an asshole and no amount of money, or grandiosity changes this. We bow before the oily stool of aspiration and laud those who sliver, suck and bruise their way to the top. The plaudits of Thatcher always remarked how she went from a Grantham shopkeeper (albeit with nepotistic favour) to Baroness Thatcher, as if this rise is

worthy of emulation and not just another emetic along with the piddle honours, and slush ceremonies we grace others ‘success stories’ with. I’m sick of aspiration, potential; uncapped, unseized, unfulfilled. I want to rejoin the ranks of the status-quo ante where each man has his own piece of garden, where it can bloom, it can wilt but it will not be bestowed grace by any man but its owner.

Importance of dislocating the opinion from the speaker (from the man), else the debate that follows will become personal and intractable “away from the man-managers and the cupboarded autocrats”.

Also shouting, aggression- which worked in pre-democratic times.

School taught values of discipline and loyalty- “which are real values only if we share in the decisions to which they refer”

Reinforced by actual working of democracy- “A tightly organized party system and parliament seem to have converted the national franchise in to the election of a court”

Five Years in between elections- “current uncritical belief in the importance of ‘strong government’: certainly one hopes that a good government would be strong, but a government that is both strong and bad…is almost the worst possible evil”

Two Year interval for re-election- “should..be our immediate objective”- health of our democracy that more of us should feel involved in it”

“These changes in themselves would only make a limited difference, but they would at least go some way towards altering the present atmosphere of British Democracy, which seems increasingly impersonal and formal, and powered by little more than the belief that choice of leaders should be periodically available”

Change of the electoral system- distorts the actual views of the people

In Work as well- “the real power of institutions is that they actively teach particular ways of feeling”- induce democracy

“it seems obvious that industrial democracy is deeply related to questions of ownership; the argument against the political vote was always that the new people voting, ‘the masses,’ had no stake in the country. The development of new forms of ownership then seemed an essential part of any democratic advance, although in fact the political suffrage eventually broke ahead of this. The idea of public ownership seems to be a solution, but there is some truth in the argument that little is gaine by substituting a series of still largely authoritarian state monopolies for a series of private monopolies (something is still gained…to the extent that state is itself democratically directed).”

“The necessary principle is that workers of all kinds, including managers, should be guaranteed the necessary conditions, including both security and freedom, of their actual work, in precise ways that are perfectly compatible with general decisions about the overall direction of the enterprise”

More democracy at a local level- been distorted by “authoritarian patterns at the centre”- “The remedy, of course, is not to teach them man-management [local councilors], but to try to develop democratic forms with these areas of public provision”

Management of housing estate- “joint committee of representatives of the elected authority and elected representatives of the people who live on it?

“The pressure has been to define democracy as the ‘right to vote, the right to free speech… in a pattern of feeling which is really that of the ‘liberty of the subject’ within an established authority. The pressure now in a wide area of our social life, should be towards a participatory democracy, in which the ways and means of involving people much more closely in the process of self-government can be learned and extended”

III

Williams- ‘class’- (culture and society)- in a social term came into ordinary English usage in the period of the effective beginning of the industrial revolution.

“presenting both social and economic factors”- confused- is it our birth (do we die in the class we were born) or is it our occupation

class traditionally described the great body of wage-earners who came together in relation to the new methods of production. Contrasted with propertied class- who own land/ M.O.P

What about small farmer, shopkeepers, small farmers etc- ‘middling class’- Middle class

However: Large businessman to small shopkeeper- “upper and lower divisions”

It has been conflated even further with the dwindling of manual labour- “what is this for though? This classification”

“The fact is that we are still in a stage of transition from a social stratification basd on birth to one based on money and actual position”- this development is built into our economic system

“seem to reduced to a choice between speculator and bureaucrat”

alternative:

ownership of producers, entrusted in community- conceiving change the widest possible front- “the changes in our emphasis in our economy, in our ordinary working relationships, in our democratic institutions, and in education are all relevant to cultural change in this more explicit field”

“long revolution springs from the conviction that men can direct their own lives..this process necessarily includes both success and failure. … we tend to absorb the successes and then to be preoccupied by the failures”

Stuart Hall- Crosland Territory

Mr. Crosland’s picture of capitalism and the world has behind it the pressure of n an informing vision: it provides the right wing of the Party with a framework for the facts, a logical structure enabling them to explain the past and predict the future.

Officers in the Constituency Parties affirms that capitalism has been so reformed that it deserves to be called, not capitalism, but Statism—a direct quote from Chapter and Verse in The Future Of Socialism.

He gathered up in one sweep the current myths about capitalism, lending them the force of his moderate personality: how it had been tamed from without (theLabour Government reforms) and changed from within (the managers replacing the ravening capitalists of earlier eras). Then finally, he gestured towards prosperity—the Welfare State, the “comforts, pleasures and conveniences of the home”

“In short”, he summed up, “the changing character of labour, full employment, new housing, the new way of living based on the telly, the frig., and the car, and the glossy magazines—all these have had their effect on our political strength.”

Errors and Abuses

1) Conception of capitalism wholly wrong 2) Picture of prosperity wrong- couched in individualist/Tory terms- “without a

rigorous examination from socialist assumptions”

Managerial revolution:

“managers remain the managers of private corporations, the governors of private property in its latest form in an industrial society. The controller, who own great segments of the private sector, and who direct its overall strategy- the new capitalists of a corporate economy- are more firmly based now that they have ever been.”

“manager…servants of the system: and the circle of the system remains the accumulation and investment of private wealth and the making of profits”

we can sum up the general picture of an economy which is capable of dealing profitably in consumer goods and personal conveniences (though not equitably: the question of economic and class inequalities, which have grown in the last ten years, not receded, must be introduced at this point); but which is incapable of dealing with major areas of our social life: education, town planning, municipal and public rebuilding, roads, pensions, health and

welfare in all its aspects, the phased introduction of automation and new technology, the comprehensive re-planning of industries which are in decline, and the public services.

are these failures structural or marginal? will prosperity deal with these too, as the by-product of affluence? or are they built-in features of the system, which can only be changed if we are prepared to strike at the very root of the matter—private property and the profit system itself?

Tory Images of the Good Life

Can we really accept, at this stage in history, the definition of ‘prosperity’, of ‘the Good Life’, which is now the most popular Tory ‘image’? If it is true, as we argue, that the system has not and cannot provide for what we may generally call the public, social, and community needs of the society…driven into basing a socialist case on a capitalist view of life, a propertied interpretation of human needs

If socialism has roots anywhere, it is in the concept of a community of equals, in the moral principle of sharing and co-operation, in the planned command of skills and resources so that they can be made to serve the full needs of the community. If we abandon this we, have abandoned everything for which socialism stands.

Community merely a provision of self-help and State assistance, it could be the most dynamic and moving human theme in the restatement of socialism in contemporary terms

The new skilled working class are simply new grouping living through the end of an old society

In order to establish new priorities for our society, we would have to control “the commanding heights of the economy” (to use a much quoted, much maligned phrase of Lenin’s): not control them at a distance, not ask on bended knees that the managers do our job for us, or pray that the controllers of the economy will suffer a change of heart—but control them: as a community.

Must defend Clause IV- to the reasons why we need common ownership

The ‘ends’ are contained by the ‘means’, then. If it is really a classless society we want, we must face up to the fact that the system we are trying to tame, which provides Mr Macmillan’s kind of ‘prosperity’ on the one hand, is what generates class power on the other

The Future of Socialism and New Labour: An Appraisal

Mark Wickham- Jones

The book neither a theoretical volume nor one that breaks decisively with the insularity of British socialism at the time

“I am proposing that its significance does not lie as either a work of original political theory or in terms of its normative content but, rather as a empirical account of the practical aspirations of British socialists in the immediate decades after 1945”

1) Crosland decisively rejected the notion that socialism should revolve around the ownership of the means of production, dismissing nationalization as a key policy tool- focus on attainment of social equality and generous provision of welfare

2) “frontal attack on social inequalities through educational reform”- comprehensive education- cultural inequalities

Dispersal of power away from capitalists to the workers, managers and the state, and his belief in a freer, more libertarian society

“In the economy as a whole, the power of the private capitalist has been enormously weakened not only be the rise of the managerial class, but also by the growth in the counterveiling power of the trade unions, the general climate of opinion, and above all the increased power and activism of governments”

“conservative or indolent minded people on the left who finding the contemporary scene too puzzling and unable to mould it into the old familiar categories are inclined to seek refuge in the slogans and ideas of 50years ago”

“stop searching for fresh inspiration in the old orthodoxies, and thumbing over class texts as though they could give oracular guidance for the future”

Crosland- “under these existing conditions a mainly economic orientation will be increasingly inappropriate for socialist parties”- unsustainable outlook

Crosland economic argument relied on “product markets being competitive whilst capital ones being uncompetitive”- under these conditions firms would be compelled to increase production (not prices) in response to any stimulation of demand, and that they would not need to maximize profits”

Michael Barratt Brown and John Hughes- “failure to appreciate the exploitative power that monopolistic firms articulated. Increases in demand might simply generate higher prices rather increases production”

In terms of capital markets, in order to avoid hostile takeovers, managers needed to maximize profits, thus sustaining share prices. Failure to maximize would decrease share prices, generating a vulnerability to a takeover

Crosland- TUs- “Generally the unions have contracted out of responsibilities other than the traditional one for wages and conditions; or rather, they have not widened their interests and influence to a degree in any way commensurate with the increase in their economic power”

“develop a more ambitious attitude to the wage bargain”

Did not favour an increase in Union responsibility- government should be accountable for ensuring general economic conditions

“their entire traditional function: to convert them from wage bargaining organization mainly concerned to advance the interests of workers, and on this basis enjoying the loyalty of members, into organizations primarily concerned with national economic policy. The result could be to deprive them of the confidence and loyalty of their members”- (Williams- mirroring capitalism- wokers as consumers of a product)

Claims with Future of Socialism not very novel- already well established- New Fabian Essays

Very similar to Evan Durbin- growing TU authority, role played by the state to control the economy, and social spending- “the slow, steady and relentless extension fo government and legislative control will, at its present pace, bring within a generation the greater part of industry and finance within the organized sector of the national economy”

Separation of ownership and production- “it is obvious that this is not the only possible method of obtaining control”- public ownership would not help equality

Slightly more realistic on taxation- “It is not wise in the long run to expect to live upon golden eggs and slowly to strangle the goose that lays them”

More an empiricist account of the post-war government than a work of political theory- Stuart Hall- “ a rough and ready caucus of practical empiricists”

Crosland sometimes anti-theoretical- “it is futile to think in terms of an ideal society, the shape of which can already be decried, and which will be reach at some stage in the future”

A.J Ayer- “none of these proposals is especially radical: they are pieces of engineering within the existing structure. The structure itself is sound”

- uses US and Sweden as examples

“The essential fact remains- that the rich are distinctly less rich, and the poor are much less poor. The leveling process is a reality even in terms of consumption standards; and Britain has an appreciably more equal society after six years of Labour rule than it had before the war”

Aims of socialism: “There is now probably no country in the world where competition is less aggressive”

Not against public ownership per se but rather nationalization should be done on a pragmatic case by case basis: “The first most obvious [reason for not continuing nationalization] is that the reality proved rather different from our blue prints”

Equality- equally practical- debate over whether he favour outcome/opportunity- ambiguous- “the ultimate objective lies in complete uncertainty”

Theoretical- comprehensive schools as a means of attaining equality-

Socialism revision – need to read mad piece, miliband for final week + one other, + one on gorz and articleby meisksins wood.. raymond williams?

The May 1968 events in France were a volatile period of civil unrest punctuated by massive general strikes and the occupation of factories and universities across France. It was the largest general strike ever attempted in France, and the first ever nation-wide wildcat general strike.[1] At the height of its fervor, the unrest virtually brought the entire advanced capitalist economy of France to a dramatic halt.[1] The events would have a resounding impact on French society that would be felt for decades to come.

The events began with a series of student occupation protests, followed bystrikes involving 11,000,000 workers, over 22% of the total population of France at the time, for two continuous weeks,[1] and its impact was such that it almost caused the collapse of French President Charles de Gaulle's government.

The original version of Clause IV, drafted by Sidney Webb in November 1917 and adopted by the party in 1918, read, in part 4:

To secure for the workers by hand or by brain the full fruits of their industry and the most equitable distribution thereof that may be possible upon the basis of the common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange, and the best obtainable system of popular administration and control of each industry or service.

In 1918, nationalisation was seen by many voters as akin to modernisation – the nationalisation of the railways was a widely supported policy, for instance, as it would reduce the plethora of uncoordinated and competing companies.

This text is usually assumed to involve nationalisation of the whole economy but close reading of the text shows that there are many other possible interpretations. Common ownership, though later given a technical meaning by the 1976 Industrial Common Ownership Act, could mean municipal ownership, worker cooperatives or consumer cooperatives.

In December 1944, the Labour Party adopted a policy of "public ownership"[1] and won a clear endorsement for their policies – the destruction of the 'evil giants of want, squalor, disease, ignorance and unemployment (idleness)' – in the post-war election victory of 1945 which brought Clement Attlee to power. However the party had no clear plan as to how public ownership would shape their reforms and much debate ensued.

Topics:Democracy – democratic socialism? Strategy, govt and stateReadings: Anderson, draper, hirstQs: what might be meant by democratic socialism? How might it be different from social democracy?What strategic problems does Anderson identify for socialists in western liberal capitalist societies?How convincing is drapers case for socialism from belowChallenges and responses – capitalism, consumerism and culture – Crosland and his New Left critics

Crosland, davisWhy and how did the social and economic change of the 1950s and 60s impact upon socialist political thought in this period?What is crosland’s case for a reorientation of socialism?How did other socialists attempt to refute it?Agency and identity – farewell to working class?Gorz, Mitchell – need to find out how feminism can be reconciled with class socialism, also read ‘retreat from class’- question: how can argue back at people like gorz – how would they misunderstand marx etc? – this is also where laclau and mouffe, radical democracy and Marcuse fit inOn what basis does gorz question the link between socialism and the working class? Who are his ‘non-class’ agents? Can socialist thought successfully accommodate issues of gender/race?What implications has the emergence of ‘new social movements’ had for socialist thought?Socialist thought after the fall – a future for socialism? MillibandWhat have been the implications for socialist thought after the collapse of communism? – class agent changed – gorz, rad dem – postmod styles, social democracy – labour party has moved to the right with acceptance of ‘neolib’ policies allowing market greater control and ridding of clause four. Rejection of Marxism but also revival of Marxism…In what ways has socialist thought been reformulated in response to recent challenges?Are the values/objectives of socialist thought still relevant to contemporary problems?Do we still need socialist thought? If so what kind?Readings/ lecturesClass lectureM and e put class at centre of political analysis of history Situation and living conditions of workers – major influence in the development of socialism and class struggle elementUnlike previous working class – no prospect of moving up in the world – conditions for strong w.class movement.Conflict is not just between different views it is structural. Actors are not individuals but act as members of classes.Class as social relationship – defining feature is exploitation and domination – one exploits another. Class as primary conflict that structures history – other conflicts e.g. race/sexism are secondary and often derived from class struggle.M and e create distinction between workers as a mass and ‘a class for itself’ – it’s the latter that m and e are concerned about – the workers arnt really a class until they organise politically – brings a political element to class.So class is not just constituted externally through domination but internally through struggle and consciousness.Capitalism is simplifying class anatagonisms into 2 great classes directly opposed to one another – they cant coexist. Link between class and agency – for marx w class is universal class – interests of w class are interests of whole humanity – they reflect the degradation of humanity – they will abolish exploitation AND alienation (diff things – all are alienated under capitalism). M and e altered socialialist development – earlier socialists talked of ethics and improving welfare… m and e said socialism must organise around class conflict – need to bring about consciousness – inevitability – systematic explanation of present rather than vision of future – with roduction at the centre. Equality – Tawney

Socialists often commited to equality as a tool for achieving other ends – community/liberty etc. Raymond Williams – essential equality of being (criticises tawny)… seems similar to formal equality but it is more than procedural rule – an ethical/moral commitment.Tawny – ethical socialist – ‘large measure of economic equality’ as means for end of community/common culture… shared set of norms…. Not a huge focus on income, rather enabling schooling health etc. ‘planning’ economy – socialism in 1930s… tawny wants to remove equalities not based on natural capacities. If there is a trade off then liberty is preferred to equality… but there is only a trade off with one type of liberty… similar to mill (aim of society is flourishing) similar to rawls (minimum level of need).Marx is not an egalitarian in the way tawny is – sees equality in purely political sense… he would say there cannot be universal interests independent of the leading social class… would have regarded tawneys idea as absurd… class society must be eliminated… equality is on of the illusory concepts of the bourgeoisie. Marx more concerned about self realisation and this doesn’t nec mean equality – he is a critic of all kinds of uniformity… getting away from alienation. Ownership and control lecture

Public ownership is the ownership, i.e. the right of disposal, by a public body

representing society, by government, state power or some other political body.

