The failure of the left in Britain to achieve its objectives in the past, and the rapidly changing nature of popular involvement in politics in recent years, both suggest the need for a reappraisal of socialist strategy in the 1980s. The Popular and the Political explores the need to redefine socialism in terms which extend beyond 'statism', which has been the mark of both the social democracy of the last two Labour government and the Marxist left, and which reflect the changing nature of contemporary Britain.

The essays presented here consider social policy in a wide range of fields, health, housing, energy and economic planning, as well as the broad questions of democratic involvement in the political process.

Although there is an abundance of scholarly inquiry into the effects on the Soviet socialist system of the historic reforms under GorbacheV's administration, relatively little attention has been paid to the impact these reforms might have on socialism outside the Soviet Union. This book makes a preliminary assessment of the impact of glasnost, perestroika, and related Soviet reforms on selected socialist countries. The sampling of socialist countries studied are roughly representative of the types of socialist states in existence today. The countries studied include Poland, Czechoslovakia, China, Cuba, Vietnam, Afghanistan, and North Korea.

The contributors to this volume approach their topics from varying perspectives, each singling out and examining different areas in the individual governments where the impact of Soviet reforms is likely to be strongest. The result is a number of varying conclusions regarding the effects of glasnost and perestroika on the socialist community. In some cases, the impact might be intentional and direct, part of a conscious policy adopted by the Soviet Union. In other cases, the impact may be indirect and even unintentional, given the complex and interdependent nature of world politics and economics. Advanced undergraduate and graduate students with an interest in comparative politics, international relations, and communist studies will find this book a source of stimulating ideas about the rapidly changing face of socialism.

Opinion about the Webbs has emphasised their personal idiosyncrasies to the exclusion of their literary and institution building accomplishments. In this account, Sidney is shown to play a more important role than Beatrice in the literary output and there is emphasis on their promotion of working class democratic experience. In providing this analysis of the Webbs, "the oddest couple since Adam and Eve" Harrison shows that Sidney thought a good marriage should be a partnership while Beatrice maintained that a man should always make the important decisions and the women the less important ones, and she should determine which were which!

This reissued work, first published in 1987, examines the problematic and divisive attitudes which bourgeois and socialist feminists take to the question of the links between patriarchy and capitalism and the importance of class conflict as a major cause of women's subordination. Engels still occcupies a central role in this debate and feminists writing in the hundred years since the publication of The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State frequently turn to this book in an attempt to find validation for their central argument.

The contributors to this volume reconsider Engels' theories and review evidence from those societies that have attempted to implement his belief that the key to the emancipation of women lies in their entry to social production.

Unashamedly polemical, this reissue of Freedom & Equality, first published in 1986, presents a strong and persuasively argued case for democratic socialism. In contrast to many recent books justifying conservatism and varieties of Marxism, Keith Dixon defends the two great principles underpinning democratic socialism a " freedom and equality. He aims both to restore the idea of freedom to its proper place in the political vocabulary of the left and to defend a stark version of freedom as absence of constraint. Only this version of freedom, he argues, is consistent with the proper defence of civil liberties. Dixon also defends radical egalitarianism from its critics, who either repudiate its full force or reject it out of hand. He believes that freedom and equality are potentially realizable socialist goals, that democratic socialism is not necessarily linked with fraternalism, and a " above all a " that it should be based upon a firm and consistent conception of individuality.

Rather than contributing to the long-standing discussion about the characteristics of the society that socialism proposes to establish, this Routledge Revival, initially published in 1976, aims to explore the impact of the ?living utopia? of socialism on the development of modern society.

• It begins with an analysis of the role of utopia in general, and of the socialist utopia in particular;
• Bauman considers the opposition between ?utopian? and ?scientific? social thought;
• He presents socialism as the ?counter-culture? of capitalist society;
• The book finally examines the reasons for the failure of socialism in its application to the peasant revolution in Russia.

It then explores some possible forms that the socialist utopia might take in the industrial societies of the late twentieth century. Professor Bauman writes for those who want to understand the logic of the historical fate of socialism in the present century, who are concerned about the validity and vitality of socialist ideas on the development of modern society, and who are interested, and perhaps confused, by the cultural and ideological conflicts of the last few decades.

