Paving the Third Way

PAVING THE THIRD WAY:
The Critique of Parliamentary Socialism

Edited by David Coates

After the twenty year hiatus of Thatcherism, the character and politics of the British Labour Party are again centre stage. In the UK itself, a new generation of students, intellectuals and political activists are turning both their scholarship and their politics back towards Labour. Abroad there is widespread interest in the substance and potential of New Labour's 'Third Way'. Yet that turn has so far very little to bite on. For one consequence of those twenty years has been a dearth of informed scholarship on Labour, 'old' or 'New'. This scholarship, inspired by Ralph Miliband is reproduced here for the first time in an easily accessible form.

The 'Miliband' voice in Labour Party historiography has been a strong and permanent one since the publication of Parliamentary Socialism in 1961, so strong in fact that even its most strident critics continue to cite it in their publications, invariably distorting its arguments in the process. These writings constitute one of the richest sources of material and analysis of the continuing limits of Labour politics. These writers- John Saville, Colin Leys, Leo Panitch, Hilary Wainwright- have an immense role to fulfill debunking the wilder claims for novelty of New Labour. They constitute an insightful source on the true character of Old Labour; and exemplify the problems of reformism.

This edited collection reproduces the best of this tradition. David Coates's editorial comments provides context to these writings. The extracts demonstrate the coherence of the approach that links them together. His closing essay (written with Leo Panitch) makes clear their vital importance as a source of understanding of the contemporary Labour Party as well as of Labour Parties in the past.

CONTENTS - Introductory Essay- Part 1: LABOURISM AND ITS LIMITS - 1. Ralph Miliband: Selections from Parliamentary Socialism - John Saville: Labourism and the Labour Government - Leo Panitch: Social Democracy and Industrial Militancy - David Coates: The failure of the socialist promise - Part 2: FROM OLD LABOUR TO NEW LABOUR - