Marx's undeveloped ideas about how society presents a misleading appearance which distorts its members' understanding of it have been the subject of many conflicting interpretations. In this book John Torrance takes a fresh, un-Marxist approach to Marx's texts and shows that a more precise, coherent and cogent sociology of ideas can be extracted from them than is generally allowed. The implications of this for twentieth-century capitalism and for recent debates about Marx's conceptions of justice, morality and the history of social science are explored. The author argues that Marx's theory of ideas is sufficiently independent of other parts of his thought to provide a critique and explanation of those defects in his own understanding of capitalism which allowed Marxism itself to become, by his own definition, an ideology.

Europe is entering a new political epoch. The centre-left, now in government in many EU countries, has struggled to modernize itself and is now defining the shape of politics for the future.

Bodo Hombach's book is one of the most important early attempts to flesh out the Third Way - moving it from being a successful electoral project to become a governing philosophy. Hombach, one of Gerhard Schr"der's closest advisers, who was Minister of State in the Chancellor's office, is a colourful and controversial figure. He has been described as the 'German Peter Mandelson' because he was the architect of Schr"der's election victory in 1997, which brought the Social Democrats to power after a decade and a half in opposition. His book, a bestseller in Germany, is the clearest definition of the popular 'Die Neue Mitte' project on which Schröder was elected, and on which the German voters will judge the government. It is striking in its bold rejection of many of the left's traditional approaches - the confrontational traditions of employers versus workers, the private sector versus the public sector, free market forces versus state direction - and this explains why Hombach and his book have been at the centre of the fierce debate about the soul and the future direction of social democracy.

Professor Anthony Giddens and Mark Leonard, in the preface and introduction, put the book in the context of the global debate about the development of the Third Way, and also draw comparisons with events in the United Kingdom.

Hombach's book is destined to become a key text on the future of European social democracy, of interest to political activists, policy-makers and students of politics.

From the formation of the Indian National Congress in 1885 to the winning of independence in 1947, this book traces the complex and often troubled relationship between anti-imperialist campaigners in Britain and in India. Nicholas Owen traces the efforts of British Radicals and socialists to identify forms of anti-imperialism in India which fitted comfortably with their existing beliefs and their sense of how authentic progressive movements were supposed to work. On the other side of the relationship, he charts the trajectory of the Indian National Congress, as it shifted from appeals couched in language familiar to British progressives to the less familiar vocabulary and techniques of Mahatma Gandhi. The new Gandhian methods of self-reliance had unwelcome implications for the work that the British supporters of Congress had traditionally undertaken, leading to the collapse of their main organization and the precipitation of anti-imperialist work into the turbulent cross-currents of left-wing British politics. Metropolitan anti-imperialism became largely a function of other commitments, whether communist, theosophical, pacifist, socialist or anti-fascist. Revealing the strengths and weaknesses of these connections, The British Left and India looks at the ultimate failure to create the durable alliance between anti-imperialists which the British Empire's governors had always feared.
Drawing on a wide range of newly available archival material in Britain and India, including the records of campaigning organizations, political parties, the British government and the imperial security services, this book is a powerful account of the diverse and fragmented world of British metropolitananti-imperialism.

What set antisemites apart from anti-antisemites in Imperial Germany was not so much what they thought about 'the Jews', but what they thought should be done about them. Like most anti-antisemites, German Social Democrats felt that the antisemites had a point but took matters too far. In fact, Socialist anti-antisemitism often did not hinge on the antisemites' anti-Jewish orientation at all. Even when it did, the Socialists' arguments generally did more to consolidate than subvert generally accepted notions regarding 'the Jews'. By focusing on a broader set of perceptions accepted by both antisemites and anti-antisemites and drawing a variety of new sources into the debate, this study offers a startling reinterpretation of seemingly well-rehearsed issues, including the influence of Karl Marx's Zur Judenfrage, and the positions of various leading Social Democrats (Franz Mehring, Eduard Bernstein, August Bebel, Wilhelm Liebknecht, Karl Kautsky, Rosa Luxemburg) and their peers.