This book explores the political and legal institutions necessary for a democratic socialism in advanced industrial societies. It argues that a democratic socialist society needs a firm framework of public law, and a formal constitution. Populist conceptions of direct democracy and informal justice are argued to be inadequate as the primary means of democratic control in a complex society; likewise Marxist views of the "withering away of the state" are challenged as utopian. The book maintains that radical reforms in political institutions are necessary in order to effect social change.

Is it possible to evolve a form of socialism which, while promoting industrial development, will be merciful to the ideals of democracy? This book attempts to answer this question: first the author deals with the differing conceptions of socialism and democracy and discusses co-operative socialism. The he turns to the problem of industrialization; the need for leadership in economic transition and the role of the concept of property; the capitalist solution; decentralization; and finally industrialization within the democratic framework.This book raises issues which are as important now as when it was first published in 1962.

During the past decade, life in post-socialist states has been fraught with instability and conflict. This book focuses on changing rural-urban relations - and growing divisions between them - in the context of the reforms. Contributions to this volume explore responses to capitalist-oriented policies and reasons for rural disenfranchisement. The work takes an ethnographic approach to exploring how 'global' processes engage with local, rural concerns in the post-socialist world.

A new collection of Shaw's major political writings presents an opportunity to reflect on his influential role as a public intellectual. At the forefront of economic and political debate from the 1880s to the 1950s, George Bernard Shaw was once the most widely read socialist writer in the English language, and his lifelong crusade against inequality and exploitation is far from irrelevant today. The thorough interpenetration of Shaw's literary and political engagements is an unusual story in modern literature, and this volume offers a portrait of Shaw as a political artist in the purest possible sense: that is, as a writer of essays, articles, pamphlets, and books with explicitly and expressly political aims. The selected writings in this volume showcase Shaw's most influential and most accomplished political work, but also provide a cross-section that is representative of the whole of his long career. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

This book responds to recent events by proposing a radical reshaping of Marxist theory. Taking the core problem as that of the historical subject, it conceptualises human life in terms of four interrelated practices. It explores these in turn in the context of a capitalism divided into 'centre' and 'periphery', primarily through nine 'theoretical reconstructions', which attempt to meet such problems as the labour theory of value, the nature and role of the state, and consciousness.

The Twilight of World Trotskyism analyzes the reasons behind the historic failure of the Trotskyist movement around the world. The book begins this assessment by briefly recapitulating the origins of Trotskyism, as a political current within the communist movement, and elaborating its major elements, before describing the historical development of Trotskyism in the four countries where it has sunk the deepest roots and which house the clear majority of the world's Fourth Internationals: Argentina, Britain, France and the USA. It then proceeds to map the current state of the global Trotskyist movement. Whatever their current size and status, Trotskyist organizations aspire to become mass political parties and lead revolutionary seizures of power. It is therefore appropriate to examine them through the metrics applied to mainstream parties, namely organization, membership and political influence. The author looks at the dynamics of the Trotskyist movement, focusing in particular on the supposedly harmful effects of the communist movement before then turning to examine the role of Trotskyist organizations in the many revolutionary situations that have appeared since the 1920s and in the various 'cycles of protest' that have occurred in the latter half of the 20th century and the early years of the 21st century. The final section examines the two success stories frequently cited in Trotskyist literature, namely the cases of Bolivia and Sri Lanka. The book concludes by setting out and examining a wide variety of explanations for the chronic and sustained weaknesses of the Trotskyist movement, including its flawed appraisals of contemporary politics and economics, ultra-radical programmes and policies, failures in understanding the dynamics of protest and the baleful legacy of Soviet communism. It is argued that these weaknesses are rooted in Trotskyist doctrine and are therefore integral, not peripheral, features of world Trotskyism. This volume will be essential reading for activists and scholars interested in the transnational history and politics of the radical left.

