Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
  1. Home
  2. Books
  3. Left in the Wilderness
  • This book is no longer available to purchase from Cambridge Core
  • Cited by 9
Publisher:
Acumen Publishing
Online publication date:
February 2013
Print publication year:
2002
Online ISBN:
9781844653379
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1017/UPO9781844653379
Subjects:
Twentieth Century British History, History
Information

Book description

The years since 1979 have seen unprecedented challenges to socialism, which have threatened to strip it of its social constituency, destroy its ideological foundations and render it prescriptively defunct. In this major assessment of the socialist project, Noel Thompson examines the state of socialist political economy in Britain considering how it has reacted to these challenges, and what its future might be. Thompson charts how its constituent elements have been shaped and articulated over the last twenty years, examining in turn the political economies of the “alternative economic”; municipal socialism, decentralised socialism, market socialism, Keynesian social democracy, supply-side socialism, radical stakeholderism, the Anglo-American-model social democracy and multinational socialism. Thompson shows how each of these has failed to counter effectively the ideological and material threats posed by neo-liberalism and transnational capitalism and, in a forceful and convincing analysis, argues that the capitalism which democratic socialism now confronts has left little theoretical or prescriptive room for socialist advance or manoeuvre. As we begin the twenty-first century its political economies appear theoretically exhausted and the Left in Britain has entered an ideological wilderness from which there seems little prospect of return. Left in the Wilderness is a challenging and uncompromising critique of socialist political economies from a socialist historian. Although its conclusions will not be welcomed by the Left, the author's penetrating analysis cannot be ignored. The book will be required reading for all students of recent British economic and political history.

Reviews

"Adds important texture to Labour's internal history since the mid-1970s."

Source: Economic History Review

Refine List

Actions for selected content:

Select all | Deselect all
  • View selected items
  • Export citations
  • Download PDF (zip)
  • Save to Kindle
  • Save to Dropbox
  • Save to Google Drive

Save Search

You can save your searches here and later view and run them again in "My saved searches".

Please provide a title, maximum of 40 characters.
Cancel
×

Contents

Contents

Metrics

Full text views

Total number of HTML views: 0
Total number of PDF views: 0 *
Loading metrics...

Book summary page views

Total views: 0 *
Loading metrics...

* Views captured on Cambridge Core between #date#. This data will be updated every 24 hours.

Usage data cannot currently be displayed.