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- Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
- Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
- Sprache: Englisch
Millions passionately desire a viable alternative to austerity and neoliberalism, but they are sceptical of traditional leftist top-down state solutions. In this urgent polemic, Hilary Wainwright argues that this requires a new politics for the left that comes from the bottom up, based on participatory democracy and the everyday knowledge and creativity of each individual. Political leadership should be about facilitation and partnership, not expert domination or paternalistic rule. Wainwright uses lessons from recent movements and experiments to build a radical future vision that will be an inspiration for activists and radicals everywhere.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018
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Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Preface
Notes
Acknowledgements
1 A New Politics of Knowledge
Shock encounters with the free market in Central Europe
Tacit knowledge as the justification of the free market
Answering the free-market right through the practical, social knowledge of social movements
Tools to challenge Cold War dichotomies: ‘the Berlin Wall did not fall on us’
Socializing practical knowledge as a source of power
Rethinking power
The perspective of a long revolution towards self-government
The collective confidence and militant hope behind Labour’s victory
It’s when all’s quiet that the seed’s a-growing
Notes
2 The New Politics in Practice
Economic initiatives based on the sharing of tacit knowledge
Sharing tacit knowledge in manufacturing: Lucas Aerospace
Democratic egalitarianism
The democratization of knowledge as a basis of public service reform: Newcastle Unison’s successful struggle for a democratic alternative to privatization
Commons peer-to-peer production
Open plus co-operative: a force to be reckoned with
Notes
3 From Cells to Transitions
The emergence of economic alternatives beyond, in and against the state
From creative initiatives to systemic transitions
Alternatives to core technologies
The favourable conditions created by new means of communication and of information exchange
Overcoming the labour movement’s traditional divide of politics from economics
Beyond the competitive drive for profit
Notes
4 Conclusions: On Questions of Political Strategy and Organization
Winning from the left
Thatcher’s destruction of trade union corporatism
Towards a transformative party?
A facilitative use of political office in practice
The combination of power at the base with the tools of political office
Notes
Further Reading and Resources
Publications
Websites and Organizations
End User License Agreement
Guide
Cover
Table of Contents
Begin Reading
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Radical FuturesHilary Wainwright, A New Politics from the Left
A New Politics from the Left
Hilary Wainwright
polity
Copyright © Hilary Wainwright 2018
The right of Hilary Wainwright to be identified as Author of this Work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published in 2018 by Polity Press
Polity Press65 Bridge StreetCambridge CB2 1UR, UK
Polity Press101 Station LandingSuite 300Medford,MA 02155, USA
All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purpose of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.
ISBN-13: 978-1-5095-2366-5
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication DataNames: Wainwright, Hilary, author.Title: A new politics from the left / Hilary Wainwright.Description: Cambridge, UK ; Medford, MA, USA : Polity Press, 2018. | Series: Radical futures | Includes bibliographical references and index.Identifiers: LCCN 2017040345 (print) | LCCN 2017059039 (ebook) | ISBN 9781509523665 (Epub) | ISBN 9781509523627 (hardback) | ISBN 9781509523634 (pb)Subjects: LCSH: Liberalism. | Democracy. | Right and left (Political science)Classification: LCC JC574 (ebook) | LCC JC574 .W34 2018 (print) | DDC 320.53--dc23LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017040345
The publisher has used its best endeavours to ensure that the URLs for external websites referred to in this book are correct and active at the time of going to press. However, the publisher has no responsibility for the websites and can make no guarantee that a site will remain live or that the content is or will remain appropriate.
Every effort has been made to trace all copyright holders, but if any have been inadvertently overlooked the publisher will be pleased to include any necessary credits in any subsequent reprint or edition.
For further information on Polity, visit our website: politybooks.com
To the memories of:
Andy Wainwright, whose intense and inquiring personality I will never forget
Roy Bhaskar, whose wisdom and warmth will always strengthen me
Doreen Massey, whose sharp wit and insight influence my thoughts
Robin Murray, whose inspiring vision and well-grounded optimism guide me always
Preface
Writing as I have in the middle and at the end of an election campaign, I found the advice of Italo Calvino useful: ‘I reject the role of the person chasing events. I prefer the person who continues his discourse, waiting for it to become topical again, like all things that have a sound basis.’1
It’s not for me but for the reader to judge whether my discourse has a sound basis. And I will not chase the events leading up to election day, or the extraordinary surge of support for Jeremy Corbyn against Theresa May, or the details of the repercussions for the Labour Party and Momentum. I hope, though, that my arguments will be a resource for the diverse movement that helped to produce this surge, as it experiments with ways to maintain its energy, creativity and stubborn determination to create an open, participatory, green and feminist form of socialism – leaving the question of whether the Labour Party can become the vehicle of such a socialism as one that I cannot answer with any certainty, but to which I would, if pressed, reply with a cautious and conditional ‘yes’. Certainly, it is an objective worth working for, while remaining alert to the fact that such a change will face determined and vicious opposition.