The persons forming this body, the politicians, officials, leaders, secretaries,

managers, are the direct masters of the production apparatus; they direct and

regulate the process of production; they command the workers. Common

ownership is the right of disposal by the workers themselves; the working class

itself — taken in the widest sense of all that partake in really productive work,

including employees, farmers, scientists — is direct master of the production

apparatus, managing, directing, and regulating the process of production which is,

indeed, their common work.

Under public ownership the workers are not masters of their work; they may be

better treated and their wages may be higher than under private ownership; but

they are still exploited. Exploitation does not mean simply that the workers do not

receive the full produce of their labor; a considerable part must always be spent

on the production apparatus and for unproductive though necessary departments

of society. Exploitation consists in that others, forming another class, dispose of

the produce and its distribution; that they decide what part shall be assigned to

the workers as wages, what part they retain for themselves and for other

purposes. Under public ownership this belongs to the regulation of the process of

production, which is the function of the bureaucracy. Thus in Russia bureaucracy

as the ruling class is master of production and produce, and the Russian workers

are an exploited class.

… so saying that what matters is ownership and control of own labour and its

products by workers… rather than how things are distributed. A matter of self

realisation/ freedom as opposed to equality.

Many regard public ownership as defining feature of socialism (ownership by the state)Authoritarian public ownership has been target of criticismKey q is why does it matter who owns what? What links arguments about ownership to democracy/self realisation?Private property: where the owner can exclude others from the use/benefit of something. Particular target of early socialism is profit making. Some utopians not concerned with pp – merely with the distribution of its resources/rewards.Proudhon – property as theft – not proponent of state planning of economy but mutualism – workers labour in cooperative – democratic control.Marx – labour is not a means to an end for human beings – species being – work shouldn’t just be for immediate need. Eople sell labour for subsistence wage – alienation – ethical argument against capitalism.Yes we shooould be concerned with who owns what but not just because of distribution… broader objects of freedom, non-alienation, self-realisationSyndicalism (direct action of producers) – movement of direct action by working class to abolish capitalist order i.e. revolutionary trade unionism. – france 1890s, then spain, latin America… idea is stateless society – local syndicat control – democratically elected body for employment and planning.Marxism much in common with syndicalism but disagree over role of state in transition to communism (state necessary but will wither away) – syndicalists more hostile to state here.Webs – fabianism – gradualism and parliamentarianism – but shares same ethical element. Objection to capitalism is not poverty its power – clause 4 of the labour party talks about common ownership and best system of administration – ethical commitment – doesn’t nec. Commit to state planning.GDH Cole (guild socialism) (labour party) – workers control (TUs/syndicats) control married to political strategy (labour party) – management of industry by state/nationalism alone may sort out distribution of income but not industrial freedom.Guild socialism – political + industrial – limited state role – doesn’t nec have claim to producers decisions – morris places production at heart (people produce with need etc) – cole draws on this. Socialism from below.

the proper sphere of the state in relation to industry is the expression of those common needs and desires which belong to men as consumers or users of the products of industry. It has no claim to decide producers questions or to exercise direct control over production.’

‘the state should own the means of production; the guild should control the work of production’

Saw transformation of the TUs as key – need for a ‘greater unionism’ – the linking up of all industries into one great army of labour.

‘The workers cannot be free unless industry is managed and organised by the workers themselves in the interests of the whole community’Not a completely decentralised form of control - national guilds balance the potential despotism of state planning.Economics of socialism not primarily a q of distribution but control – cole emphasises freedom as key value – about democracy – unions link up all industries into army of labour. Mid 20c debates re role of nationalisation – rise of war time planned economy and soviet model – everyone seemed to be embracing planning – left and right.

Socialist concern shifts from ownership to state control – Crosland – we don’t need to be concerned with who owns but who runs/controls it 1950s… mixed economy as only game in town – we don’t need to be concerned about ownership anymore. – socialism shifts from economic to ethical. Tawny – small scale private prop is ok – contributes to economy

• But response from those who insist the concern w economics is ethical! ‘Socialism without common ownership is an absurd contradiction in terms’ (Miliband). Revived arguments about industrial democracy and workers’ control in 60s and 70s – freedom and democracy can only be achieved by common ownership.

• Later eclipse/defeat ... more recent ideas re ‘market socialism’ etc – alec nove – creative thinking about market

• But concern with economic democracy keeps reappearing .....

Democracy Lecture summary Week 6: Democracy and socialism

Two major questions: 1) Democracy in terms of political rule – ie what might democracy mean for socialists as opposed to (say) liberals, and what might a socialist democracy look like?2) And question of whether a commitment to democracy on the part of socialists implies that socialist goals must be pursued through exclusively democratic means. Lecture aims to address (and refute?) claims that socialism is necessarily authoritarian or antithetical to democracy. Clear that the experience of the statist, authoritarian and centralised political and economic systems of Eastern bloc have contributed to such claims. However the socialist tradition contains a rich tradition of thinking on questions of democracy. Democracy – a recap: Means rule by the people, but we can identify various different variants and extents of democracy. The understanding of democracy that has most commonly been invoked by socialism is toward the popular sovereignty end of the spectrum – ie democracy as meaning genuine rule by the people themselves in accordance with self-directed goals. Values direct popular participation. Might think of Rousseau’s idea of general will as objective common good Efforts to realise socialism entwined with struggle for advancement of democracy: in fact many of democratic rights and freedoms that now sit comfortably within a liberal framework were in fact only conceded following struggle by radical and (sometimes) socialistic currents. Examples:Levellers argument – famous declaration by Rainborough that ‘ for really I think that the poorest he that is in England hath a life to live as the greatest he, and therefore truly sir I think it clear that every man that is to live under a govt ought first by his own consent to put himself under that govt’. Link to idea of basic human equality of worth – arguably basis for a democratic pol system. Chartism in 1840s which demanded a set of rights and liberties for ordinary people. First Chartist petition (put before Parliament in 1839 and rejected) asked for the right to vote on basis that ‘we perform the duties of freemen, we must have the privileges of freemen’. Judged the limited reform of the 1830s a gross betrayal of the hopes of working men that Parliament would serve not interests of minority of wealthy but do the wishes of the majority, and warned the legislature ‘the few have governed in the interests of the few, while the interest of the many has been neglected or insolently and tyrannously trampled upon’. ‘The laws which make food dear, and which by making money scarce, make labour cheap, must be abolished, that taxation must be made to fall on property, not on industry, that the good of the many, as it is the only legitimate end, so it must be the sole study of the

govt’. Demand for equal pol and social rights seen as first step in ensuring that interests of the poor, the workers, might be heard.Association between socialism and democracy seems obvious and natural – socialism clearly associated with the interests of the majority. This majoritarianism, and its corresponding belief in basic human equality, are arguably the core elements of democracy. Marxist communism also invoked idea of self rule of the majority:

All previous historical movements were movements of minorities, or in the interest of minorities. The proletarian movement is the self-conscious, independent movement of the immense majority, in the interest of the immense majority. (Communist Manifesto)

So why by mid C20 could someone like Hayek identify socialism almost exclusively with state planning as a ‘road to serfdom’?

No one or easy answer but some thoughts related to the readings for this week:

Bifurcation of socialist thought and practice in early C20 and that we commonly see in terms of a split between revolutionary (communist) and evolutionary (social democratic) variants of socialism – revnary being identified with the Communist experiment in the USSR and evolutionary/reformist or social democratic with view that it was possible and preferable to pursue socialist goals through more or less exclusively parliamentary means. These are the two variants of socialism that Hal Draper starts from in the essay you’ve read. Despite their apparent differences Draper claims that they have much in common. Both social democracy and Soviet Communism (he identifies it especially as Stalinism) have (he argues) been top-down approaches – social democracy he says has typically hoped to socialise capitalism from above, through inc state intervention in economy and society. And the model of Communism imposed after the 1920s, and consolidated under the dictatorial and authoritarian regime of Stalin, was also a model v much imposed from above. Draper’s piece suggests a way of understanding the history of socialism in terms of whether it is envisaged to come from above or from below.

‘What unites the many different forms of socialism from above is the conception that socialism must be handed down to the grateful masses in one form or another, by a ruling elite which is not subject to their control. The heart of socialism from below is its view that socialism can only be realised through the self-emancipation of activized masses in motion, reaching out for freedom with their own hands, mobilized from below in a struggle to take charge of their own destiny, as actors, not merely subjects, on the stage of history’. ‘The emancipation of the working classes must be conquered by the working classes themselves’ – first rule that Marx wrote for First International.

Socialism from above Draper argues has become dominant in the development of socialism. Traces history of socialism in terms of a battle between these tendencies growing out of aftermath of Fr Revn. Many of the early revolutionaries or egalitarians – Blanqui, Babeuf etc are seen as socialists from above, though their concern was with a popular movement, when that pop mvt failed they ended up advocating various forms of what we might now call vanguardism - a kind of dictatorship of the minority temporarily serving until the people can be raised up to the point of capability for self rule. Also assesses the utopians as mainly socialists from above – Owen’s extremely paternalistic, ordered communities, or the faith of St Simon in science and industry to create order. ‘For these utopian socialists, what was the relnship between the socialist idea and the popular movement? The latter was the flock to

be tended by the good shepherd’. Rather controversial and polemical but interesting argument.

Draper attributes to Marx the achievement of synthesising the socialist idea with the popular mvt from below. ‘We are not among those communists who are out to destroy personal liberty, who wish to turn the world into one huge barrack or gigantic workhouse .... we have no desire to exchange freedom for equality ... let us put our hand to work in order to establish a democratic state wherein each party would be able by word or in writing to win a majority over to its ideas’. Marx warned revolutionaries who wanted quick seizure of power that in fact what was more to be expected was twenty or fifty years of civil and international wars , not only to change conditions, ‘but in order to change yourselves and render yourselves fit for political dominion’. Contrasts Marx’s antipathy to the state and to plannism with the schemes of social democrats who sought to use mass movements from below as bargaining tools to wring concessions from above. Clear that he considers Marx to be on the side of soc from below.

Draper discusses plannism and statism – the conception of socialism as equivalent to state intervention – also as it relates to British Lab mvt and the Fabians. The Webbs’ watchword ‘The inevitability of gradualness’ – a kind of bureaucratic collectivism ‘thro and thro managerial, technocratic, elitist, authoritarian, plannist’.

Also and rather controversially includes anarchism as anti-democratic, on the basis that ‘it is not concerned with the creation of democratic control from below, but only with the destruction of ‘authority’ over the individual’.

In the camp of ‘socialism from below’ he places Marx, as we’ve seen, and Morris. ‘Individual men cannot shuffle off the business of life onto the shoulders of an abstraction called the state, but must deal with it in conscious association with each other’. Also Rosa Luxemburg, who opposed the revisionism of Bernstein in Germany, and in the US Eugene Debs, leader of the Socialist Party. ‘Too long have the workers of the world waited for some Moses to lead them out of bondage, he has not come, He never will come. I would not lead you out if I could, for if you could be led out, you could be led back in again. I would have you make up your minds that there is nothing you cannot do for yourselves’. (Debs)

Draper clearly arguing v strongly for socialism from below.

Next text = Perry Anderson ‘Problems of socialist strategy’ to deal with second of our major questions regarding whether socialist ends must be pursued by democratic means.. Poses elegantly the problem of socialist organisation in the capitalist west, where the soc democ strategy has largely failed while the Leninist insurrectionary one is impractical. Both are statist. Suggests alternative of a hegemonic party, drawing on ideas of Gramsci. Again he too is trying to articulate some form of soc strategy that avoids the authoritarian and antidemocratic nature of the Communist strategies while also avoiding the social democratic brand of statism and bureaucratism. In the lecture I want to suggest that we can find the most interesting and fertile thought on some of these questions in a tradition that Paul Hirst (‘From statism to pluralism’ in Kelly (ed) British political theory in the twentieth century (Wiley 2010) calls associational socialism, or pluralist socialism. Offers this as a counterweight to the definition of socialist by its right wing detractors that have sought to identify socialism with the authoritarian political systems and command economies of the Eastern bloc. So ‘socialism is defined by the right in terms of the triad of collective ownership, state intervention and centralised planning’ (also

notes that is still defended in these terms too by some socialists). Instead points to longstanding and vibrant trad of thought within socialism that has been opposed to centralised public ownership and to notion of authoritarian state. Relies instead on self govt by freely associated individuals.Dates period during which this strand of associational soc flourished as being 1840s to early 1920s, and describes it as a third force in the history of socialism distinct from both Bolshevism (ie the variant of soc or comm. identified w the Russian Revn) and social democracy Includes within this associational tradition the mutualism of Proudhon, syndicalism in France, William Morris, GDH Cole and guild socialism. I would also want to include in this 3rd stream the libertarian and grassroots ideas associated with the New Left of the late 50s onward eg EP Thompson (biographer of Morris) and Raymond Williams.It is to this third stream that we we might look for a viable alternative to both reform and revolution (a somewhat false dichotomy anyway). Characteristic emphasis on socialism created from the bottom up, emphasis on self govt (both in the economy and politics), decentralisation, direct democracy and localism. This trad has long heritage but has tended to be overshadowed or squeezed out by the more politically dominant forms of socialism that could clearly point to either electoral/parl politics or revolutionism. ‘If one rejects crass parliamentarism and straightforward revnism of the Leninist kind, then one is involved in an argument of great complexity’. (Ralph Miliband)This strand of soc has been organisationally weak and suffered from the marked shift that we see after 1917 towards notions of planning and centralisation (can explain this shift w ref to war, which promoted centralisation and bureaucratic control, as well as to the Soviet sponsored model of communism – and of course those 2 things related in any case) . Thus the associational socialisms of the late C19 were marginalised by the 1920s. my notes: split in socialism was not about reform v revolution really… it was over attitudes to ww1 – 1914 as important to history of soc as 1917 – russian revolution concretes that dividedraper: the social democracy (like german social democratic party) has dreamed of socialising capitalism from above – principle is that increased state intervention in society/economy is per se socialist – it bears fatal family resemblance to Stalinist conception of imposing something from the top down – equating stratification with socialism – socialism from above, dominant strand.Morris is antithesis of webb – denounces bueracratic collectivist utopia of bellamy – anti parliamentarian but also anti anarchist vision of minority decision making.Bernstein – needed to uproot Marxism to create a reversion to socialism from above dressed as a revision of Marxism The choice between socialism from above (what social democracy has been in practice) and socialism from below (real democratic socialism?) is for the intellectual, a moral choice – whereas for the w class who have no social alternative it is a matter on necessity. Intellectual has option to join the establishment where worker does not. Don’t need the educated to lead the way to freedom – people become fit to rule by waging their own struggle against oppression – they educate themselves in this way.Lecture notes: socialism clearly concerned with interests of majority and has lead to democratic reform.Marx envisioned communism as a democratic form of government – communism as self rule of majority.Associational socialism/pluralist socialism – third stream (not social democracy/parliamentary/ reformist or Leninist/revolutionary)… hirst… these thoughts developed 1860s to 1920s… syndicalism… morris… cole guild socialism… this is where we should look for new ideas for socialism… could be included with new libertarian/grass roots struggle… new left 1960s… e.p.thompson – revitalising socialism from below… Raymond

Williams – struggle to create and embed democratic institutions, that is where socialism will come from.Hirst – this third stream is exciting but it gets squeezed out by political socialism that has political dominance – this strand is subordinate to planning/bureaucratic control.Antidemocratic nature of swp – elitism… and Leninist strategy – centralisation. Capitalism consumerism and culture

Lecture summary Week 9: Capitalism, consumerism and cultureNow completed part of course that looks at key concepts. In remaining weeks will examine challenges and responses to socialist thought. Today: post WW2 debates around changing nature of capitalism, rise of consumer society and new thinking about the significance of culture. Text is C.A.R. Crosland’s 1956 classic The Future of Socialism: mainly concerned with the role and understanding of socialism that animated the British Labour Party. Historical context:Labour landslide victory at end of WW2, governed 1945-51 under PM Clement Attlee (had only previously been 2 shortlived period of Labour govt in 1924 and 1929-31). Labour = major beneficiary of popular rejection of more austerity and ran on promise of implementing 1942 Beveridge Report which proposed a ‘cradle to grave’ social welfare system. 1945 Manifesto declared Labour as a socialist party and proud of it. Pledged nationalisation of major industries (inc Bank of England, fuel and power industries, including coalmining, iron, steel, railways and canal transport, telecommunications). Operating model (in part to avoid accusations of direct state control) was public corporation whose board was nominated by but independent of govt (Morrisonian model).

Major achievement welfare state (though this owed greatest amount in terms of ideas to liberal reformers in particular William Beveridge and JM Keynes). Beveridge’s 5 major obstacles on road to recovery that he wanted to eradicate: poverty, disease, squalor, ignorance and idleness. Implementation of welfare state involved series of measures to entrench social security provisions (unemployment benefit, child and family allowances, and state pensions), National Assistance Act, which established system of benefits for all in need, establishment of free universal education to age of 15, massive programme of public homebuilding, and most famously the NHS (1948) which established a universal healthcare system free at the point of use.

