The End of Parliamentary Socialism From New Left to New Labour

by Leys, Colin; Panitch, Leo; Coates, David

• ISBN13: 9781859843383
• ISBN10: 1859843387
• Edition: 2nd
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2001-05-17
• Publisher: Verso

Summary

This trenchant account of the last twenty-five years of the British Labour Party argues that Tony Blair's modernizing tendency was profoundly mistaken in asserting that the only alternative to traditional social democracy and narrow parliamentarianism was an acceptance of neo-liberalism. In blaming the Labour left, rather than the social-democratic right for the party's years in the electoral wilderness, the modernizers rejected the creativity and energy which the party's New Left had mobilized, and without which their own professed aim of democratic renewal was unlikely to be realized. In this new edition, the authors, in collaboration with David Coates, review the debate in light of the Blair government's first three years in office.

Author Biography

Colin Leys is Emeritus Professor at Queen's University, Canada.

Table of Contents

List of Abbreviations	ix
Preface to the Second Edition	xi
Preface to the First Edition	xiii
From New Left to New Labour	1	(15)
Origins of the Party Crisis	16	(23)
Tony Benn: Articulating a New Socialist Politics	39	(27)
The Search for an Alternative Strategy: The Limits of Policy	66	(20)
The Labour New Left in Government: Containment and Marginalisation	86	(21)
The Abandonment of Keynesianism	107	(27)
The Conflict over Party Democracy	134	(31)
The Crisis of Representation: `Between Agitation and Loyalty'	165	(27)
The Defeat of the Labour New Left	192	(22)
Disempowering Activism: The Process of Modernisation	214	(23)
Tony Blair: The Transition from Socialism to Capitalism	237	(25)
Beyond Parliamentary Socialism	262	(10)
Epilogue: The Denouement	272	(21)
Notes	293	(64)
Index	357