To mark ten years since Labour's election, the next generation of British and US political thinkers, including MPs, Ministers and policy specialists have come together to outline what the next phase of the progressive agenda should be and how it can be achieved.
Using evidence-based research and the most promising new theories, this collection of essays will consider the direction of progressive governance, politics and policy in the next decade.

There is perhaps nothing so commonplace and yet so mystifying as money. But to European communists, money was clearly an instrument of economic exploitation and spiritual alienation. In this groundbreaking study, Jonathan R. Zatlin explores the East German attempt to create a perfect society by eliminating money and explains the reasons for its failure. Drawing on a wide range of sources, including unpublished communist reports, secret police files, literature, jokes, letters written by ordinary people, and conversations with key German politicians, this book shows how the communist regime undermined the political authority of socialism and created the material conditions for its demise. By exploring both the economic and the cultural function of money, Zatlin challenges traditional approaches to economic planning by offering a novel explanation for the collapse of communism in East Germany and a highly original interpretation of German unification. Written in an engaging and lucid style, The Currency of Socialism brings to life the scurrilous competition for power among communist officials and the everyday burdens experienced by ordinary East Germans.

What can contemporary activists and political theorists learn from the life and work of Rosa Luxemburg? Examining her contribution to radical democracy and revolutionary socialism, Jon Nixon shows why Red Rosa's legacy lives on. Luxemburg's political and intellectual formation was in itself a 'long revolution', conceived of over time and in response to world events; her groundbreaking ideas around internationalism and spontaneity were formulated in the context of revolution. Returning to her thinking on global capitalism, democratic renewal, state militarism, and the social question, Nixon draws out the enduring nature of her work, using her framework of ideas as a lens through which to view the contemporary debates. By establishing a rich and distinctive account of Luxemburg, Nixon makes the argument for why her struggle for democratic renewal is as relevant as ever.

Would it have been possible to build a unified and democratic Germany half a century before the fall of the Berlin Wall? This book reassesses this question by exploring Germany's division after the Second World War from the point of view of the SED, the communist-led and Soviet-sponsored ruling party of East Germany. Drawing on unpublished documents from the SED archives, Dr Spilker rejects claims that the East German comrades and their Soviet masters had abandoned their struggle for socialism and were willing to accept a democratic Germany in exchange for a pledge to neutrality. He argues that the communists' sudden switch to a multi-party approach at the end of the war was a tactical move inspired not by a desire for compromise but by the mistaken belief that they could win political hegemony - and the chance to introduce socialism throughout Germany - through the ballot box. Communist optimism, as this book shows, rested on specific assumptions about the situation after the war, all of which revolved around the prospect of political instability and social unrest in West Germany. The comrades in East Berlin did not just say that their regime would ultimately prevail, they genuinely believed it. Nor should their hopes be dismissed as a mere fantasy. In the aftermath of the war, the economic gap between the two Germanies was still relatively narrow and West Germany's future success as a magnet for the people in East Germany was by no means guaranteed.

The Quest for Evolutionary Socialism uses Eduard Bernstein's life and works as the basis for an examination of the interactions between European social democratic politics and socialist political ideas. It is thus a timely response to the need for a new, comprehensive biography of Bernstein, the German 'Father of Marxist Revisionism'. Professor Steger incorporates recent academic developments and addresses current debates on the 'End of Socialism' resulting from the collapse of Marxism-Leninism and the chronic ailments of European social democracy. This study is set within the historical context of the European labour movement and thus Steger interprets Bernstein's 'Evolutionary Socialism' as an ethically motivated quest for liberty, solidarity and distributive justice. Steger stresses that the future of social democracy depends on its ability to heed Bernstein's call for critical self-reflection and to reorientate towards more liberal ideals.