Loss of election 1951 (various factors - and arguable - Labour rather directionless after implementation of much of its programme, balance of payments crisis, foreign policy crises). Followed by 3 successive Conservative govts which largely left intact the post war economic settlement and welfare state. Was in this context that Crosland advanced the arguments in the Future of Socialism. Regarded as foremost thinker of the so called Labour revisionism of figures including Douglas Jay, Evan Durbin, Crosland and Labour leader 1955-63 Hugh Gaitskell. Key question: why did Crosland argue for a reorientation of socialist goals? Crosland’s revisionism:

Major factor = perceived changes to capitalism. Most of the arguments that Crosland made in 1956 signalled earlier in his contribution to 1952 volume of New Fabian Essays. Considered changing nature of British capitalism and concluded it was no longer accurate to say that Britain was still a capitalist society. Post war mixed economy and welfare state amounted to a transformation such that Crosland

proposed it should more properly be called statism or post-capitalism. Owning class had lost its economic power and state effectively exercising control.

In Future of Socialism he developed these arguments to provide a reinterpretation of the aims and values of socialism of the past, and a radical reorientation of socialist objectives: ‘traditional socialism was largely concerned with the evils of traditional capitalism, and with the need for its overthrow. But today traditional capitalism has been reformed and modified almost out of existence, and it is with a quite different form of society that socialists must now concern themselves’.

Argued effectively that many of the traditional goals of socialism had been realised, or else were no longer appropriate to the new conditions (cf my JPI piece on Arguing Affluence – separation of ownership and control, managerial revolution etc, eradication or near eradication of poverty etc)

Considers the history and meaning of socialism. Identifies various sorts of confusion around the term and particularly critical of the tendency to confuse socialism with specific policies thought to be the main means to realise it, in particular nationalisation. Suggests that to identify soc with nationalisation is to confuse the means with the end. Nationalisation not nec. To socialism then.

So where does that leave us? Identifies core socialist beliefs in terms of basic moral values or aspirations: i)Protests against material poverty that capitalism producedii)Concern with social welfareiii)Belief in equality and classless societyiv)Rejection of competitive antagonism in favour of ideal of fraternity and cooperationv)Protest against inefficiencies of capitalism and especially its tendency to produce mass unemploymentAlso says that underlying these is passionate belief in liberty and democracy

Suggests poverty and unemployment no longer relevant. Other 3 clearly have not been fully realised. Interesting discussion of the relevance of ideas of community, cooperation, common social purpose – suggests that this is indeed part of the soc ideal but more or less rules it out of his discussion on grounds that he is concerned with practical aims. Leaves him with 2 aspirations – concern for welfare and desire for equality.

Revisionism explained in light of broader shift away from socialist emphasis on the economic and a return to ethical concerns. Cf Ben Jackson’s arguments in his book on Equality and the British Left. Crosland’s argument rich and sophisticated but was also challenged ...

Resistance to Crosland’s arguments within Labour Party – often cast in terms of revisionists v fundamentalists. Outside Labour and from Left also New Left critique (Stuart Hall piece, The Insiders) cf also my arguments in Affluence piece. Critics disputed extent of changes to capitalism and Crosland’s economic optimism; denied that was real shift in economic control; thought separation of ownership and control a myth; restated importance of common ownership to socialism; rejected Crosland’s ‘means –ends’ distinction; criticised limitations of welfare state; pointed out poverty by no means eradicated ....

Other factors to discuss:

fate of revisionism and Clause 4 battle ...Broader shift in post-war period of affluence – rising preoccupation with social and cultural change – suburbanization, changing employment patterns etc but more than anything rising consumerism. Cf Marcuse, rise of Frankfurt school critical theory, rise of NL Significance of culture – cf Raymond Williams etc.My notes: Crosland reading – socialist priorities should shift froom economic objectives (esp.public ownership – doesn’t matter who owns only who controls) to ethical ones (welfare and equality) – postwar context. He got a response from new left.Capitalism is reformed. Talks about socialism as if it is moving with history – each type of socialism rejecting the one before it. Revisionism of socialism as class struggle upsets the w and middle class as it makes them question their status and purpose in life.Marx believed that the pattern of ownership determined the character of society – not exactly true.We shouldn’t define socialism by the means – nationalisation is the means – we could then say tat soviet Russia is most socialist country – need to look at the ends and ways of getting there.Implies that socialist ends are the same – underlying moral values – it is the means that are historically disagreed on.The negative statements of socialism are less appropriate because evils have been remedied – the masses are no longer in overty etc. labour propaganda needs to move on.. High employment, economic growth, mixed economy – capitalism is transformed With ‘cooperation’ as a socialist ideal – we cannot assert what effect it would have nor can we forsee a feasible institutional framework within which these changes could be brought about. – this is where the new left critique Crosland. But, the concern with welfare and desire for equal classless society are still relevant ideals! The arguments are humanitarian and compassionate, not egalitarian – not vertical equality of incomes Poor should have priority in distribution of nat output… egalitarian enough to minimise social resentment and equalise opportunity.Belief in social equality been the strongest ethical inspiration in virtually every socialist doctrine.International inequalities are more important and surpass inter-class (british) inequality‘keynes plus modified capitalism plus welfare state’ works perfectly well, as people think, but we could have more social equality – a more classless society (marx would disagree – no ‘more’ you could only work to a classless society – structural view)Crosland as part of ethical turn in socialism – calls for ethical change e.g. beautiful surroundings parallel morris – personal liberty – shares this with the new left (cultural theorists: have to struggle on the terrain of culture to win people over) more than structural socialism Hall – Croslandterritory – talking about 1960s labour party.Gaitskell = labour leader and leader of the opposition 1955-63 (following Atlee’s retirement)

The Labour Party had been widely expected to win the 1959 general election, but did not. Gaitskell was undermined during it by public doubts concerning the credibility of proposals to raise pensions and by a highly effective Conservative campaign run by Harold Macmillan under the slogan "Life is better with the Conservatives, don't let Labour ruin it", which capitalised on the economic prosperity of Britain. This election defeat led to questions being asked as to whether Labour could ever win a general election again, but Gaitskell remained as leader.[11]

Following the election defeat, bitter internecine disputes resumed. Gaitskell blamed the Left for the defeat and attempted unsuccessfully to amend Labour's Clause IV—which committed the party to massive nationalisation of industry.

By the time that Industry And Society appeared at Brighton, in 1957, the picture of reformed capitalism, the managerial revolution and applied Keynesian economics whichMr. Crosland described had already begun to be etched across the face of official policy. Mr. Crosland may not himself have recommended or approved the sharebuying scheme: but this—and other proposals of this kind—followed on naturally from his analysis.What are the essential elements of this new ideology? For a summary of Mr. Crosland’s theses, applied to the moving arena of politics, one cannot do better than look over Mr. Gaitskell’s Blackpool speech. The analysis began with the social backdrop to Labour’s defeat— the changing character of the Labour force. Next he gathered up in one sweep the current myths about capitalism, lending them the force of his moderate personality: how it had been tamed from without (the Labour Government reforms) and changed from within (the managers replacing the ravening capitalists of earlier eras). Then finally, he gestured towards prosperity—the Welfare State, the “comforts, pleasures and conveniences of the home”.The errors in the argument fall into two categories. In the first place, the analysis of capitalism and itstrends appear to us wrong: wrongly conceived, and not borne out by the facts. In the second place, the picture of prosperity is false, couched in individualist and Tory terms, and accepted on their face value, without a rigorous examination from socialist assumptions.We won’t recount the major social imbalances which this system of corporate powerestablishes for our society, (Charles Taylor has tried to tackle that in his piece); but we can sum up the general picture of an economy which is capable of dealing profitably in consumer goods and personal conveniences (though not equitably: the question of economic and class inequalities, which have grown in the last ten years, not receded, must be introduced at this point); but which is incapable of dealing with major areas of our social life: education, town planning, municipal and public rebuilding, roads, pensions, health and welfare in all its aspects, the phased introduction of automation and new technology, the comprehensive re-planning of industries which are in decline, and the public services.Gradually, over the next few issues, we shall highlight these serious contradictions and failures in contemporary capitalism, asking, at every point, are these failures structural or marginal? will prosperity deal with these too, as the by-product of affluence? or are they built-in features of the system, which can only be changed if we are prepared to strike at the very root of the matter—private property and the profit system itself?Associated with this picture of how capitalism is actually working before our eyes, are three related themes, which we shall develop as well. The first is the urgent political question of the relationship between capitalism and military expenditure. The second is the question of whether capitalism, as it is driven at the moment, is capable of undertaking the most urgent economic task which lies before us: the industrialisation of the backward two-thirds of the world. The third aspect of the problem is the question of whether, by administrative controls and Government ‘interference’ a capitalist economy can be managed and directed towards targets radically different from those which the surviving capitalist economies of the world— the US, Germany, Britain and France—are steadily moving towards.If it is true, as we argue, that the system has not and cannot provide for what we may generally call the public, social, and community needs of the society (and the trends, except in particular sectors which capitalism urgently needs, are moving steadily the other way, both here and in the United

States), how is it that we have been driven into the position of basing a socialist case on a capitalist view of life, a propertied interpretation of human ‘needs’? If socialism has roots anywhere, it is in the concept of a community of equals, in the moral principle of sharing and co-operation, in the planned command of skills and resources so that they can be made to serve the full needs of the community. If we abandon this we, have abandoned everything for which socialism stands.Although the provision of an adequate community life has often been appropriated by the social democrats and the public administrators, and its water muddied by the concepts of self-help and State assistance, it could be the most dynamic and moving human theme in the restatement of socialism in contemporary terms. To give this up, and lie down before the advance of ‘individualism’, is not so much a betrayal of the past ideals, as a woeful and disastrous failure of the imagination— a collapse before history. Isn’t it extraordinary that a serious political party—and a party of the Left— should set itself as its major task to divest itself of a certain image in the popular mind?Can it be that they believe, following Mr. Crosland that a modern reformed Capitalism, suitably ‘guided’ will bring us all these blessings in due course? The whole thing represents a tragic failure of political vision, a pigmy’s sense of the problems before us, and one which, ironically, cuts across the most cherished aim of the Labour leadership—political office. For, on this view there is no role for a party of the Left which the Liberals could not fill just as well.Labour party feeding consumer individualism… The failure of imagination must then be defined, ultimately, as a failure of political imagination: the incapacity to take the lead, to stand as a political Party and a movement in place of these ideals, to draw in and weld together in political terms the unfelt, unexpressed, unarticulated needs of our people as a community.Capitalism dressed up as inclusive through consumerism… to stand in the name of what isgenuinely new in the society (and that is not the way of life of the glossy magazine) would mean confronting the old enemy in new, fancy clothes.Need to control the economy as a community… not ask the managers to do our job for us. Watch from a distance. To do that, would in fact mean the re-application of the principle of common ownership to our economic thinking—not as a well-worn shibboleth which must be defended,like Buckingham Palace, because it is there—but because we cannot make a system which is geared to go forward in one direction reverse itself, unless we are prepared to work it ourselves, unless it is responsible to us.

The ends are contained by the means – need common ownership (in contrast to Crosland who says we should stop being concerned with the means and think practically to make ends – common ownership not necessary). If it is really a classless society we want, we must face up to the fact that the system which we are trying to tame, which provides Mr. Macmillan’s kind of ‘prosperity’on the one hand, is what generates class power on the other. Behind the back of the Welfare Revolution, a revival of the class system has silently taken place: and the more profitable it is to supply the consumer needs of the community, the more robust the owners, controllers and managers of the system will become, the sounder their social position, the more stable their personal prospects, the greater the gaps in income and privilege, the more divided the society. Are Mr. Gaitskell and Mr. Crosland prepared to ignore forever the increasingstability and confidence of our new ruling élite in the country? and its effect on the culture of our society?

Mad article – New left contributions to the socialist debate 1957-63

Focusing on four key themes: the character ofpost-war capitalism; the issue of public ownership; the figure of the ‘affluentworker’ and the implications of consumerism, it is argued that the New Leftmade its most original interventions in two areas: in a communitarian anddemocratic critique of capitalism and Labour revisionism, and in a thoughtfulengagement with the cultural and ideological implications of social change

affluence: Interpretations of affluence among political and ideological groupingswere conditioned by pre-existing attitudes, and expressed hopes, fears,and assumptions about the impact of processes of social, economic, andcultural change yet to be fully grasped.

Political Socialism, but also conservatism, had some adapting to affluence. – the adaptation of socialism to affluence is not ully told by the struggle between revisionists and fundamentalists, with public ownership at the centre of the dispute…socialists insisting on the centrality of common ownership to socialism—including the early New Left—employed a wider range of arguments than the ‘fundamentalist’ tag might suggest.

Lawrence black – more than votes, socialists lost confidence that history pointed toward their vision in prosperity Labour leftists and revisionists suffered from a fatalistic reliance on over materialist assumptions about prosperity – the real nature of what was going on remained hiddenThinkers of early new left constructed and critiqued contemp discussions around affluence 1950s early. – stuart hall, e.p. Thompson, Raymond Williams, miliband, Charles taylor… rject both Stalinism and social democracyBlack – main thesis is limiting effect of socialist political culture – nevertheless credits the new left, along side labour revisionists with making creative shifts for the time.He identifies considerable shared ground between the NewLeft and the revisionists: both were convinced of the need for socialistre-thinking, both attempted to engage with rather than simply reject thechanges associated with affluence, both did so by placing emphasis onthe ethical foundations of socialism. These are valid points, and it isalso true that the New Left respected the seriousness of Crosland’sattempt to endow Labour with an intellectually coherent agendaHowever, this political culture approach, in emphasizing the genericcultural assumptions behind the ‘socialist gaze’, can risk minimizingideological differences. Though revisionism and the New Left sharedkey premises, there were also fundamental divergences, notably in theirinterpretations of core concepts such as equality and community.

Jackson - Jackson mounts a case for revisionism as possessing a seriousegalitarian commitment and as more radically redistributive thanoften assumed. He also recognizes the force of some organicist/communitarian critiques of revisionism, rightly identifying the NewLeft as one of the main proponents of such critique, and seems partiallyto acknowledge that in moving away from communitarian argumentsthe revisionists vacated some of the distinctive ethical grounds ofsocialism: ‘the critics of revisionism were undoubtedly correct when

they observed that at least some of the revisionists were revising theends as well as the means of socialism’ This observation is notpursued further however, and the brief discussion of the New Left’s critique of revisionism casts it mainly in terms of a defence of pre-existing conceptions of socialist values.

I think new left While in some aspects revivalist of older socialist traditions including romanticism, New Left thinkers tried to establish fresh sources and arguments for socialism’s communitarian and democratic commitment. Their perspectives were informed by a humanist interpretation of socialism in which the values of equality, community, and democratic control over productive life were seen as essential and inseparableelements. This agenda was shaped by new developments in Marxist thought but also drew on contemporary work in sociology, in the study of culture, and most experimentally, on practical efforts to model a newkind of grassroots socialist movement it must be acknowledged that on several issues—notably the question of how to interpret apparent changes within capitalism, and their implications for the role of class in socialistanalysis—there was no consensus between New Left thinkers, indeed significant interpretative differences existed, and discussion was inconclusiveCrosland grasped the nettle with alacrity, arguing for the abandonment of Marxist economic analysis and attempting to wean Labour away from what he regarded as its dogmatic commitment to public ownership. For him, trends such as the development of large firms, the separation of ownership and control, the ‘managerial revolution’, ‘incomes revolution’, and welfare reforms amounted to a genuine transformation of capitalism in the face of which socialism must change or perish.

In his 1952 Fabian essay, Crosland argued that the dispersal of ownership through shareholding, and the transfer within firms of decision-making power to non-owning managers, meant that the propertied class had ‘lost its traditional capitalist function’ and with it its economic power. Alongside developments such as the growth of the ‘independent intermediate power’ of the state and the advent of welfare and social services, this meant that capitalism had effectively been superseded by ‘postcapitalist society’ or ‘statism’, in which new ways of government control of the economy, without the necessity for public ownership, were already being found. In The Future of Socialism, he took the argument further, claiming that since central socialist priorities such as the eradication of poverty and unemployment had been or could soon be realized in a Britain that stood ‘on the threshold of mass abundance’, then the question of who owned the means of production was rendered even more irrelevant. Socialists should henceforth prioritize issues of welfare and equality, for which no major extension of collectivization was needed

some disagreed with croslands positive attitude of capitalism… Crossman, for instance, though agreeing that‘socialism cannot and should not be based on any particular economic theory’ thought further public ownership the best way to curb the power of oligopoly (with the proviso that oligopolistic and managerialtendencies in the state sector must also be counteracted by increased worker participation)

labour revisionism - it proposed greater state control (as distinct from ownership) of industry through measures such as the acquisition of shares in large capitalist enterprises.

‘industry and society’ (I&S) – labours policy on future public ownership – New left review published ‘the insiders’ 1957 in response… undermined one of revisionists key premises – managerial control?... theseexamined the ‘interlocking directorates’ of banks, insurance firms, and industrial companies, as well as their influence on policymaking, to demonstrate the concentration of effective economic power in the hands of a few hundred individuals.40 New Leftists also disputed I&S’ expectation that ‘the almost automatic capital gains of industry’ could continue indefinitely. Instead, ‘Tory prosperity’ was seen as resulting from a ‘lucky conjuncture of favourable conditions’, the proceeds of which had been ‘senselessly squandered in a bonanza of increased consumption’.

The insiders analysis shaped a view that became a staple of new left discussion – that separation of ownership and control was a myth, and the effects of the managerial revolution exaggerated by revisionists. in The Conservative Enemy (1962) Crosland restated his thesis that ‘in the majority of large firms the divorce betweenownership and control is virtually complete’ and devoted an entire chapter to attacking the ‘naive and sloppy formalism’ of the New Left’s efforts to prove otherwise,

new left pointed out limits to affluence and some said the trend in the 1950s actually pointed to growth in inequality. Do state administered welfare services represent, as cros argues, progress towards socialism? No – some such as miliband saw welfarism as an adaptation of capitalism that served to preserve it- not transformation state plays supplementary role to private enterprise and private property unchallenged… by contrast Dorothy Thompson (new left) said… ‘the Welfare Services . . . are based on conceptions of social responsibility and human dignity which do not belong to the economic system of greed and self-seeking which still dominates our society’… welfarism does represent victory for w class within capitalism.

Peter townsend and others did social studies that paved the way for the ‘rediscovery’ of poverty in the 1960s. – welfare state had not contributed to any major reduction in poverty and best served the interests of the middle not the working class.

New left point out the limits of the welfare state to support their argument that truly decentstandards of public provision could not be achieved within a predominantly capitalist economy. Thus, Stuart Hall described ‘an economy which is capable of dealing profitably in consumer goods and personal conveniences . . . but which is incapable of dealing with major areas of our social life’

Anderson used the Swedish model to undermine one of the New Left’s core assumptions in the ‘changing capitalism’ debate: common ownership, it seemed, was not the sole route to establishing a tolerableorder of social priorities. Yet, he nevertheless reinforced a more fundamental element of the New Left case. This regarded common ownership as the only means to secure human and democratic control of production, an end to alienation and the realization of man’s social essence in a classless community

revisionism overlooks cooperation: Yet revisionism’s treatment of socialism’s ‘cooperative aspiration’, was amongst its weakest elements. Admitting that he found it ‘impossible to reach a definite conclusion about its relevance in contemporary conditions’ Crosland offered only a brief discussion, concluding: ‘while I accept that it would clearly be in some sense

‘‘better’’ if there were a more general awareness of a common social purpose, I do not feel able, in what is intended to be a reasonably definite and practical statement of socialistaims, to include this as part of the goal’…. New leftists by contrasts believed the ethical content of socialism lay upon its articulation of the necessity of a society of equals, a cooperative community… and this would require a transformation of human values…

The New Left insisted that ‘the ‘‘ends’’ are contained by the means’ and regarded Crosland’s appeal to socialist values as shallow and opportunistic.69 Socialism was not a list of distinct aspirations that could be trimmed down to fit the times; rather, it was constituted by the mutual dependence and interrelatedness of itsvalues.

The New Left’s commitment to common ownership relied, then, upon an interpretation of socialism as an ethic proposing a new way of life and human-centred values, the realization of which was the realpurpose of economic organization. without the replacement of the dynamic of the profit motive all other means (to attaining a society of equals) will prove ineffectual, and it is the definition of this as an essential means which distinguishes the socialist tradition.’71 Miliband put the matter more succinctly: socialism without common ownership is an absurd contradiction in terms’…

nationalisation however, was not enough.. unpopular – it produces the same human patterns as the capitalist industries. Its still top-down (draper can come in here – need the second soul of socialism)… workers control wanted instead… revival of cole and guild socialism…Distinguishing themselves from ‘pure syndicalism’ and ‘pure collectivism’ early guildsmen argued for a partnership between state and producer in which the state would own the means of production, leasedby charter to the guilds which ‘would be absolute masters of their own economic affair

the new lefts contribution through ‘workers control’ support was to make explicit the link back to socialist first principles, to broaden out the discussion of industrial democracy beyond traditional economic confines into the social and political spheres, and to demonstrate its applicability to the ‘new capitalism’ of the 1950s. In doing so it drew on Marx’s early works and the wider humanist reorientation within Marxism associated with their ‘rediscovery’. Alienation—the separation of man from his ‘species-being’, his essence as a creative producer, his product and his fellow-man, produced by capitalist property relationships and work patterns—was the critical concept here… Anderson’s study of Sweden, still class-divided despite the existence of (limited) industrial democracy, similarly followed Marx in insisting that only full workers’ control of production could make good the ‘universal loss’ of class, and restore man’s human—and social—essence. Nor was the New Left unique in finding that Crosland’s disavowal of communitarian aspirations undermined rather than enhanced the ethical case for socialism. The New Left’s restatement of socialist ethics was distinctive, however, in seeking to reinterpret rather than abandon Marx. Drawing on (though not limited to) a humanist interpretation of Marx, the New Left emphasized socialist values of de-alienation and community:man self-realizing as a creative producer, controlling and disposing of the products of his own ingenuity through democratic and cooperative means, to achieve a human status for man as worker, and to create a

genuine community among men. Common ownership, in the sense of human control over production in a democratic and classless community, was thus both means and end.

Crosland’s airy rejection of Marxism as having ‘little or nothing to offer the contemporary socialist, either in respect of practical policy, or the correct analysis of our society, or even of the right conceptual tools or framework’, and his dismissal of defenders of common ownership as clinging to ‘clause 4 Marxism’ were based on a narrow interpretation of Marxism, associating it with a socialized and centrally planned economy and having no regard for humanist interpretations then gaining ground… Nor did he engage seriously with the more immediate New Left democratic and communitarian critique of the existing state-owned industries. He viewed workers’ control as irrelevant and outdated.

the New Left were arguably guilty of assuming rather than demonstrating the necessity of the link between workers’ control and public ownership. As Peter Sedgwick pointed out, the terms were not synonymous, thus while ‘the modern socialist should be in favour of the expropriation of the expropriators and workers’ control of industry . . . he would also emphasise national planning of the economy. Whether he must also argue of some sort of ownership is very questionable. Ownership, as distinct from the actual powers that workers will have over the state and factories, is rather an elusive concept.’ There was, perhaps, more room for accommodation between the New Left and the revisionist positions on the question of ownership than first appeared, but this was not explored. Both sides adopted entrenched positions and missed an opportunity that the theme of industrial democracy might have provided to take the debate around public ownership beyond the ‘fundamentalist’/revisionist dichotomy

Left discourse displayed a pervasive anxiety that greater material well-being would result in a process of ‘deproletarianisation’ or ‘embourgeoisement’, dissolving the newly ‘affluent worker’s’ class identity and resulting in an inevitable electoral drift to the right… The potential effect of prosperity on class identification was particularly contentious within new left… Hall moved the debate on to pose the question as one of classconsciousness, or the awareness of class identity, which he argued was being altered by capitalism’s new emphasis on consumption rather than production, even if objective class relations remained the same…

Thompson’s spirited restatement of working-class agency—‘commitment in politics must mean commitment to living people’109—provided a valuable corrective to a patronizing tendency to blame the failures ofsocialism on the shortcomings of the working class that was evident in some left analyses of ‘working class affluence’.110 It had something in common with the revisionist analysis, which also declined to viewrising living standards as corrupting and similarly saw improvements in material well-being as an opportunity to articulate a socialism prioritizing ethics and culture.. However, it rather sidestepped the real concerns that animated Hall’s treatment of classlessness, and Thompson’s ferocity had the effect of closing down rather than opening up debate within the New Left about the critical issue of class. In less combative mode, Thompson himself detected worrying changes associated with consumerism and acquisitiveness.

Research suggests voters don’t like labours commitment to public ownership - class dealignment and rise of the floating voter – revisionists emphasise this… but voter volatility rise rather than strictly w.class increasing tory vote.

Real social mobility, as Williams pointed out, remained limited: perceptions that the ‘middle class’ was growing and the ‘working class’ shrinking stemmed mainly, he argued, from confused use of the terms.118 And, crucially, New Left thinkers pointed out that electoral data provided little support either for revisionism’s gloomy prognosis for Labour, nor for broader diagnoses of ‘deproletarianization’. Comparing pre-war (supposedly ‘proletarian’) and post-war (‘deproletarian’) periods, Williams showed that the proportion of working-class Conservative voters had not risen, and that the total Labour vote had significantly increased in the ‘deproletarian’ post-war years. In any case, the working class had never, as Williams remarked, voted solidly Labour. The New Left in general, then, showed a finer awareness than revisionism of the complexities surrounding the relationship between class and voting habits. New Left scepticism about the affluent worker was partially vindicated by later sociological studies, most famously Goldthorpe et al.’s Affluent Worker series, which found little evidence of working-class assimilation into the middle-class. Goldthorpe’s study of the attitudes of Luton manual workers, while refuting ‘embourgeoisement’,nevertheless deepened the controversy with its finding that Luton’s ‘affluent workers’ were displaying more instrumental attitudes to work, privatism in social life, and a greater pursuit of material aspirations

It was Stuart Hall and Raymond Williams, above all, who devoted serious attention to cultural developments that some amongst the ex-communist ‘old guard’ were inclined to view as trivial. Much of the novelty of their response lay in the recognition that it was not material progress or consumer goods in themselves, but theway that concepts associated with them (class mobility, consumer ‘choice’, etc.) could be deployed ideologically, especially through new communications media such as television and mass advertising, thatcontained the potential to effect changes in consciousness. This was the ‘mythology of prosperity’ referred to by Hall.

Conclusion: Thus, New Left contributions to the ‘changing capitalism’ controversy of the late 1950s aimed to reiterate the impossibility of realizing socialist objectives within a privately owned economy, and theindispensability of common ownership to a socialist world-view, while also offering an alternative analysis of capitalist mutation Their thinking here was not always especially new: in refuting revisionist contentions about a separation of ownership and control, and about the incomes and managerial ‘revolutions’ having transformed capitalism, New Leftists often fell back upon stock assumptions and assertions, offering only a patchy analysis of economic trends within contemporary capitalism. Nor was there agreement on key issues such as the significance of welfare reforms. And while the New Left contributed to a body of work that offered a humane and necessary critique of the deficiencies of public provision under affluent capitalism, their contention that decent social priorities could never be realized within capitalism, no matter how affluent, was not entirely convincing, as Anderson demonstrated in a cogent critique of his colleagues’ position. Stronger arguments were made on the broader ethical themes of community and democracy. Exploiting revisionism’s weakness in these areas and developing a critique of the statist and bureaucratic tendencies of pre-existing Labour nationalization strategies that went deeper than the limited reflections of the Labour left, New Left thinkers tried to find fresh justifications and models for common ownership. Arguing that economic organization was more than a mere means to the achievement of limited objectives (‘more equality’ or ‘greater welfare’), they presented common ownership as the sole route to secure human and democratic control over productive life, to end alienation, and to create the conditions for a classless community in which

‘socialism at full stretch’ might be realized. In so doing they played an important role in reviving the movement for ‘workers’ control’ and in promoting industrial democracy as an alternative agenda for Labournationalization. At the same time, however, there was insufficient reflection about the centrality of ‘ownership’ to this ethical vision. on the question of affluence’s implications for the analysis of class, New Leftists on the whole rejected the notion that material improvements in themselves were corrosive or corrupting of working-class identity, or were causing ‘deproletarianisation’ and de-alignment from Labour. Rather, with Crosland, they welcomed material progress as a prerequisite for socialism, and as an opportunity to prioritize questions of ethics and culture. The New Left thus stood out against the more patronizing, simplistic manifestations of a wider leftist loss of faith in the self-activity of working-class people, and they also rebutted the idea that Labour’s electoral fortunes must wane with affluence. Yet this was controversial territory. Hall’s exploration of class-consciousness, suggesting that ‘a sense of classlessness’—albeit a false sense—was indeed gaining ground as a result of the new emphasis on personal consumption, ‘lifestyle’, and status, was fiercely attacked by Thompson. Even Thompson, however, could not resist a creeping sense that the products and techniques of ‘consumer’ capitalism, combined with the social changes associated with affluence, were undermining, or at the very least, complicating socialism’s claim on working-class allegiance. More broadly, the early New Left presented a resistance to the revisionist reorientation of left thought away from communitarian themes that went beyond a defence of socialist tradition to pose an ‘adequate community life’ as ‘the most dynamic and moving human theme in the restatement of socialism in contemporary terms

Lecture notes: Post war reforms – left labour directionless – facing crisis of purpose – whilst brit was growing economically (consumer society) wasn’t growing as much elsewhere – prosperity questionable.Cros – key q of separation of ownership and control – traditionally what mattered was who owned, 1930s onwards – drifting towards planned economy even if privately owned… if control can be exercised state ownership we don’t need state ownership – the mixed economy enables this… problem is to confuse socialism with various policies like nationalisation or common ownership… Crosland manages to rule out discussion of cooperation – he says he is a practical erson – not concerned with coop/communitarian – we don’t really know what that means – concerned with policy not ends when should be concerned with ends… turns socialism away from cooperation to redistribution. Crosland – need to be concerned not with nationalisation but with ethical surroundings – consumerism taking off in 1950s, a sense of cheapening culture and moral decline of w class... Crosland is rather a lone voice – debate between fundamentalist (commitment to common ownership) and revisionists. Clause 4 – common ownership – popular administration… proposal in late 1950s to deemphasise it – defeated (rid of by blair) Rarely written about critique of Crosland – argument about community and democracy (and its relationship to common ownership) – miliband – new left - agree with Crosland that bureaucratic socialism is redundant – produces same patterns as capitalism, and agree that we need an ethical turn BUT they want new human patterns on basis of community/ workers control – back to GDH cole type arguments – not with Crosland on middle ground finding – but do need a new direction for Labour.New left critique – not affluence, apathy – lack of creative thinking – need democratic control over the economy – workers control Agency and Identity

Lecture summary week 10: agency and identity: the retreat from class?

Traditionally, the industrial working class was seen as both the natural constituency for socialist ideas, and the privileged agent for socialist transformation. However this assumption came under attack from several directions in the post-war period. Pessimism about the radical potential of the working class within Western capitalist societies led some socialists, from the late 1950s onward, to consider other social groups as agents for change. The capacity of socialist thought (especially Marxism) to accommodate the politics of gender, race and identity also came under increasing scrutiny. This week we will examine the grounds of such challenges and consider some of their implications for a reformulation of socialism.

Recap: centrality of class (see also lecture for week 3)Focus on class that, arguably, is a defining feature of Marxism and what distinguishes it from pre-existing conceptions of socialism.

Class and the relations between classes – or class struggle – is seen as the main motor of historical change :Communist Manifesto, ‘the history of hitherto all existing societies is one of class struggle.’ Class conflict is fundamental and structures the whole social world; conflict consists of ‘a state of domination and subjection to be ended by a total transformation of the conditions that gave rise to it’. The actors in this conflict are not individuals as such but individual as members of classes.

- is agency of class that gives Marxism its p olitical practice : identifies working class as universal class and it alone has possibility to be a revolutionary social and political agent. M and E place class antagonism at the very centre of history and see it as the primary conflict: all other conflicts etc (religious, gender inequalities and struggles etc) are indirectly derived from class conflict. Politics is one of the vehicles via which class struggle is articulated.

Why did this come to be questioned? – why the ‘retreat from class’?Key factors:1) Pessimism about working class agency: linked to development of capitalism/changes in production/post fordism etcRelevant texts include Hall, S ‘A sense of classlessness’ Universities and Left Review 5, 1958. C Wright Mills, ‘Letter to the NL’ , NLR 1962, Hobsbawm ‘Forward March of Labour Halted?’1978/9 and Gorz, Farewell to the working class (1980)Hall essentially arguing that ‘false sense of classlessness’ gaining ground – relatively small change in objective conditions but shifts in lifestyle, culture and ideology were engendering changes in perception and feeling of class identity and this required new strategies from socialists.Mills went further urging friends in the British New Left to abandon the ‘labour metaphysic’ - a belief in the working class as the historic agency of change - as ‘a legacy from Victorian Marxism that is now quite unrealistic’. Convinced that working class agency in the advanced capitalist countries ‘has either collapsed or become most ambiguous’ Mills was especially interested in the potential of the radical intelligentsia as an agent for change.

Hobsbawm’s Marx memorial lecture charting combination of objective change and class feeling. Rise of sectionalism and economism in w class and changes in class consciousness. Hobsbawm advanced the view that ‘the forward march of labour and the labour movement,

which Marx predicted, appears to have come to a halt in this century about twenty-five or thirty years ago’ (pi). This based on two main arguments - ‘sectionalism’ of the working class: ‘We now see a growing division of workers into sections and groups each pursuing its own economic interest irrespective of the rest’ (pl4), and - decline in the class consciousness of labour, and in ‘the highest degree of class consciousness, namely socialist consciousness’( pi 6). Also drew on decline of the Labour Party’s vote since 1951.

See also Miliband’s critique http://21centurymanifesto.wordpress.com/2012/10/01/milibands-critical-take-on-hobsbawm/Gorz: (1980) – French –Austrian philosopher, active within Fr NL and existentialist movements, founder of Nouvel Observateur, influenced by Frankfurt School, friend of Marcuse.‘The philosophy of the proletariat is a religion’ ‘given that the proletariat is and must be revolutionary, let us examine those facts which lend support to its revolutionary will and those which frustrate it’ Suggests we should pose the problem rather as; given that the proletariat is not revolutionary, let us examine whether it is possible that it still might become so and why it has been possible to believe that it already is’ (p22)Argues that contemporary work practices herald the end of the 'working class' as traditionally conceived. Gives a historical overview of the meaning of 'work' and shows how its meaning has changed from one historical period to another. Shows with emergence of capitalism, work came to take on an increasingly 'abstract quality' as it became 'paid activity'. Sees development of post-industrial society where 'work' means something other than its traditional definition as as 'wage-labour'.

Critiques Marxist notion of proletariat as synthesis of hegelianism, Christianity and scientism. Posits in place an alternative conception of agency centred around non class agents: ‘post-industrial proletarians’ :‘ a non class of non workers is coming into being. Prefiguring a nonsociety within existing society in which classes will be abolished along with work itself and all forms of domination’. Argues this new non class is result of a crisis of capitalism and is composed of all those who have been expelled from production by the abolition of work (in old sense); an insecure neo proletariat that exists thro part time temporary, casual labour. This new non-class will be immediately conscious but its method of organising will be radically different to old w class – will be about creating spaces of autonomy rather than capturing machinery of political and economic power. We have to give up on the idea that history has meaning and a teleology. But Marx was right in that capital provides possibility for liberation – for Gorz will be a movement of individual subjectivity: non class of non producers which embodies what lies beyond productivism. Relate to context of ‘crisis of Marxism’, crisis of socialism, rise of ideas of postmodernity etc. 2) Rise of ‘ new social movements’ especially feminism, and ‘politics of identity’At same time as we see declining confidence in capacity of western w class agency also see rise of new movements that challenged centrality of class to socialism in other ways. Most notably feminism but also politics based around race, cult identity etc. Will focus only on feminism here. Can socialist politics accommodate feminism and retain class basis?Mitchell article: Women the Longest RevolutionConclusion: implications for left theories of agency and for soc thought?Key text Meiksins Wood : The Retreat from Class.

Do we still need class? Does socialism have to be grounded in a class analysis? May also be that we need to look again and more closely at what Marx actually says re class – awareness of class fractions, alterations in consciousness, complex nature of class identity. People like laclau and mouffe, radical democrats argue that the nature of struggle has changed – no longer unified class struggle but diverse set of struggles with divisions – no universal class or universal liberation or universal interests to be aimed for but can aim for a hegemonic challenge to capitalism as it stands, based on an empty signifier that will unite the diverse singularities. Lecture notes: Marxism distinguished within socialism by class analysis – class as a structure, class struggle as motor of social change (others have thought of class like morris)… class conflict structures whole social world – proletariat interests are universal interests – the only agent that can bring about social change for all – liberating – class analysis tied to historical materialism – class is THE primary conflict – other struggles are indirectly related to class struggle.Individual subjectivities supposedly cut across class/break class linkWhy? Post war affluence / consumerism – capitalism has been tamed – don’t need to think about class but broader issues of equality/distribution (Crosland). Working class are being deradicalised. A better off w class is being produced (or atleast one that perceives themselves to be better off)… welfare state effect.There is class in itself and class for itself – can w class become class for itself? Conscious of itself – many questioning this.New left – should abandon the belief in w class as agent of change (mills)Notion of intellectual/students etc role in wclass agency stems from gramscis organic intellectualMarcuse extends this to peripheral struggles. Stuart hall – a sense of classlessness – objective structures of capitalism arnt changing but peoples perception of these structures is changing – power of ideology – we don’t feel w class anymore… hobsbawm says its more than that: there is an objective basis for ppl’s perceptions – working patterns are changing.Sectionalism of w.class (opposite to marxs prediction) – the w class and bourgeoisie not two strict classes. Gorz – similar to mills – analysis of work/production patterns – Fordism brought about eend of w class as we know it in Marxist sense – wage labour is not the same as post industrial labour. Work now shows that capitalism is not what marx saw it as anymore… ‘procariat’ : workers skilled/unskilled etc not proletariat… gorz wants ‘politics of time’ we could end scarcity… marxim is obstacle stuck seeing work as wage relationship… post industrial proletarians will be immediately conscious… these casual workers have lost jobs due to automation… new politics about creating spaces of autonomy – movement of individual subjectivity. Mitchell 60s feminism – liberation of women only normative ideal not structurally integrated… women’s struggle cannot be reduced to class analysis. 4 structures specific to women that socialism must address: production, reproduction, sex relationships, socialisation of children – links to ‘post marxism’ laclau and mouffe. Retreat from class book – gives a Marxist response to these criticisms – if we de class socialism we get rid of socialism. Do all of these thinkers think of marx correctly? Do we really need to rid of class analysis entirely?Gorz – talking about precarious work/casual labour, agricultural production, immigrant labour with often no contract – work like blogging – no contract.The non class that gorz points out has always existed – but he is right in saying the w class marx was talking of is declining… so agency now needs to be reorganised.

Gorz is talking about economic structures have changed – changing notion of ‘class’ – about more than just a decline in class consciousness – there is a structural change in the w class. But there is still a class that own the means of production vs one that does not even if both sides are dispersed.Also can you use zizek’s argument here?

I would take the line that David HArvey does: Global proletariat doubled since 1970- Value is still being produced in traditional ways- distributed in other ways.

What Gorz is really talking about is a Western Phenomenon

Also most Marxist would say- actually all of them, at least they should- that there is a basic antagonism within Capitalism e.g. Proletariat/Bourgeoisie. This will never disappear but can be masked.

This is Zizek's point about identity politics – the basis of his critique of the other radical democrats.

Class is always there

So, in actual fact, can never be forgotten only veiledProblem with radical democracy etc – emphasising difference as opposed to equality and this can accentuate differences and stunt common goal.Class for marx was a means – the end result could recognise difference. Rise of consumerism/technology had an impact in creating all of these diverse interests – become part of the ideology of capitalism itself – like zizek’s critique of h and n – they embrace netocracy as if it is beyond capitalism but it is part of it?Gorz 1982 reading notes: crisis in marx cause theres a crisis in labour movement – over past 20 years the link between the development of productive forces and growth of class antagonism broken.Marx could not answer why he alone could become aware of the transcendent being of the proletariat – his theory did not grow out of empirical observation it grew out of philosophy. For marx the prolet was itself the negation of its own being- the task of socialism was to demonstrate how this negation could become operationally effective. This dual premise of sci soc was destroyed by capitalist division of labour. – the workers labour no longer involves any power and work is no longer the workers own activity – no room for personal initiative…In place of the productive collective worker of old, a non class of non workers is forming, prefiguring a non society within existing society in which classes will be abolished along with work itself and all forms of domination. Traditional w class no more than a privileged minority… many of population belongto postindustrial neoproletariat – no job security or definite class identity. .. these insecure jobs are contingent on the development of technology and will eventually be eradicated. In contrast to marx’s proletariat, the neopro does not define itself by reference to its work and cannot be defined in terms of its position within the social process of production.The prolet that young marx saw as the universal force void of any particularised form has become a particularised indivisuality in revolt gainst the universal force of the apparatus. When a society produces to provide work rather than works in order to produce then work as a whole has no meaning. Work is superfluous. The lack of any overall conception of a future society fundamentally distinguishes the new post industrial prolet from the class which, according to marx, was invested with a historical mission. (but did marx have an overall conception of future society himself?)Realm of freedom can not be arrived at now through by material process, only by a constitutive act – the non class.

Zizek bit from essay An alternative view of Connolly’s critique can now be considered. Žižek would argue that regardless of his ‘positive ethos’, Connolly, like Mouffe, does not go far enough in his notion of radical democracy to bring about fundamental change. To him, both fail to address the fundamentals of contemporary justice (rooted in capitalism) as they stay within the liberal democratic imaginary (Thomassen, 2010, p.1145). This is the danger of the ‘silent suspension of class analysis’ (Žižek, 2000, p.97). Dean points out that in place of Connolly’s emphasis on ‘modes of becoming, Zizek emphasises global capital as a totality’ (2005, p.165). Žižek does not deny that new political forms such as those considered by Connolly have reshaped the political landscape, however, he emphasises the fact that ‘capital has adapted to these new political forms’ (Dean, 2005, p. 166). Whilst Connolly criticises Mouffe’s liberal ethic on the basis that it entails exclusion, he does not seek to transcend the framework of liberal democracy. The liberal capitalist regime in fact provides the basis upon which Connolly wishes to implement his ‘positive ethos’ pluralism, and the parameters in which he sees it succeeding, and it would continue to enhance capitalism therefore.

Useful thing on meiksins wood - Wood sees no inherent structural impediment in capitalism to changes in response to identity politics, although she sees capitalism as resistant to them. She contends that capitalism is capable of tolerating difference and could survive without the oppression of women, racial minorities or homosexuals. What it cannot tolerate, or survive, is working class liberation.Her central criticism of the politics of identity and civil society, is that they place issues of difference and democracy at the centre of their conception of social change, thereby “surrender(ing) to capitalism and its ideological mystifications.” (p 263) If it is class relations that constitute capitalism then class relations are what must be overthrown to rid ourselves of capitalism. Since Democracy Wood has further developed a number of the ideas and themes she raised in her book. She has focussed on what are becoming a new set of orthodoxies — globalisation, the market and technological development, modernity and postmodernity, — contrasting them with the realities of capitalism at the end of the twentieth century and the enduring features of capitalism — class, exploitation, accumulation and expansion.In this period when the left is fragmented and disillusioned political clarity is essential in revitalising an organised opposition to capitalism based in the working class. Wood’s now substantial body of work is a major contribution to that project. The task she has set herself is to rethink historical materialism not just because it is important in its own right but because capitalism has achieved a global political and economic dominance that is even more extensive than that of the early part of this century. She is talking about the “universalisation of capitalism itself”, its social relations, its laws of motions, its contradictions — the logic of commodification, accumulation, and profit-maximisation penetrating every aspect of our lives”. (Modernity 1997) This is something all together different to what is meant by the vague term “globalisation”.

The power of its ruling classes and the market are increasingly unregulated, and is accompanied by a rapid rise in inequality both within the advanced economies and between nations. For instance in the USA, the wealthiest nation on earth, over thirty five million people, 40% of them children, today live in what has been defined as “absolute poverty” (Peterson, W. Silent Depression, 1994 )

It is not that resistance to capitalism does not exist, it clearly does. There are many examples of working class opposition to capitalism such as in Korea and France, of popular and local oppositions on environmental grounds, or in campaigns against the winding back of the welfare state and in support of indigenous rights.

Many of these movements are not socialist, even not yet fundamentally anti-capitalist. It is not surprising that there are those who will latch on to expressions of resistance and even elevate those campaigns to a status beyond that which they deserve. But that will in the end not assist in the task of building a socialist alternative. One of the vital missing ingredients which could help to unite these movements is a broad program for universal human emancipation which recognises the working class — in all its diversity — as fundamental to that goal.

Meiksins Wood – the retreat from class – criticism of ‘new true socialism’ which tries to rid of class. Range of them – laclau, HirstGet new rivisionists who claim to be based in Marxism yet reject its essential premises – rejection of primacy of class politics in favour of democratic struggles esp as they conducted by NSMs. Generally these movements agree: w.class has not produced revolutionary movement – economic situation has not given rise to what was thought to be an appropriate corresponding political forceThis reflects the fact that there is no nec. Correspondence between economics and politics in general. Any relation between class and politics is contingent – ideology and olitics are autonomous from economic relations and there is no such thing as economic class interests that can be translated into political terms… no privileged or necessary relation between the w class and socialism, and the w class has no fundamental interest in soc. Formation of socialist movement is in principle independent of class and a socialist politics can be constructed that is more or less autonomous from economic (class) conditions. … the struggle for socialism can be conceived of as a plurality of democratic struggles, bringing together a variety of resistances to many forms of oppression – Gorz – his whole argument isbased on a kind of inverted technologism, a fetishism of the labour process in contemporary capitalis and a tendency to find the essence of a mode of production in the technical process of work rather than in the relations of production, the specific mode of exploitation. Tendency to define class less in terms of exploitative relations than in terms of the technical process of work may help to account for a very restrictive conception of the w class, which appears to include only the industrial manual workers. This tendency also affects his perception of the w class and its revolutionary potential, since in his account the experience of exploitation, of antagonistic relations of production, and of the struggles surrounding them – i.e. the experience of class and class struggle – play little part in the formation of a working class consciousness – which seems to be entirely shaped and absorbed by the technical process of work. There have certainly been changes in the structure of the w class which must be seriously confronted – but gorz does little to illuminate them , because in the end his is a metaphysical definition of the w class, not a historical one which has little to do with its interests.In the final analysis gorz offers no revolutionary agent to replace the working class. Gorz has a utopia because it is not grounded in a process of transformation (unlike marx who grounds communism in the immanent struggle of working class). It turns out that the non class of

non workers, the new revolutionary lumpen proletariat that prefigures a new society, holds that promise only in principle, perhaps metaphysically…. It has no possibility of action.Even if the objective of the left were to be perceived as the abolition of work – and not as the abolition of classes and exploitation – it would be the destruction of capitalism and capitalist exploitation that their replacement with socialism that would determine the form in which the abolition of socialism would take place. What is significant about gorz’s argument is that, like other alternative visions, his rejection of the w class as the agent of transformation depends on wishing away the need for transformation, the need to destroy capitalism. It is a leap beyond capitalism, bypassing the structure of power and interests that stands in the way of gorz utopia… wishful thinking.So basically the nature of capitalism has changed,.. the nature of the working class has changed… decline in class consciousness…but there is structural change in work patterns of w. class… it is more diverse… but capitalism remains defined by the exploitation of one class by another in the creation of surplus value… and the alienation of all… and that exploited class is united in that it is the working class, and the ills of capitalism… can only be rid of through class struggle… and human emancipation can happen then. Non class agents cannot do this – they are ahistorical and only agents in principle/ theory…the basis of capitalism is class struggle… by employing non class agents of transformation we lose site of the need for transformation in the firt instance… the need to destroy capitalism. ????More criticism of gorz – no strategy - The third problem is also related: like Bahro, Gorz is very imprecise inlocating the agency of socialist advance. Given his stress on the individualism, the non-class identity of the 'neo-proletariat', what is it that can give their gratuitous subjective acts a common direction and purpose? Hespeaks of 'the movement formed by all those who refuse to be nothing but workers' (p. ll), and insists portentously that 'only the movement itself, through its own practice, can create and extend the sphere ofautonomy' (p. 116); but this is the sum total of Gorz's guide to strategy. Implicit in such remarks is an assumption of spontaneous collectivism, akin to that which Gorz derides in Marx's treatment of the working class, but far less grounded in evidence and analysis. A century of debate on socialist political strategy-the party, parliamentarism, reform/revolutionis not engaged or contested; it is simply ignored.

Socialist thought after the fallLecture1990s – crisis of socialism? Many developments give rise to this thesis.. ideological, historical etc. Even on the left it is accepted that socialism is in crisis. The fall of the wall isn’t really the major factor in the crisis of socialism. This is a symbol of a range of factors.Christopher pearson article is good.Key factors in death of socialism: 1) social bases of socialism are disappearing… shrinking of w class and organised labour movement… class dealignment… crisis of consciousness, agency and mobilisation. Gorz relevant text – agency – w class in retreat – sometimes it is argued that in numerical terms the w class no longer exists- undermines sociological basis of w.class. but this depends on what ur idea of w ‘class’ is…‘anybody who sells their labour for a wage’ – then still majority are in w.classGorz’s definition narrow – manual, mainly male workforce that populate industrial societies… so obvs this is in decline

Marx – w.class is essential to socialism but sometimes people get him wrong – he did allow space for factionalism. Decline in trade unionship indictes decline in w class. 80s – new right ideology doing well.Most serious problem for socialism – can we assume a commonality of interests in the w.class? where it was once characterised by solidarity and community it is now so by individualism.2) decline in the political economy of socialism… failure of centrally planned economies of EE and SU… discrediting of social democratic political economy: (Keynesianism, mixed economy, welfare state)… advent of more ideologically aggressive neoliberalism and ‘globalisation’Genuine limitations of statist planned economies – soviet style More important factor – retreat of milder forms of socialist economy – democratic strategies – Keynesian techniques, welfare state (the kind of system Crosland thought would endure indefinitely… the mixed economy… and hence says socialism should shift to ethical concerns)3) undermining of ideological content and coherence of socialism… crisis of Marxism… post Marxism… rise of postmodernityMost severe criticism of Marxism – idea that history is moving towards some sort of goal… historical development… marxisms supposed economism and determinism… and its reliance on w.class agency.Postmodern challenge to modernity – celebrating diversity and plurality rather than community socialism and uniformity.Socialists response (particularly aimed at addressing political economy):Market socialism – restatement of ideals of common ownership with market mechanism. Radical democracyBlunkerist approach: optimism of the will, pessimism of the intellect – hard left – retain courage of convictionSearch for alternative socialist traditions ex. Around economic and political democracy – ‘third stream’ – goes from someone like morris to miliband – associational socialism – don’t need to necessarily get rid of marx here.Restatement/reinterpretation of marx – ethical Marxism – terry eagleton – marx had an essentially moral end: self realisation… this is found through cooperation. So do we need socialism? Do the issues that socialism was formulated to address still exist? And can capitalism resolve them? yes and no.Rosa Luxemburg – choice is between socialism and barbarism (inherent in capitalist progress).Capitalism and barbarism is already in marx – the 2 sided nature of capitalist progress. – he admires the progressive qualities industrialism and science… but on other hand it unleashes decay…If we start calling ‘socialism’ something else we lose the link with struggle e.g. rad demChristopher pierson readingIf we wish to speak of a ‘crisis of socialism-East and West’, we must be clear that what passes for ‘socialism’, and what constitutes its ‘crisis’, is quite different in these two spheres.