This text offers a concise and accessible coverage of the historical background, the organization and policies of the 15 social democratic parties in the European Union with a focus on the 1945-1990s period. It combines an updated study of the evolution of each party's ideology, sociology and policies, with attention also to the impact of European integration on the fortunes of social democratic forces. The book can be used as a reference text by academics, students and political practitioners and contains contact details and reference information for each party.;The book is aimed at departments of politics (European politics, politics of European Union, comparative politics and government, political ideology), sociology, history, European studies; trade unions, Left political parties in EU; political commentators, journalists, and party research centres.

Exploring relationships between politics, the people and social change, this book assesses the fortunes mainly of Labor, but also of the Communist Party and the New Left in postwar Britain. Using concepts like political culture, it looks at the left's articulation of "affluence": consumerism, youth culture, America, TV, advertising and its disappointment at the people under the impact of such changes. It also examines party organization, socialist thinking and the use of new communication techniques like TV, advertising and opinion polling.

Prominent experts on Marxist ideology from the Soviet Union, East Germany, Poland, India, Japan, Mexico, Canada, and the United States exchange views on Soviet policies and attitudes toward the use of nuclear weapons.

A devastating critique of free-market politics from distinguished sociologist Pierre Bourdieu.

First published in 1979. Sociology flourished in China during the 1930s and 1940s but with the establishment of the People's Republic of China, controversies arose over the place of sociology in the process of socialist construction. Siu-lun Wong analyses the reasons for this change in the fortune of sociological studies in China and examines it in relation to the country's contemporary political system.

In this study, distinguished international contributors project an 'open' Marxism - a rejection of the determinism and positivism which characterise so much of contemporary left-wing thought. Topics covered in the two volumes include Marxism and political economy, historical materialism, dialectics, state theory, class, fetishism and the periodisation of capitalist development.

A cross-country comparison of recent Labour Party governments in New Zealand, Britain, and Australia, and an exploration of how those countries' labour movements responded to their parties' neoliberal policies in power.

'A major contribution to the rethinking of the socialist project. The analysis is clear and profound and identifies the dilemmas but also the potential of contemporary socialism.' - Andrew Gamble, Professor of Politics, University of Sheffield;This comparative and theoretical account of the heritage and prospects of socialism in Western Europe characterises socialist political theory as transformative. Socialists counterpose objective social appraisal, such as the theory of capitalism, to implausibly ambitious agents of change - the proletariat or the interventionist state. This framework of analysis generates a comparative account of European socialist parties and their attitudes to international institutions - especially the European Union - and suggests a favourable prognosis for the future of socialism.

Through a series of interconnected articles, this book makes available a range of international authors for an English readership. Topics covered include: Marzism and political economy, historical materialism, dialectics, state theory, class crisis, fetishism and the periodization of capitalist development. Picking up where the debates of the 1970s left off, these collections assess current debates in Marxist theory and project an "open" Marxism by way of critical response to the determinism and positivism which characterize much of contemporary left-wing thought.

This book tells the fascinating story of the reemergence of the American political left over the last quarter century in the form of the new Progressive Movement. Born out of Liberalism's crushing defeats at the hands of conservative strategists of the Reagan/Bush era, this new movement has cleverly reverse engineered the conservative's institutional networking strategy to plan and finance its resurgence. Progressive strategists have constructed an elaborate network of foundations, advocacy groups, and other institutions to advance their agenda. But where the conservatives relied on affirmative corporate support to help power their movement, the Progressive Left has used an anti-corporate strategy whose purpose is three-fold: 1. To reclaim the moral high ground of politics by challenging corporate power and influence. 2. To gain effective control over "other people's money" (e.g., pension funds, mutual funds) and use it to press for changes in corporate social policies. 3. To leverage this influence over corporate decision-making to change the direction of American politics and public policy. Biz War extends the argument of Manheim's 2001 book, The Death of A Thousand Cuts, by showing how anti-corporate campaigns have evolved from economically-oriented labor actions to ideological and programmatic political struggles. It details how the strategies and tactics crafted by organized labor are being employed with increasing effect by the political left. The book will be of interest to students of contemporary American politics, strategic communication, political movements, and business management. Likewise it will help corporate executives and financial analysts understand more fully the proxy wars and other attacks against their companies.