A new politics from the left is in the making and its fully formed character cannot usefully be predicted at this point – or prescribed. Hence, I envisage this book as but one contribution to a widely collaborative and participatory political work in progress. It is not a manifesto for a new politics from the left but, rather, a limited contribution based on exploring one line of argument, concerning the fundamental importance of a new politics of knowledge – of whose knowledge matters, and what counts as knowledge anyway; and also exploring how understandings of knowledge underpin understandings of power, in practice as much as in theory. For it is in practice that innovations are first created.
Notes
1
. Italo Calvino,
Hermit in Paris: Autobiographical Writings.
Translated from the Italian by Martin McLaughlin (selected, with a preface, by Ester Calvino), New York: Pantheon Books, 2003.
Acknowledgements
The ideas of this book have been long in incubation. First, I must thank Fiona Dove and Daniel Chavez, at the Transnational Institute (TNI). Together we founded the TNI’s New Politics Project, to work with social movements as they engaged with political parties and the state. I am very grateful for the support – financial, political and intellectual – of the TNI as a whole, over many years, and especially to Phyllis Bennis, the late Praful Bidwai, Brid Brennan, Nick Buxton, Susan George, Satoko Kishimoto, Edgardo Lander, Susan Medeiros, Achin Vanaik and Pietje Vervest.
A vital part of the incubation took place through the Networked Politics seminars that I organized with my dear compañeros Marco Berlinguer and Mayo Fuster Morell. Many of the ideas in this book were first expressed in these seminars and in later work together.
I also want to thank my co-editors and comrades at Red Pepper magazine, both on the editorial collective and on the board. They have been a rich source of inspiration and challenge, both in person and in the magazine itself, which I think readers of this book would also find an invaluable resource.
Next, I must thank my editor at Polity, George Owers, for commissioning the book and for being such an exemplary editor: encouraging, firm and ruthless at appropriate moments. Instead of being fazed by a manuscript 20,000 words over-length, he calmly improved the book by suggesting careful cuts, with the help of anonymous reviewers to whom I am also very grateful. Others helped to whip the sprawling manuscript into shape, most notably Red Pepper’s editorial alchemist Steve Platt; the TNI’s doyenne of sub-editors, Deborah Eade; and finally, Polity’s ever-patient, ever-intelligent copy-editor Leigh Mueller.
In the writing, I drew on a number of formal and informal interviews and collaborations with those who are creating and reporting on the emerging new politics. I only have space to list them; it will be clear in the text how much I owe to them: Christophe Aguiton, Michel Bauwens, Matt Brown, Michael Calderbank, Andrew Dolan, Theano Fotiou, Ashish Ghadiali, Jeremy Gilbert, Christos Giovanopoulos, Mike Hales, Paul Hilder, Vedran Horvat, Ewa Jasiewicz, Andreas Karitzis, Adam Klug, Christos Korolis, Jon Lansman, Neal Lawson, Nick Mahoney, Robin McAlpine, John McDonnell MP, Ioannis Margaris, Alex Nunns, Ben Sellers, Jonathan Shafi, Joan Subirats, Euclid Tsakalotos, Tom Walker, and my friends and comrades in Hackney Momentum, especially Charlie Clarke, Liz Davies and Heather Mendick, who read and commented on early drafts. Finally, Margie Mendell, Cilla Ross and Stephen Yeo were immensely helpful on the many-sided experience of the co-operative movement. I must thank Ed Dingwall, too, who accurately transcribed the formal interviews.
I’d also like to mention my critically and radically minded nephews and nieces, Tom, Jessie, Olly, Annie and Rosie, who provided insights and challenges that kept me on my toes. My great-nieces, Emily, Olive and Frankie, and nephew Theo, have been a great diversion and source of hope for the future.
Writing requires concentration, and several people provided ideal places to focus single-mindedly, away from the hurly-burly of Hackney: the welcoming team at the Quaker retreat of Swarthmoor Hall; the redoubtable Jenny Hollis at Castaway Cottages, Anglesey; Martin and Penny Wainwright with their library, intriguing conversation and necessary opportunities for exercise in Thrupp, Oxfordshire; Tessa Wainwright and Hugh Scott, who understood when I worked over most of their convivial Christmas; and Helen Winslow, who lent me her Saltaire bolthole in which to write in peace.
Finally, writing this book over the past year needed sustained morale, intellectual stimulus, challenge and occasional advice – as well as considerable patience – and for this I must thank my dear friends: Anthony Arblaster, Anthony Barnett, Huw Beynon, Sue Bowen, Luciana Castelina, Derek Clarke, Bob Colenutt, Anna Coote, Lawrence Cox, Evelina Dagnino, Barbara Epstein, Barbara Gunnell, Sue Himmelweit, Lioba Hirsch, Glenn Jenkins, Mary Kaldor, Marion Kozak, Richard Kuper, Maureen Mackintosh, Su Maddock, Bridget Maguire, Simon Mohun, Chantal Mouffe, Beth Murray, Frances Murray, William Outhwaite, Leo Panitch, Jenny Pearce, George Pope, Angie Raffle, Oscar Reyes, Mike Richardson, Sheila Rowbotham, Lynne Segal, Jane Shallice, Anne Slater, Sissy Vouvou, Mike Ward, Jo Warin and Pippa Warin.