Socialism in the West may face a deep-seated and structural challenge, but I do wish to resist a casual elision of the experiences of ‘socialism-East and West’. To speak of both Soviet and Western models as forms of ‘state-administered socialism’ seems to me toestablish a quite misleading identity between the two. Similarly, ‘the retreat from socialism’ connotes a qualitatively different experience in East and West. The Soviet Union has collapsed. The challenge to socialism in its characteristic Western forms is severe, but to suggest that its traditional institutions, for example the welfare state or the social democratic party, are on the verge of

disappearing is very poorly vindicated by the available evidence.‘* It is also clear that the electoral decline of the left in the West has been substantially overstated.”

the point to be stressed is that if the contrast which 1989 highlights is that between Eastern socialism and Westernliberal democracy, the latter must be recognised to have been shaped, reformed and compromised by a century of social democratic pressure. If advocates of the death of socialism accept that social democrats belong within the socialist camp, as I think they must, then the contrast between socialism (in all its variants) and liberal democracy must collapse. For actually-existing liberal democracy is, in substantial part, a product of socialist (social democratic) forces.A similar argument may apply to the message that Garton Ash reads into 1989. He may be right to suppose there is no ‘socialist democracy’, only democracy; no ‘socialist legality’, only legality; no ‘socialist economics’ only economics. But it does not follow from the non-viability of specifically ‘socialist’ invocations of these institutions that they can only be found in their existing liberal formulations. To take but one example, it is quite possible to accept that there isno such thing as ‘socialist economics’, while defending the idea that there could be and should be a socialist economy: this is a core contention of Alec Nove’s influential Economics of Feasible Socialism

It is hard to see why in principle this should be so. To accept that no alternatives to actually-existing liberal democracy remain, we should have to agree that we could not imagine ways in which the democratic credentials ofWestern societies could be improved upon or could not conceive of social forces which might seek to mobilise change in this direction. it is only perhaps the dramatic difficulties of socialism that has so effectively drawn our attention away from the continuing problems of capitalism…At the end of the 20th Century, many of those things that have made global capitalism unattractive and irrational remain, and the ecological imperative presents new and ever more pressing grounds for an exercise of enhanced colZective control over our (global) appropriation of natural resources.

Newman socialism today and tomorrow

The malaise of social democracy – hey day was Keynesian economics 140s until 1970 coinciding with post war boom. – strengthened bargaining role of organised working class through trade unions1970s economic decline – For Keynesianism had depended on governments regarding the maintenance of full employment as a key priority. There was now no international agreement to maintain this in the changed economic circumstances, and it is ironic that a British Labour prime minister James Callaghan, effectively announced the end of the era at the 176 party conference. By the early 1970s, neo-liberal economic thought provided a critique of the Keynesian welfare state, which Pierson has usefully summarized as having the following four elements. First, it was said to be uneconomic, in displacing the necessary disciplines andincentives of the marketplace, undermining the incentive of capital to invest and of labour to work. Second, it was unproductive in encouraging the rapid growth of public bureaucracy and in forcing capital and human resources out of the productive private sector of the economy. At the same time, the monopoly of state welfare provision had enabled workers within the public sector to command inflationary wage increases. Third, it was regarded as

inefficient since the state’s monopoly of welfare provision and sponsorship of the special interests of trade unions led to an inefficient delivery of services and a system geared to the interests of organized producers rather than consumers. This was because of the lack of market disciplines. Finally, it was also condemned as ineffective in failing to eliminate poverty and deprivation, despite the resources devoted to welfare. Such ideas were constantly propounded from the late 1970s, with an insistence on the superiority of the market over any form of government intervention. This was coupled with the ideologicalclaim that people were being set free to make their own decisions, particularly in purchasing services, and that this liberated them from state bureaucracies. The neo-liberals reinforced their attack on social democrats by claiming that they (‘socialists’) did not want to liberate people in this way. The politicians who were in the vanguard of the ‘New Right’ – notably Reagan and Thatcher – knew what they were doing. Basing theirposition on some of the insights derived from corporations seeking to attract consumers through ‘lifestyle’ product marketing, they were aware that there were people in all classes who would respond to a message stressing individual aspirations. Some of them could now be recruited to the Right.

Smaller w.class? The general trend was towards more atomized employment and the dispersal of traditional working-class communities. – shift in kind of living/working conditions associated with labour movement. – decline in trade union membership and tu power… perhas there has been a decline in the w class then? on the contrary, that there has been an increase, as people in the service sector and the professions have been ‘proletarianized’ and the agricultural and self-employed sectors have declined. There is therefore a far higher percentage of people who live by selling their labour power for wages than has ever been the case before. Intheory, all forms of salaried employees may be viewed as part of a single class. There is no reason why male blue-collar workers should have been ‘objectified’ as ‘the working class’, and there are many good reasons (as noted in Chapter 3) for condemning the fact that, historically, this has been the tendency in labour movements. However, there is considerable evidence to suggest that in practice the working class, however defined, was becoming more segmented. Inter-union rivalries tended to grow, union alignments with socialdemocratic parties weakened, there was an increasing tendency to class de-alignment, and there was also a reduction in people’s selfperception as ‘working class – unity of w class has been challenged. This verdict was already becoming dominant in the literature of the mid-1980s, and this point is perhaps as important as thestructural changes that were being described. For socialism has always depended not only on the nature of society at a particular time, but also on the way that it is perceived and interpreted.

Hobsbawm - We cannot rely on a simple form of historical determinism to restore the forward march of British labour which began to falter thirty years ago. . . . [I]f the labour and socialist movement is to recover its soul, its dynamism, and its historical initiative, we, as Marxists, must do what Marx would certainly have done: to recognize the novel situation in which we find ourselves, to analyse it realistically and concretely, to analyse the reasons, historical and otherwise, for the failures as well as the successes of the labour movement, and toformulate not only what we would want to do, but what can be done… The traditional working class, Gorz suggested, was being eroded by technology and fragmentation, and the critical edge to his argument rested on three major claims: that the working class was not a universal class with a ‘mission’ of human emancipation; that individual consciousness was

not a part of class consciousness; and that alienation and hierarchy were embedded in the modern state and industry so that the overthrow of capitalism would not cure these problems postmodernists were deeply suspicious of the claims of a universal rationality and of structural theories that purported to explain ‘reality’. As one of its key figures, Jean-François Lyotard, expressed it in The Post-Modern Condition, the essence of the approach was ‘incredulity towards metanarratives’, which were said to mask the nature of power and to be repressive. Marxism was certainly such a metanarrative and socialism, more generally, was wedded to the so-called ‘Enlightenment project’. The era was increasingly one of identity politics in which a whole range of movements – by women, gays and lesbians, and minority ethnic groups – were stressing the importance of defining their own ‘meanings’ rather than slotting into a role prescribed by a grand theory or narrative. And postmodernism also appeared to relate to other important trends in intercultural relations e.g. protection of indigenous voices against universal conceptions of progress

decline of soviet regimes - Dahrendorf argued that communism was a phenomenon of developing countries that was ultimately self-destructive once a particular economic level had been attained, while socialdemocracy, by tempering the excesses of unconstrained capitalism, had made itself redundant.

21st century responses – Anthony giddens third way - modernization – influence for new labour – way for labour to relocate to centre ground and win voters – actually a break with socialism – adoption of market techniques, incentives and private sector values into public sector… privatisation

A third reaction to the difficulties has been to turn to frameworks in which ideas compatible with socialism could be propounded without any reference to it. Instead, new approaches to human rights, citizenship, cosmopolitanism, democracy, and global government (or governance) have become fashionable. Throughreorienting these essentially liberal ideas in more radical directions, it became possible to offer a leftist perspective without proposing an explicitly socialist framework. Problems with this: It was suggested in Chapter 1 that the starting point for socialism was a critique of capitalism combined with a commitment to thecreation of an egalitarian society based on the values of solidarity and cooperation. This does not imply acceptance of a holistic and self-contained doctrine purporting to explain everything, but it does suggest some interconnected values, theories, and practices that help to define an outlook on the world. It is, of course, possible that those who derive their judgements from a broad concept of human rights will often reach precisely the same conclusions as socialists. However, their stance is then likely to be contested by theorists who incline to the position that confines human rights to the civil and political spheres. This suggests that traditional ideological differences cannot be transcended by the use of human rights discourse. Similar conclusions follow if the concepts of citizenship, cosmopolitanism, democracy, and global governance are considered. I would therefore argue that socialists should maintain their own doctrine, rather than allow its dissipation into a set of discrete ideas

Others have tended to return to earlier traditions in socialism – utopianism, guild socialism, anarchism, localism – arguing that the problem was that one or other of these variants was pushed to the margins. The recovery of socialism, it is implied, depends upon these ideas now occupying centre stage. I agree that such traditions contain valuable critiques of the

dominant ones that could now contribute to the future of socialism, but doubt whether any of them individually contains the key to future success.

Rising inequality in 1980s/1990s and lowering social mobility – inequality between and within countries

The other socialist core values of cooperation and social solidarity also currently face difficulties in advanced capitalist countries. This is both because of the emphasis on individualism and competition in these societies, and because such notions as ‘social solidarity’ can have negative connotations. Individual aspiration has been a central value within capitalism that has been internalized by populations, particularly as institutions promoting an alternative message have tended to decline… Again, socialists can also insist that the alleged antithesis between the individual and the community is a false one and that they have always believed that cooperation is as much a means to individual self-realization as a value for its own sake. Certainly, this has been combined with a strong commitment to the value of comradeship, which Marx expressed vividly in his Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts… This is perhaps a romantic view, but it encapsulates an important idea: that cooperation can lead to a sense of community and shared purpose to attain goals that cannot be realized through purely individual action. If this suggests voluntary cooperation, it must also be acknowledged that there may be elements of compulsion in the notion of social solidarity. For it assumes that part of the totalwealth created by any society must be devoted to collective provision or public goods, such as health and education. Socialists will want this element to be as large as possible, but this will be contested on a variety of grounds that are at the heart of capitalist logic: for example, that those who are the most productive shouldkeep the wealth because they have earned it, or that social redistribution undermines incentives to enterprise and rewards the idle.

If socialists accept democracy, this involves acceptance of a multiparty system. One or more of these parties will be favoured as a vehicle for promoting and implementing socialist policies for, despite all the obvious criticisms that can be made of them, parties remain indispensable agencies for change. However, this doesnot involve confining political activity to them or to established institutional channels. Social movements have demonstrated the effectiveness of single-issue campaigns, and various kinds of direc action have long-standing democratic legitimacy. Similarly, trade unions are clearly important means of defending and promotingthe interests of working people, and the relative resilience of social democracy in Sweden has been related to the fact that trade union membership is particularly high there. All this suggests that a 21st-century socialist concept of democracy would seek to incorporate aspects of both the representative and more participatory traditions… A second lesson from 20th-century experience is that socialists still need to develop viable economic strategies. Central planning has had some successes e.g. cuba, healthcare and education. Nevertheless, at a certain stage of development, central planning has impeded innovation and introduced inefficiency and corruption; and it seems probable that the problems stem from the theoretical inadequacy of the conception itself. Many once believed that the Yugoslav system of self-management at regional level might offer a viable alternative to the centrally planned economy, but this too has now been severely criticized. Since the very rapid recent growth rates in China (and, to an extent, Vietnam) have been based on the controlled introduction of the capitalist market, there appears to be no really positive model of a socialist economy at present… Because of the relative failure of centrally planned economies, the erosion of Keynesianism, and the apparent impracticability of taking

privately owned international corporations into public control, from the 1980s onwards many socialists began to consider alternative ways of combining plans and markets. The debate was initiated by Alec Nove in The Economics of Feasible Socialism in 1983 and attracted a great deal of interest, with many different versions – some of which veered more towards the plan and some more towards the market. This was also coupled with an interest in a variety of different forms of ownership, including cooperatives, decentralized public ownership, and mixed companies of both private and public capital. A further variation has been in schemes to use the state’s purchasing power to provide support for ventures with growth and innovation potential. Many of these ideas have been very stimulating, but apart from the practical problems of winning support for such schemes, there are many remaining theoretical issues to be resolved. It seems that socialists have not yet been able, with any confidence, to put forward an alternative to the planned economy, on the one hand, or Keynesian demand management, on the other.

I would argue that there are overwhelming reasons, both ethical and practical, for suggesting that 21st-centurysocialism must be internationalist. 21st-century socialists will need to accept that particular identities (including those of nationality, ethnicity, and religion) have enduring importance to people, whooften also possess multiple identities. Socialists will need to ensure that their doctrine is both compatible with this fact and perceived as being compatible, even whilst being internationalist. All that can be said here is that the general direction of socialism should be to advance towards equality between countries at different levels of development and to attempt to construct forms of transnational solidarity and cooperation. While progress in these spheres would be difficult in any circumstances, the problems are currently vastly increased by the overweening power of the US in the world. At present, Washington is opposed to any international regimes that might limit its autonomy and is willing to use its power to thwart their development. This situation is not likely to change in the near future, but there are important elements of opposition both from other states (including some of the most powerful) and global social movements which share the insistence of socialists that ‘another world is possible’.

Probs with marx: . In the early 21st century, with the fragmentation of the working classes, and the decline in their support for socialism, this no longer seems plausible. And if the proletariat will not necessarilytake up its appointed task, who will? There is surely no clear answer to this question, nor any certainty that socialism will advance. What can be maintained with confidence is that capitalism will not be able to resolve the problems and injustices that it causes, that there will be constant protests in one form or another, and thatsocialist arguments remain relevant. However, it is the task of socialists to help create that consciousness, not to assume, as Miliband once put it in a different context, that there is ‘an historical escalator . . . inevitably carrying them to the promised land’.

Yet surely socialism, rather than piecemeal reform, will have no future unless it also follows the advice of Oscar Wilde and remembers: A map of the world that does not include Utopia is not worth evenglancing at, for it leaves out the one country at which Humanity is always landing. And when Humanity lands there, it looks out, and, seeing a better country, sets sail. Progress is the realization of Utopias.

Socialism in an age of affluence- Noel Thompson

The nature of capitalism had fundamentally altered- could no longer be described as capitalism- Socialism a new statement of principles (1952) – “full employment, planning control, housing programmes, social security, the NHS, progressive taxation have produced a situation to which no ready made label can be attached”

Roy Jenkins- In pursuit of progress (1953)- Britain that existed- “well- removed from the capitalism in the traditional sense of the work”; what had emerged was “a managerial society controlled by a privileged elite”

Richard Crossman- ‘welfare capitalism’- John Strachey- ‘last-stage capitalism’

Power was no longer monopolized by a class of capitalist owners- state possessed authority/responsibility in the economic sphere

Nationalization/full employment- limit power of capitalists 1) circumscribing an area of the economy 2) enhancing bargaining power of TUs

Managerial class effectively taken power out of the capitalists hands- Jenkins- “partly to the state, partly to their own managers and partly to the trade unions”

Professional manager- not motivated by profit but by “social prestige”- “by gaining a reputation as a progressive employer”. “the new style executive…subconsciously longed for the approval of society”

“aggressive individualism of the capitalist entrepreneur” had given way to a ‘suave and sophisticated sociability”

Future of Socialism- If the demise of Capitalism was a fait accompli, then much contemporary socialist thinking was effectively redundant;

Public Ownership

Crosland considered three options:

1) Appraise the Fabian argument for ownership- conscious economic planning- designed to ensure that resoures were allocated to the satisfaction of real social needs rather than the indulgent desires of the rich- market could now be relied upon

Full employment, social welfare etc meant that “production for use and production for profit may be taken as broadly coinciding now that working-class purchasing power is so high. What is profitable is what the consumer finds useful and the firm and the consumer desire broadly the same allocation of resources”

2) Required to give planners the power to ensure full and efficient allocation of resources. Extension of ownership not required to fulfill this, rather political will- “If socialists want bolder planning …they must choose bolder Ministers”

3) Redistributive measure- equitable distribution of the surplus that would otherwise accrue to capitalists. Rejected this also.