This is the first detailed survey of democratic ideas on the British Left in the period leading to 1914. Socialists of the late nineteenth century inherited assumptions about the priority of democracy from a long tradition of British Radicalism. However, the advent of the Fabians, who rejected this tradition as primitive, and of an ILP leadership more concerned to enter than reform parliament, meant that the movement was split between 'strong' and 'weak' views of democracy. By the eve of the First World War a consensus was emerging that might have formed the basis for a more realistic and more radical approach to democracy than has actually been pursued by the Labour Party and the Left during the twentieth century. Democratic Ideas and the British Labour Movement assesses an important debate in the history of socialist ideas and in the formation of the British Labour movement.

"Although Mexican migrant workers have toiled in the fields of the Pacific Northwest since the turn of the century, and although they comprise the largest work force in the region's agriculture today, they have been virtually invisible in the region's written labor history. Erasmo Gamboa's study of the bracero program during World War II is an important beginning, describing and documenting the labor history of Mexican and Chicano workers in Oregon, Washington, and Idaho and contributing to our knowledge of farm labor."-Oregon Historical Quarterly

In the first three decades of the twentieth century, two groups of radical political theorists - one British and one American - were bound together in a unique ideological relationship. Progressives, Pluralists, and the Problems of the State provides the first comprehensive examination of the intellectual dialogue that constituted that bond. Drawing on extensive original archival research, and employing new methods of conceptual analysis, the book examines the efforts of these two initially distinctive political movements to forge a single ideology capable of motivating far-reaching reform in both of their countries. In so doing it challenges traditional narratives emphasizing the exceptional development of American progressivism and British socialism, arguing instead that the intellectual inspirations and political programmes of both movements were constantly shaped and reshaped by international ideological exchange. Such an analysis transforms our understanding of the complex political demands of these movements and enables the works of their leading protagonists, including G. D. H. Cole, Herbert Croly, Harold Laski, and Walter Lippmann, to emerge as rich and sophisticated contributions to modern political thought.

This is the first full-scale biography of Edward Carpenter, an 'eminent Victorian' who played an intriguing role in the revival of Socialism in Britain in the late nineteenth century. 'A worthy heir of Carlyle and Ruskin', as Tolstoy called him, Carpenter tackled boldly the problems of alienation under the pressures of commercial civilisation, and developed a strongly personalised brand of Socialism which inspired both the Labour Party and its enemies, Syndicalism and Anarchism. A homosexual, he grappled with the problems of sexual alienation above all, and emerged as the foremost advocate of the homosexual cause at a time when it was a social 'taboo'. This study, based upon letters and many other personal documents, reveals much of Carpenter's personal life which has hitherto remained obscure, including his 'comradeship' with some of his working-men friends and his influence upon such notable literary figures as Siegfried Sassoon, E. M. Forster and D. H. Lawrence.

This book systematically introduces the idea of an improper politics. Introducing a conceptual vocabulary, it engages with the politics of the proper, propriety and property from a post-foundational perspective. Mark Devenney argues that this triad is central to understanding the maintenance of global inequality, both economic and political. He characterises democratic politics as improper, challenging the proper bounds of reason, accepted behaviours, and the policing of proper order. The conceptualisation of democracy as an improper practice of equality accords a dignity to forms of politics often deemed marginal.

A history of how Norway and Sweden became the envy of the modern world This is the history of how two countries on the northern edge of Europe built societies in the twentieth century that became objects of inspiration and envy around the world. Francis Sejersted, one of Scandinavia's leading historians, tells how Norway and Sweden achieved a rare feat by realizing grand visions of societies that combine stability, prosperity, and social welfare. It is a history that holds many valuable lessons today, at a time of renewed interest in the Scandinavian model. The book tells the story of social democracy from the separation of Norway and Sweden in 1905 through the end of the century, tracing its development from revolutionary beginnings through postwar triumph, as it became a hegemonic social order that left its stamp on every sector of society, the economy, welfare, culture, education, and family. The book also tells how in the 1980s, partly in reaction to the strong state, a freedom and rights revolution led to a partial erosion of social democracy. Yet despite the fracturing of consensus and the many economic and social challenges facing Norway and Sweden today, the achievement of their welfare states remains largely intact.

