Two sets of conversations come to mind, the first with a longstanding friend and colleague, an academic in social and health policy who served as chair of important NHS Trusts; and the second an academic in social epidemiology who conducts research and leads national and international efforts to reduce health inequity. Both dialogues reflected tensions,… Read More »
I have referred on and off to the chances of a left-movement anticipating, hastening and responding to a state legitimation crisis caused by COVID-19. I have always insisted that to stand any chance of affecting real social change such a movement would have to be class-driven. In a recent post I approvingly quoted Erik Olin… Read More »
Dear Jennie, It will not have escaped your attention that many members of the Labour Party are currently reconsidering their position. I confess that I am among them and I am writing this open letter to explain why this is so. I rejoined the Labour Party on the election of Jeremy Corbyn to the leadership. … Read More »
For anyone who thinks Marx irrelevant to the contemporary world, this passage is from the Communist Manifesto: ‘The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionising the instruments of production, and thereby the relations of production, and with them the whole relations of society. Conservation of the old modes of production in unaltered form was, on the… Read More »
This an early and doubtless from a sociological perspective seriously premature attempt to respond to the Conservative victory in the General Election of 12 December 2019. We have some basic data but as yet little by way of analysis. I am siting with my laptop so promptly precisely because I too held the common view… Read More »
When considering assorted potentials for effective collective action against financialised capitalism in the UK, I have so far put the emphasis on a triad of factors: Permanent reform – or the significance of constantly pushing and campaigning for achievable shifts in policy and practice, and doing so on a sliding scale from minor to major… Read More »
This is a third and final blog on Erik Olin Wright’s elegant and enlightening How to Be An Anti-capitalist in the 21st Century. Its focus is on what I have previously called ‘triggers for change’ and Wright terms ‘agents for transformation’. It is important to register at the outset a point made by Michael Burawoy… Read More »
This is a second blog arising out of my reading of Erik Olin Wright’s How to Be An Anti-capitalist in the 21st Century. While the first focused on general modes or strategies for resisting capitalism, this one summarises and comments on his listing of pragmatic interventions to this end. I have always found a tension… Read More »
Eric Olin Wright is sadly no longer with us, but we are fortunate to have his new book, How to Be an Anti-capitalist in the 21st Century, to remember him by and to work with. In this first of (maybe) two or three blogs, I consider briefly his typology of strategic logics in relation to… Read More »
I have argued now and again for a left strategy comprising: (1) ‘permanent reform’ and (2) ‘alliance formation’. In other words, a strategy that (re-1) commends the left to start – as boldly as possible – with what is achievable, and then builds on these reforms towards socialism, and (re-2) acknowledges the essential salience of… Read More »