Public ownership ceased to be important: “production for use and production for profit may be taken as broadly coinciding now that working-class purchasing power is so high. What is profitable is what the consumer finds useful and the firm and the consumer desire broadly the same allocation of resources”

Tried to renounce clause IV after its third successive electoral defeat in 1959

Nationalization of 45-51-The public corporations Labour had created were in the Morrisonian mould (effectively autonomous as regards the day to day running of the industry) and, for some, this posed problems for the pursuit of socialist ends.

Saw this as inimical to socialist planning- Keeping Left (1950) – “we are prevented byit [their autonomy] from integrating their price policies into national economic planning . . . they cannot be used to influence the price mechanism according to social priorities. We thus rob ourselves of a flexible and useful tool in the task of correlating demand and supply”

Bevan- 1952 In Place of Fear- may lay basis not for socialism but for new managerialism- “we have still to ensure that they [the boards of nationalized industries] are taking us towards democratic socialism, not towards the Managerial Society.”

Socialism, a new statement of principle – “a managerial society’, a society that ‘is in essence run by administrators out of reach of popular control. By virtue of their role and responsibility – in Government, in industry, in the social services – these rulers can easily come to treat ordinary folk not as persons but as means to an end.”

Reinforce capitalists- “alliance with the powerful representatives of the old order”

Crosland not heuristic of Labour Party as a whole- Gaitskell- “It still remains true that nationalisation of the means of production, distribution and exchange should assist the advance to greater equality, contribute to a full employment policy, associate with the power to make important decisions a far greater sense of national responsibility, ease the development of industrial democracy and diminish the bitterness and friction in economic relationships”

Similarly Roy Jenkins- ‘The case for public ownership’, he wrote, ‘is essentially a political case tied up with the stability of the whole economy and the transference of a great concentration of economic power from private to public control

John Strachey- Contemporary Capitalism- Economic power threatened to “submerge political power”

State of “antagonistic balance”- between “democracy and last-stage capitalism”

‘no decisive advance to socialism can be made without breaking the class monopoly in the ownership of the means of production’ by ‘major measures of nationalization”

Speaking of Crosland: if socialists “lost sight of the ownership of the means of production they will cease, in a very real sense, to be socialists at all: they will subside into the role of well intentioned, amiable, rootless, drifting, social reformers”

Keeping Left- Ownership a moral issue- “we regard irresponsible economic power as morally wrong; and we believe that a democracy can become a genuinely democratic society only when economic power has been made its servant and not its master”

Planning and the price mechanism

Nature of state involvement in economy

Crosland saw it in Keynesian terms- right balance between consumption, investment and government expenditure via a “skilful and determined fiscal policy”

When it came to the efficient allocation of resources, Crosland tended therefore to advocate an increasing reliance on the market mechanism.

“What is profitable is what the consumer finds useful and the firm and the consumer desire broadly the same allocation of resources”

Redistribution

Crosland- “despite the levelling of incomes since the war we still retain in Britain a deeper sense of class, a more obvious social stratification and stronger class resentments than any of the Scandinavian, Australasian or North American countries”

Classless society would not be reached by redistribution

Remove the divisive social effects of occupational prestige, accent and vocabulary and differing lifestyles

First could be eliminated by inherent egalitarianism of American style management pratices with their dissolution of status divisions in the work place. Comprehensive education would help remove socio-cultural divisiveness of accent and vocabulary, greater uniformity could emerge in the wake of rising tide of contemporary affluence

As regards the last point, Crosland believed that ‘the higher the average level of real income, whatever the distribution, the greater the subjective sense of social equality’

Jenkins- Public ownership a means to greater equality- “a substantial extension of public ownership [wa]s . . . an essential prerequisite of greater equality of earned incomes”

Gaitskell- ‘the extension of public ownership . . . it seems to me . . . is almost certainly necessary if we are to have a much more equal distribution of wealth”

Class Conflict

Along with the belief that capitalism had been stabilized and/or transformed by a combination of Keynesianism, welfarism and selective public ownership went the view that, in consequence, social conflict had, and would increasingly assume a form qualitatively different from that which had characterized Western societies since the onset of the industrial revolution.

Early as 1940- Evan Durbin- “The proletariat…have acquired.. many of the characteristics . . . typical of the petit bourgeoisie”

Crosland- “spread of middle class psychology”

“The militant language of class war, the terminology of revolt and counter-revolt’ were now redundant”

“One aspect of this embourgeoisement was the emergence of bourgeois consumer tastes among a significant section of the working population: a development which led some to believe that henceforward the advance to socialism would be judged by reference not just to the liberty, equality and fraternity but also to the material affluence that it made possible”

The managerial revolution, with its increasing divorce of ownership from control had entailed the emergence of a new breed of industrial leaders whose priority was the maximization of their, and the enterprise’s, social standing, rather than the maximization of profits.

De-prioritization of the economic

Crosland- Economic politics- characteristic “of any country or situation to which a Marxist analysis might plausibly be applied. Thus they are typical of periods of growing pauperisation, depression and mass unemployment, falling real wages and sharp polarisation of classes.” In such circumstances “economic issues are the main determinants of political attitudes”

“social politics”- ‘characteristic of periods of prosperity, rising incomes, full employment and inflation, when attention is diverted from economic to social issues”

“The pre-war reasons for a large economic orientation are . . . steadily losing their relevance and we can increasingly divert our energies into more fruitful and idealistic channels and to fulfilling earlier and more fundamental socialist aspirations”

Davis- Marxism and the British New Left

Stuart Hall- British New Left “always regarded Marxism as a problem, as trouble, as danger, not as solution’ but has nevertheless characterized himself as ‘working within shouting distance of Marxism, working on Marxism, working against Marxism, working with it, working to try to develop Marxism”

“what was distinctive and important about the British New Left was its sustained attempt to broker new Marxist ideas and reinterpret older ones, within a specifically British ideological and political context which also furnished influences, that shaped the development of New left thought”

“Naturalisation” process- ideas introduced and assimilated with British intellectual traditions

“The New Left… best seen as a product of a crisis, a locus of experimentation around a creative, critical attempt to rethink socialism in the wake of Stalinism and in specifically British conditions”

Interpreting the New Left

Open up a new theoretical-political space- alternative to both Stalinism and Social Democracy.

Intersected with other movement- America, 1968- however is generally seen as somewhat unique (intellectual formation influenced more strongly by ex-Communism and Marxism)

Distinct the ‘third’ space of Trotskyism- deep concern for culture however difficult to establish meaning, always relies somewhat on interpretation

Mike Kenny- ‘Understanding both its history and “meaning” are thus relatively complex exercises in which different levels of intellectual argument and political action need to be addressed’

First and Second new left creates a “false dichotomous logic”- when in actuality there was continuity and complementarity between the two, though with individuals often disagreeing

Davis- favours- “broad definition prioritizing the location of the New Left outside ideological orthodoxy…commitment to socialism…recognition that socialism itself must be opened to critical scrutiny”

The Reasoner (journal founded by dissident communist party members)- fundamental questions- “what is socialism?”

Whilst- ULRers (University Left Review)- “socialism at full stretch- as relevant only in so far as it is relevant to the full scale of man’s activities”

Transition of 62-3 (Anderson taking over editorship of NLR)- best seen as a shift in emphasis rather than a break

Naturalising Marxism

1) Marxism became synonymous with ‘Communist Party’- create ‘independent marxism’ ‘neo’- Marxism

2) Move away from Stalinism/Economism- focus on Agency/Culture- new cultural forms and consumer capitalism

3) Severing link between political practice and theory (1956) enabled a certain intellectualism to take hold

Thompson- “alliance of historical materialism with native radical lineages”- The Making of the Working Class (1963)

Williams- integration of New Marxist influences with older traditions of literary and cultural criticism pioneered a non-reductionist, materialist interpretation of culture”

Socialist Humanism

“(re)affirmation of a libertarian, humanist Communist tradition to counterpose to Stalinism”

Thompson’s Essay- “socialist humanism”- “one of the cardinal falsehoods of Stalinism…was…the attempt to derive all analysis of political manifestations directly…from economic causations, the belittling of the part played by men’s ideas and moral attitudes in the making of history”

Represented a distortion of Marxism- which involved a “dialectical interaction between social consciousness..and social being”- base/superstructure taken by stalin as a mechanical metaphor- “operating …independently of conscious human agency”

KEY INFLUENCE:

William Morris- “the insights of William morris his discoveries about man’s potential moral nature, were not icing on the Marxist gingerbread but were complimentary to the discoveries of Marx”

Socialist humanism- organizing principle of early New Left- historians with the CPGB (Hobsbawm, Rodney Hilton, john Saville and Thompson)- class struggle analysis- writing history from the bottom-up

Problems:

“idealized presentation of the people and blindness to the range of possibilities raised by the relationship between the people and politics”- the possibility of reactionary rather than progressive popular tradition

Culture and contemporary British Capitalism

Reaffirming communist principles was no part of their project- “socialist intellectuals should face the damage which Stalinism and welfare capitalism have done to socialist values”- rooted firmly in contemporary capitalism

“revitalizing socialism would require new concepts…not simply reaffirmation of older ones

Stuart Hall- “Marx’s work itself..is a body of analytic concepts not a sealed house of theory”

- novelty of the ULR- treatment of British class relations

Recongnized that new technology, communications/ consumerism had the potential to reinforce capitalist dominace

Richard Hoggart’s The Uses of Literary- - traditional working class life threatened by encroaching ‘mass culture’

Raymond Williams- Culture and Society- critique of Hoggart (overly idealized, sympathetic view of working class and overestimation of effects)- “These changes are changes in the use of personal things, and have nothing to do with becoming ‘bourgeois’ in any real sense”

Stuart Hall- “A Sense of Classlessness”- Question as one of class-consciousness, or the subjective awareness of class identity- in a new situation- “capitalism as a social system is now based upon consumption rather than production”

The dynamics have fundamentally altered- “the subjective factors determining ‘class consiousness’ have radically changed, the working class can develop a false sense of ‘classlessness’.

Even if objective relations stayed the same:

“the new capitalism recognizes and tries to cater for, at least in form, the human problems of industrial society, which in substance socialism first named. But these are only falsely attended to, resulting in a false consciousness in working-class people, making the real problems not only more difficult to solve but more difficult to see”

New Communication Media- “not peripheral to economic base: they are a part of it”- base/superstructure model has to be discarded “reconceptualised to allow for mutual interpretation”

Wiiliams- Culture and Society- “an account and an interpretation of our responses in thought and feeling to changes in English society”- definition of culture as “whole way of life”

Challenge- “culture and civilization” debate- Leavis/Arnold- elite bias and distrust of mass/popular culture- “he insisted that culture must be considered constitutive and not merely reflective of the social order

Williams engaged more with Marxism- Lukacs, Goldmann, Gramsci- “cultural materialism”- described his theoretical position- “a theory of the specificities of material, cultural and literary production within historical materialism”

The Althusserian Movement

Critique of Hegelian and Marxist humanism- ‘epistemological break’- around 1845- broke with Hegel and Idealism and founded ‘historical materialism’

Using structuralist methodology- meaning were to be found as much in lacunae and unconscious influences as in Marx’s written words; he therefore needed to be read ‘symptomatically’- a theory of Marxism as ‘structural causality’- anti-humanist, anti-historicist.

Marx grasped society as a totality- unity constituted by the inter-relationships between the distinct ‘relatively autonomous’ levels of economy, politics and ideology- each with its own internal rhythms of development. Economic said to be determining- not in a straightforward way- could not be separated from the structure of society as a whole

“What Althusser’s ‘scientific’ Marxism offered was a non-stalinist alternative to Marxist humanism that did not fall into economic reductionism”

Thompson’s attack on Althusserianism- “Stalinism at last, theorized as ideology”

Contrary to Thompson- Althusserianism allowed for a more penetrating critique of Stalinism, of the humanist reaction to it, and of the Althusserian counter-reaction

Anderson’s Arguments Within English Marxism

Structuralism and culture- enabled “the recognition of culture as a site where meanings were produced as well as experienced”

Limitations of structuralism- problem of scientific theory to political practice- 1968 cemented this.

Gramscism

Used more widely in England than any other country:

“political stabilization and regulation in advanced capitalist societies, their resources of cultural and ideological ‘hegemony’, the dynamic and flexible nature of political alliances, the recognition of civil society as a terrain of political organisation and struggle, and the need for the Left to break out of an ‘economic-corporate’ outlook and construct a hegemonic politics of its own.”- David Forgacs

“His idea of hegemony as a process of negotiation and a site of struggle, rather than something simply delivered by social and class structures, helped theorists of culture overcome the rigidity of Althusser’s theory and legitimized attention to popular culture”

New left maintained a ‘radical edge’- not just theorize but to “recognize and articulate forms and sites of resistance to that dominance, whether articulated in class or non-class ways”

Analysis of mass culture- “creation of oppositional identities amongst youth subcultures, and their political potential….agency in new social movements….however…emphasis on forms of resistance within working class culture”

Stuart Hall used ‘post-althusserian’ reading of Gramsci to analyze the specific dynamics of a novel hegemonic project that Hall termed ‘authoritarian populism’

CPBG- small section- intersecting with the rise of eurocommunism- marked shift in strategy for the party. Emphasis on culture/ideology/consent in reproducing capitalist dominance. Critique of economism/corporatism of British Labour movement- rise in ‘new social movements’- deduced a new for the left to construct the broadest possible alliances at the cultural and ideological level, if it was to mount a successful counter-hegemonic challenge.

Critique of Gramsci by Anderson- “ascribe[d] to great a role to civil society and consent at the expense of sufficient attention to the state and domination

“in so far as Gramsci at times suggested that consent primarily pertained to civil society, and civil society possessed primacy over the State, he allowed the conclusion that bourgeois class power was primarily consensual. In this form, the idea of hegemony tends to accredit the notion that the dominant mode of bourgeois power in the West—‘culture’—is also the

determinant mode, either by suppressing the latter or fusing the two together. It thereby omits the unappealable role in the last instance of force”Retrenchment and recombination

Overestimation of the political possibilities of cultural change:

Williams- “The price that was paid for that consciousness [of changing cultural patterns] was an underestimate of everything that had not changed in contemporary capitalism. It was widely felt that some of the classical Marxist problems belonged to a past phase, and you could move on through them. The result was a radical underestimate of the political power of the capitalist state”

A Sense of Classlessness- Stuart Hall

Alteration in older notions of class difficult to analyze- “uneven development”- urban areas/countryside

Post-war boom and high levels of employment have made possible new spending habits amongst working people

- different tasts- “homemaking” and “interior decoration”- part of a new style of urban life

(Hall brings up Urban house- could these developments not be symptomatic of a wanton heterodoxy in an other wise homogenous living environment?)

Still retention of older working class habits- however- “Where does the old end, and where does the new- the real not the superficially new- begin, this maze of gradual accomodations?”

Older forms of work- that Marx would have recognized still remain, though with safety legislation- yet ‘technological’ industries (chemical, automotive) “have changed out of all recognition”

Raymond Williams- consumer goods do not represent a fundamental change- " The working class does not become bourgeois by owning the new products, any more than the bourgeois ceases to be bourgeois as the objects he owns change in kind." (C+S p.324)

Distinction between Working Class/ Middle Class has been through conception of society- bourgeois notion where an individual tries to “realize himself through personal effort and competitiveness; and the working class notion of society as a cooperative entity- where ‘the primary affections and allegiances, first family, then neighbourhood, can in fact be directly extended into social relationships as a whole, so that idea of a collective democratic society is at once on direct experience, and is available, as an idea, to other who wish to subscribe to it” (Raymond Williams)

Proletariat created as a defense against the encroachments of bourgeois society- sustained protected excesses of industrialism etc

Marx saw this- “not merely surviving onto, but itself creating conditions of prosperity and abundance”

Class Consciousness

Central problem way in which objective and subjective factors shaped and humanized industrial working class

Base/superstructure- “we need to break the ‘economic, base’ down into constituent factors, permitting a much freer play in our interpretation between base and superstructure”

Concerned with changing pattern of life, attitudes and values- particular responses to a particular situation- in vulgar Marxist interpretation- “ideological superstructure”

New Factors

1) factors that shaped the “consciousness of class”- have changed radically with the development of capitalism- those sectors susceptible to institutional/technological change.

- Private property revolutionalized- no longer vested within a single person, a ‘robber baron’. Property now ‘corporate property’, shares in an anonymous, complex, modern industrial firm”

- Responsibility has devolved to the point where nobody knows who is responsible for what

2) Profits and Wages (“the rate of exploitation”)- uneven development- wages and living standards have been seen to rise – general trend throughout society. Has led to an agreement for the need for greater competitiveness- American style unions etc. The middle classes have not become proletarianized

People’s Capitalism

Accumulation of capital/profit- still the primary motivators- “organizing principles”

However: Accumulation progressively less performed on the open market and more through retained profits

Also, Profits (tendency of the rate to fall)- stability take place over a longer period of time. Effective demand must be maintained, provided profit levels can be maintained.