The late-Victorian and Edwardian East End was an area not only defined by its poverty and destitution, but also by its ethnic and religious diversity. In the neighbourhoods of East London diasporic communities interacted with each other and with the host society in a number of different contexts. In Socialism and the Diasporic 'Other' Daniel Renshaw examines the sometimes turbulent relationships formed between Irish Catholic and Jewish populations and the socialist and labour organisations agitating in the area. Employing a comparative perspective, the book analyses the complex relations between working class migrants, conservative communal hierarchies and revolutionary groups. Commencing and concluding with waves of widespread industrial action in the East End, where politics were conflated with ethnic and diasporic identity, this book aims to reinterpret the attitudes of the turn-of-the-century East London Left towards 'difference'. Concerned with both protecting hard-won gains for the industrial proletariat and championing marginalised minority groups, the 'correct' path to be taken by socialist movements was unclear throughout the period. The book simultaneously compares the experiences of the Irish and Jewish working classes between 1889 and 1912, and the relationships formed, at work, at worship, in political organisations or at school, between these diasporic groups.

We live in a time of crises - economic turmoil, workplace disempowerment, unresponsive government, environmental degradation, social disintegration, and international rivalry. In The 99 Percent Economy, Paul S. Adler, a leading expert on business management, argues that these crises are destined to deepen unless we radically transform our economy. But despair is not an option, and Adler provides a compelling alternative: democratic socialism. He argues that to overcome these crises we need to assert democratic control over the management of both individual enterprises and the entire national economy. To show how that would work, he draws on a surprising source of inspiration: the strategic management processes of many of our largest corporations. In these companies, the strategy process promises to involve and empower workers and to ensure efficiency and innovation. In practice, this promise is rarely realized, but in principle, that process could be consolidated within enterprises and it could be scaled-up to the national level. Standing in the way? Private ownership of society's productive resources, which is the foundation of capitalism's ruthless competition and focus on private gain at the cost of society, the environment, and future generations. Adler shows how socialized, public ownership of our resources will enable democratic councils at the local and national levels to decide on our economic, social, and environmental goals and on how to reach them. The growing concentration of industry makes this socialization step ever easier. Democratic socialism is not a leap into the unknown, Adler shows. Capitalist industry has built the foundations for a world beyond capitalism and its crises.

This is the first full-length study in English of the role of Marxist theory in the Spanish Socialist movement prior to the outbreak of Civil War in 1936. In particular, the author stresses the intellectual poverty of this aspect of leftwing politics in Spain. In concentrating on the Partido Socialista Obrero Espafiol (PSOE), the major organised party of the left prior to the Civil War, the study seeks to achieve two main aims: first, to attempt to isolate the political, social and intellectual factors which led to a particularly distorted version of Marxism which became established in Spain at the end of the nineteenth century; and second, to demonstrate how this particular conception of Marxism had a crucial negative impact on the political formulations and fortunes of the PSOE between 1879 and 1936. The central argument of the book is that the significance of Spanish Marxism lay precisely in its poverty, since it was this ‘decaffeinated’ version of the theory which set the parameters within which the PSOE formulated its strategy for socialism.

Victorian Christian Socialism began as a protest against industrial evils by a group of Anglicans in 1848 - the year of the great Chartist demonstration. In F. D. Maurice it had a prophet and a thinker whose ideas inspired subsequent Christians, so that the ideals of the original Christian Socialists began to spread to other Churches. The result was a series of critiques of the England of their day, rather than a systematic ‘movement’, and is best analysed, as it is in this book, through an examination of the leading figures, who in addition to Maurice include Charles Kingsley, Thomas Hughes and John Ruskin. The present study is not a collection of biographical studies, however, but a history of Christian Socialism constructed around the most influential of its advocates. They are shown to have been ethical and educational reformers rather than politicians, but in their ability to stand outside the common assumptions and prejudices of their day they achieved social criticism of lasting value.

This book tells the inspiring story of a group of women who challenged the expectations of their society in their writings and in their actions. Vera Mackie surveys the development of socialist women's activism in Japan from the 1900s to the 1930s, in the broader context of the industrial and political development of modern Japan. She outlines the major socialist womens' organizations and their debates with their liberal and anarchist sisters. The book also offers close analyses of the political and creative writings of socialist women.

The bitter struggle of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, against the Turkish state has delivered inspirational but often tragic stories. This memoir by Kurdish revolutionary Sakine Cansiz is one of them. Sakine, whose code name was 'Sara', co-founded the PKK in 1974 and dedicated her life to its cause. On the 9 January 2013 she was assassinated in Paris in circumstances that remain officially unresolved. This is the first chapter of her iconic life, leading up to her arrest in 1979, penned as dramatic events unfolded against the backdrop of the Turkish revolutionary left. She writes about the excitement of entering the movement as a young woman, discovering she would have to challenge traditional gender roles as she rose amongst its ranks. She was one of the first to demand the recruitment and education of female revolutionaries, and demanded total gender equality within the PKK, which is now one of its central tenets. Today, 'Sara' is an inspiration to women fighting for liberation across the world. This is her story in her own words, and is in turns shocking, violent and path-breaking. Translated by Janet Biehl.

Observing that for both revolutionaries and capitalists, nothing succeeds like success, Russell Jacoby asks us to reexamine a loser of Marxism: the unorthodox Marxism of Western Europe. The author begins with a polemical attack on ‘conformist’ or orthodox Marxism, in which he includes structuralist schools. He argues that a cult of success and science drained this Marxism of its critical impulse and that the successes of the Russian and Chinese revolutions encouraged a mechanical and fruitless mimicry. He then turns to a Western alternative that neither succumbed to the spell of success nor obliterated the individual in the name of science. In the nineteenth century, this Western Marxism already diverged from Russian Marxism in its interpretation of Hegel and its evaluation of Engels’ orthodox Marxism. The author follows the evolution of this minority tradition and its opposition to authoritarian forms of political theory and practice.

Citizens and Saints is a comprehensive study of the profound rupture in the language of reform and revolution which occurred with the rise of socialism. Focusing upon British Owenite socialism, Professor Claeys argues that two schools of political thinking emerged from the ‘social’ critique of contemporary political radicalism. One, largely identified with Owenite perfectibilism, aimed to transcend existing forms of democracy and to establish more harmonious, less divisive forms of rule. The other, apparently more democratic, aimed to extend popular control of political institutions to economic organisations. Both were sceptical of the ‘political’ analyses of socioeconomic deprivation proferred by existing radicalism. Such scepticism was to prove crucial to both liberal and socialist political thought, and Professor Claeys shows that such perennial questions as the intrinsically democratic (or otherwise) nature of Marxist socialism can only be understood by reference to the political and intellectual circumstances in which early socialist ideas emerged.

Despite a century of debate and criticism, Marxism as a mass ideological practice has remained an elusive topic. This book examines Marxist socialism as a mode of understanding and self-understanding treasured and transmitted by thousands of anonymous militants. It focuses on the Parti Ouvrier Francais, the "Guesdists," an archetypal movement of Marxism's "Golden Age" before World War I, the period when Marxist socialism evolved from sect to mass movement. Thousands of French socialists adopted Marxism due to the effectiveness of vulgar Guesdist polemic rather than Marx's profound theoretical works, and entire communities were converted to an austere but messianic socialism that still affects French politics today. This book traces the doctrine's birth through conflict with liberals, proto-fascists, and anarchists; its "making" of a working class, and its attempted seduction of the middle class; and its confusion before the alternative social visions of the Catholic devout, racist nationalists, and feminists.