Reinventing the Left

The essays in this book argue that there is a viable future for left-of-center politics, but that it requires a radical break with the assumptions of the past. The deepening globalization of production, the break-up of working-class communities, and the limitations of the centralized state demand new thinking about economic renewal and social reform. Autonomy must supplement equality as the leading value of the Left; inequalities of power must be corrected outside the workplace as well as within it; markets must be directed and not abolished; and radical democracy must be established as an end in itself.

In this book Anthony Giddens and Perry Anderson debate social change in industralized societies; Gordon Brown and Anne Phillips address the meaning and value of community; Michel Rocard and Will Hutton discuss alternative economic strategies; Gosta Esping-Andersen and Frances Fox Piven propose new ideas for the welfare state; and David Marquand and Jos de Beus set out competing visions for the European Union.