Advertising- give aways- maintain demand

“these are the mechanism of ‘people’s capitalism’

Marx alienation of labour: “the work is external to the worker, that it is not a part of his nature, that consequently he does not fulfil himself in his work but denies himself, has a feeling of misery, not of well-being, does not develop freely a physical and mental energy, but is physically exhausted and mentally debased. The worker therefore feels himself at home only during his leisure, whereas at work he feels homeless.”

Does this apply in new technology/chemicals?

“mechanization and automation”- 1) Not as physically arduous, though probably as mentally repetitive

Skilled worker/ Minor technologist- line broken down

The MOP- wheels and machines- have disappeared in the technological industries

It is not work is any less external- but rather that that “externality” is accepted as a part of the necessary technical development

Could humanize the 19th textile workshop but not the computer (Marcuse)

Automated work demands a higher level of culture, education and consciousness on the part of skilled labour force- MOP raise level of consciousness- greater participation in human activities “social relation of production”- associated with work

Marx’s saw this development as greater participation- development of capitalism has seen greater “personalization”- excluding ownership- from above

‘personnel management’ etc- (Williams)

Marx- workers unconscious of alienation- today- alienation built into the structure of the firm

“Joint consultation” and “personnel relations” is a form of false consciousness”, part of the ideology of consumer capitalism, and the rhetoric of scientific management

The Habit of Consumption

Fetishism- Marx- “the more powerful becomes the world of objects which creates in face of himself”- imbue commodities with value that belongs comes from humans

Marx’s theories based on labour and production- now economic theories are based on consumption

Not because of development of theories but because of development of capitalism

Marx- fixed upon the creation of alien objects- commodities- which took on an independent life of their own, apart from their usefulness- in the commodity market

19th century- workers could not consumer products- now the producer can also be the consumer

“Indeed, consumption has been so built into capitalism that it has become the significant relationship between the working class and the employing class”

The worker knows himself much more as consumer than as producer- prices cleaner form of exploitation than wages.

Advertising- “to condition the worker to the new possibilities for consumption, to break down the class resistances to consumer-purchase which became part of working class consciousness at an earlier period.”

Status Value

Commodities have “accumulated a social value as well. They have become insignias of class and status.”

Social status- “raise their class position by buying certain kind of goods”

The gap between exploiters and exploited maybe the same but the “sense of difference has been blunted”- Working class, lower middle class can now realize themselves through the purchase of “alien things”

Capitalism is now based on consumption. Both in consumption and production, the working class is gradually becoming factors in its own permanent alienation”

Though Williams may have been correct- that the working class do not becomes bourgeois by buying products- “it is a whole way of life”- this may be less true because “new things” in themselves suggest an dimply a way of life which has become objectified through them”

Whole way of life now differentiated by style of living

“When the old sense of class begins to break up, and while a new pattern of class emerges, the society is not merely fluid- it can appear more free and ‘open’”

culture, education and learning (commodities) have “accreted to themselves a social value in a hierarchy of status symbols”

Instead of broadening out of culture as living standards and MOP develop there is a cultural discontinuity- “a gap between an increasingly skilled working class and the riches of culture”Creeping up the ladder

Aspirational culture- “once the notion of the ladder itself has entered its consciousness as a necessary part of life, there is nothing left but perpetual forms of striving”

Not the great struggles of accumulation- Morgan vs Rockefeller- but the blander struggle- Smith Vs Jones- in public consumption

Sets up a community against each other, as individuals. “for a class as a class cannot advance by means of it. We must go it alone”

Opportunities seized at the expense of others- “By means of the image of a social ladder, the other images of bourgeois life- individualism, privacy, “the spirit of healthy competition”, “cultivating one’s own garden” (Crosland’s metaphor for happiness), “a property owning democracy”- finally enter working class consciousness”

(individual opportunity against the concept of the improvement of the whole community.)

Raymond Williams- Culture and Society- “the conversion of the defensive element of solidarity into the wider and more positive practice of neighborhood”- development of the widening of the concept of community to the wider society

Rivalries in status in neighborhoods can flourish- facilitated by consumption

" Homemaking " and " gardening " are not community skills, but subtle modes of status differentiation and striving, a new kind of individualism which enters working class lives, so to speak, " with the new furniture, Woman's Realm and The Practical Householder "

Does not mean that there are no classes left- “where subjective factors determining class consciousness alter radically, a working class can develop a false sense of classlessness”

C Wright Mills- The power elite- “interpenetrating elite, or narrow oligarchies.. function difference but who share a common “style of life”, a common ideology, and a common economic interest through the “mutual care” of corporate property: on the other hand, a permanently exploited, permanently alienated “mass of consumers”

This mass have not be proletarianized downwards but upwards towards middle class levels

A Series of Life Styles

But what we need to ask is not " who are the masses ? " but " why is it necessary in our society for people to be seen, and be persuaded to see themselves as ' the masses ' ? " It is necessary because this sense of classlessness, which can only be engendered by the persuasive use of a formula, must exist before people will accept their own cultural and economic exploitation.

Mass communication industry, advertising- “instill new images of the self”- “they are not peripheral to the economic base: they are a part of it”

“One cannot organize militantly to keep up with the Joneses”- many must hate being caught in the rat race- but what else can they do.

“That is the tragic conflict with a working class which has freed itself only for new and more subtle forms of enslavement”

Socialist have to deal with the central paradox of modern capitalism- “period when leisure and comparative livings standards are becoming possible”

“discontinuities in the experience of classlessness between different regions and different industries of which I spoke

Within the industrial countries, the material and technological means for complete human freedom — a freedom within which man could develop a true individuality and a true consciousness of himself and his possibilities— are almost to hand.

“But the structure of human, social and moral relationships are in complete contradiction and have to be set over against our material advances, when we are reckoning them up. Until we can throw over the system within which these relationships take place, and the kind of consciousness which feeds the system and upon which it feeds, the working class will be men as things for other people, but they can never be men for themselves.”

Arguing Affluence: New Left Contributions to the Socialist debate

Davis

The term ‘affluence’ used an “organizing perspective”- despite Britain’s relative decline

‘age of affluence’- sandwiched between post-war boom and stagflation of 1970s

predominant themes of birth of mass society-, consumerism, changing class composition, the importance of communication media

Affluence was as much a subjective and discursive construction as an objective reality.

Not simply contest between revisionists and fundamentalist- degree of ambivalence between within these two. Also centrality of common ownership to socialism—including the early New Left—employed a wider range of arguments than the ‘fundamentalist’

Lawrence Black- made Left guilty of “enormous condescension of prosperity”- “more than votes…socialists lost confidence that history pointed toward their vision”

Higher working-class incomes, the welfare state, the emergence of new ‘white collar’ occupations, advertising, wider availability of credit and consumer goods, greater educational opportunity, and suburbanization were among the developments credited with fostering social mobility, reducing class disparities and inaugurating a ‘mass society’.

Common ground between New Left and Revisionists- engage rather than reject affluence, placing emphasis on the ethical foundations of socialism

However, there were fundamental divergences- concepts of equality and community

Ben Jackson- “egalitarian aspirations need not be restricted to a demand for fairer shares of resources or opportunities, but could also invoke an ideal of community”

New Left- organicist conception- perspectives were informed by a humanist interpretation of socialism in which the values of equality, community, and democratic control over productive life were seen as essential and inseparable elements

What is Happening to British Capitalism?

Critical question: Crossman- If welfare capitalism can provide the majority with security, how can we ever persuade them to prefer Socialism?

A. A. Berle and G. C. Means, The Modern Corporation and Private Property (New York, 1932)

J. Burnham The Managerial Revolution (New York, 1941)

Crosland argued- 1952- “that the dispersal of ownership through shareholding, and the transfer within firms of decision- making power to non-owning managers, meant that the propertied class had ‘lost its traditional capitalist function’, and with it its economic power

Growth of “independent intermediate power” of the state and the advent of welfare and social services, this meant that capitalism had effectively been superseded by ‘post-capitalist society’ or ‘statism’. Government could control without the necessity of public ownership

Future of Socialism-eradication of poverty and unemployment- Britain stood on the threshold of mass abundance

Prioritize equality and welfare- no major extension of collectivization was needed

Industry and society (adoption 1957)- repeated claims about capitalists change and that nationalization was no longer appropriate

Greater state control- distinct from ownership- of industry through measure shares such as the acquisition of shares in large capitalist enterprise.

Multi-authored- The Insiders- dangerous complacency of the revisionist attitude to the new corporate capitalism: ”The authors [of I&S] can see the managers, but they are blind to the complex power structure of the giant oligopolies, in which wealth, power, status and control are interchangeable and interlinked”

Shareholding less dispersed than assumed- Drew on Sargent Florence aswell- such dispersal had made it easier to for a small group of shareholders to wield effective control- “oligarchic minority owners control”

Disputed the I&S assertion that “automatic capital gains of industry” could continue

Tory prosperity sees as a “lucky conjuncture of favourable conditions”

“separation of ownership and control was a myth, and the effects of the ‘managerial revolution’ exaggerated by the revisionists”

The Conservative Enemy – 1962- “In the majority of large firms the divorce between ownership and control is virtually complete”

Ralph Samuel- Out of Apathy- Bastard Capitalism (1960)- “Capitalism…has undergone a ‘bastardization’ of its classic forms, while yet retaining its fundamental social character”

Welfare- Crosland- progress towards Socialism-John Savile “the welfare state served the requirements of capitalist efficiency by raising the productivity of labour: it was the ransom property had realized it must pay for political security, and ‘essentially bourgeois’ in nature”

Ralph Miliband- “Transition to Transition”- “Marginal collectivism….is the now the price capitalism has learnt it must pay as a condition of its survival as a more or less going economic concern. No advanced industrial system is now capable of operating at even the bare minimum efficiency without it”

- Represented an adaptation not a transformation of capitalism

Dorothy Thompson- disagreed with Miliband and Saville- welfare represented a victory for the working class- “essentially anti-capitalist”- “the Welfare Services… are based on conceptions of social responsibility and human dignity which do not belong to the economic system of greed and self- seeking which still dominates our society”

Hall- truly decent public provision could not be achieved in Capitalism- “an economy which is capable of dealing profitably in consumer goods and personal conveniences . . . but which is incapable of dealing with major areas of our social life”

Charles Taylor- “a society where commercial values are uppermost”

Anderson- critique of Crosland and The New Left- Sweden- “”significant distribution of wealth and a more extensive welfare state, indicated that social priorities could be given strong weighting within a predominantly private owner economy”.

1) New left criticisms wanting- only considered the “pure, irreducible essence” and not contingent, local factors

2) Capitalism’s priorities were set too “anthropomorphic. It suggests that actual individual men consciously decide to sacrifice social needs for private lucre”

Capitalism in actual fact “a social praxis in alienation from all its agents, at all its levels”

Common ownership not the sole route, however, “as the only means to secure human an democratic control of production, an end to alienation and the realization of man’s social essence in a classless community”

Common Ownership: De-Alienation, Community and Control

Industry and Society- historic reasons for public ownership was the perception that it would auger “a new spirit in industrial and economic life- cooperation and fellowship in place of the competitive struggle for gain which was the very essence of capitalist enterprise”

Crosland- treatment of “cooperative aspiration”, very weak- “while I accept that it would clearly be in some sense ‘better’ if there were a more general awareness of a common social purpose, I do not feel able, in what is intended to be a reasonably definite and practical statement of socialist aims, to include this as part of the goal”

“ethic of responsibility” rather than an “ethic of ultimate ends”

Viewed aims of effection a “change in the basic ‘social character’, or the creation of a largely novel institutional framework as abstract and utopian, as well as potentially authoritarian”

New left- ethic of socialism precisely this “society of equal, a cooperative community”- would require the transformation of human values and priorities

Thompson- “we must affirm the thought which is central to socialism…that man is capable not only of changing his conditions but also of transforming himself: that there is a real sense in which it is true that men can master their won history”

New Left- Ends are contained in the means- Crosland appeal to socialist values as shallow/opportunistic

Socialism was not a list of distinct aspirations that could be trimmed down to fit the times; rather, it was constituted by the mutual dependence and interrelatedness of its values.

Decoupling of socialism from nationalization departure from socialist principles- “Socialism offers an end for economic activity totally different from that which can be pursued in contemporary capitalist society”- The Insiders

Thompson- “it is true, of course, that the replacement of production for profit by production for use is (from one standpoint) only a means to the attainment of a Society of Equals. True also that it is only one means among many. But what is obscured in this argument is that without the replacement of the dynamic of the profit motive all other means will prove ineffectual, and it is the definition of this as an essential means which distinguishes the socialist tradition”

However:

Recognized the statist forms this had assumed

Miliband- “socialism without common ownership is an absurd contradiction in terms”- didn’t go far enough

The Insiders- “Nationalization is not enough. It expropriates the capitalist but cannot itself free the worker”

Williams- Long Revolution- Labour Nationalization- taken ownership of the least profitable (Coal, Railways) “failed to reverse profit before use…reproduced the same human patterns as capitalist industries”

Worker’s control- became the lynchpin- Cole- Guild Socialism-“ guild socialism essentially proposed replacing ‘the bondage of wagery’ by a system of democratically organized industrial guilds, to include all labour in a given industry

1959- Brank Pribicevic – former student of Cole- defined worker’s control as “the replacement of the capitalist industrial system by a new industrial order in which the industries of the country will be controlled (partly or completely by associations of the workers employed in those industries”

Wider humanist orientation- “alienation”- critical- “separation of man from his species being”

The insiders- “democratization of power”- 1950s large firm similar to capitalist development in previous phases, though unique in its “exclusion of the worker from virtually all personal responsibility and initiative in his work itself”- intensified alienation through its tendencies to centralization of economic power, greater hierarchy, and more complex specialized production methods.

Socialist must pursue “full industrial democracy”

Transformation, of economic, political, social power and the nature of work itself- “We have to seek for those forms of social and economic organisation in industry which can draw upon the creative capacities and the initiative and imagination of those who work.”

Anderson- Sweden still class divided, contrary to Mr Crosland

Began to make serious efforts to influence Labour policy- 1959- Gaitskell campaign to update Clause IV- reflect de facto acceptance of mixed economy

Clive Jenkins- five propositions to devolve power in nationalized corporations- “absolute worker authority in such questions as working arrangements, hiring and dismissals, selection of their own supervisors, and the inclusion of worker’s representatives on Managing Boards.

Promote workers’ control as a strategy to restore efficiency and confidence in the nationalized industries.

Importantly New Left- recommended a “transformation of the role and methods of work of the trade unions”- shift away from sectional interests and short term demands (Williams)- towards a more strategic and solidaristic politics

Richard Crossman- though agreeing with the revisionist case, of the need to shift from economic to moral concerns- agreed that public ownership should not be on the groudns of economic efficiency but rather on promoting democracy and freedom.

Critical- “of the vast centralized state bureaucracy”- nationalization as a basis for offering workers “ a real share in the control of the industry”

New Left socialist ethic distinctive- Marxist humanism – emphasizing de-alienation and community: man self-realizing as a creative producer, controlling and disposing of the products of his own ingenuity through democratic and cooperative means, to achieve a human status for man as worker, and to create a genuine community among men.

Common ownership, in the sense of human control over production in a democratic and classless community, was both means and ends

Crosland’s rejection of Marxism- “little or nothing to offer the contemporary socialist, either in respect of practical policy, or the correct analysis of our society, or even of the right conceptual tools or framework”- very skewed, misinformed interpretation of Marx

Dismissed workers’ control- “the idea that the worker is an impotent wage slave, contemptuously and ruthlessly exploited, bears no relation to modern conditions. We now need obvious reason, a from of organisation which is consistent with efficiency and innovation, as well as with democracy, and this the traditional ideas do not provide”

New Left/ Revisionist missed an opportunity for debate on workers’ control- Peter Sedgwick – “the modern socialist should be in favour of the expropriation of the expropriators and workers’ control of industry . . . he would also emphasise national planning of the economy. Whether he must also argue of some sort of ownership is very questionable. Ownership, as distinct from the actual powers that workers will have over the state and factories, is rather an elusive concept”

The Affluent Worker

Social and political effect of rising living standards and increased consumption amongst the working class

“de-proletarianization” and “embourgeoisement”- dissolving class identity

Black- “affluent worker”- political construction

Hoggart- Uses of Literary – seminal- mass culture, encroaching on traditional working class communities

Williams thought Hoggart idealiszed the working- class way of life and overestimated the threat posed to it by rising living standards and consumerism

Hall- Class consciousness being altered by capitalism’s new emphasis on consumption rather than production, even if class relations stayed the same

“social value….styles of living…differentiated from one another”

- create a false sense of classlessness

required new strategies for socialists