All these people contributed to anything of merit in this book. I, however, take full responsibility for the whole.
1A New Politics of Knowledge
The evident crisis of ruling political institutions across the world is also a crisis of how the ruling elites understand knowledge: whose and what kinds of knowledge they consider to be legitimate sources of expertise that matter for public policy. As with the widespread political crisis, this crisis of the politics of knowledge is a deep structural problem, not simply a character flaw of a particular elite.
These crises have historical roots. The events of 1968 and the immediate aftermath marked a turning point in the politics of knowledge: a leap in the desire for self-government. They signalled the breaking of the bond between knowledge and authority that underpinned the central post-war institutions: the paternalistic family and state, and the ‘scientific’ management that governed workplaces and the wider society. It was an understanding of knowledge that marginalized challenging insights and consequent debate arising from experience and practical expertise pointing beyond the dominant paradigm.1
Authority in all spheres of life and across the world was in question – and with it elite forms of knowledge. Rebel movements shared and developed their own kinds of knowledge, via practice and through debate and deliberations, and on to producing new ideas and the basis of new institutions. Authority, once it has been confidently questioned by those on whose obedience it depends, crumbles in ways that make it difficult to put together again.
In the UK, Margaret Thatcher used brutal methods to crush revolt – to starve striking miners and terrorize them into going back to work, and to axe local democracy in the towns and cities where the mining communities had allies. For several years, she was able to use the market and a foreign enemy (Argentina’s military dictatorship) to renew a traditional acquiescence to authority, rooted in imperial and wartime success. But, in the end, she was brought down by revolt, in the streets and in her own cabinet.
Tony Blair also tried to re-establish the authority of ruling institutions. He sought to make the knowledge of those in authority unchallengeable, technical and apolitical and above the hoi polloi – a sacred sphere of technocratic expertise available only to those trained to know and beyond challenge from those whose expertise was not deemed sufficiently technocratic or ‘professional’. While wooing ‘swing’ voters, he treated anyone connected to the public sector – or so-called ‘losers’ in the market casino – with contempt, as if their practical knowledge was irrelevant to the improvement of public services.
We have seen the elite contempt for the intelligence and know-how of Greek citizens in the recent behaviour of the European Union and its disregard for their democratic decisions. ‘Elections cannot interfere with economics’, declared German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble when Greece’s Finance Minister, Yanis Varoufakis, openly presumed that his government’s mandate to reject the memorandum prescribed for the country by the Troika might have some influence on how the EU conducted its negotiations. This despite the fact that many Greek public servants were already willing to ‘whistle-blow’ in the public interest and share with the government their inside knowledge of the multiple sources of corruption.2 Many such ethically minded public servants – teachers and doctors, for instance – were already working voluntarily to improve public services, albeit without the funds to do so, while Greek farmers, workers and social entrepreneurs were initiating alternative forms of production on a modest scale, with support from the Syriza government.
In the UK, we have seen contempt for everyday knowledge over Brexit – on both sides. The leading faction for Brexit had no shame in telling lies, making commitments, and then disappearing when it came to implementing them, as if voters were stupid. These anti-EU campaigners had no hesitation in playing on the racist imperial legacy among the white working class, bolstering assumptions of (white) British superiority. The government Remain side, as led by the then Prime Minister David Cameron, patronized voters with a visionless, simplistic campaign and, following its defeat, attacked Brexit voters as ignorant and stupid. As has since been established, there were many different reasons for the swathe of working-class support for Brexit, particularly in England and Wales, amounting to a rebellion expressing a sense of dispossession and deep class resentment, arising from the destruction of people’s communities by successive governments – not stupidity at all.3
All these examples illustrate a politics of knowledge, because the questions that these and similar experiences raise about knowledge are entangled with the exercise of political power, especially at a time when official interpretations of politics are in question. Questions arose about whose knowledge – and whose future – matters in public policy, and what kinds of thoughts, ideas, beliefs, exchange of emotions and exercise of skills count as expertise and knowledge in public decision-making, and why. These are also questions about the basis on which our rulers rule: how they are accountable and how, when they behave in stupid, destructive or arrogant ways, they can be challenged.
Shock encounters with the free market in Central Europe
One particular experience shook me into taking the politics of knowledge seriously. The experience involved conversations with civic movement activists in Eastern Europe in 1990, following the fall of the Berlin Wall. It was the shock of witnessing the same young Czechs who had demonstrated in Wenceslas Square as part of the Velvet Revolution led by Václav Havel embracing Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher as their heroes, and free-market theorist Friedrich von Hayek as their guru. As I wandered the streets of Prague, I was trying to puzzle out why impoverished students with no obvious vested interest in the free market would be so enamoured of its principles. How could those of us involved in social movements in the West sensitively challenge their illusion and convince them that socialism can be democratic?
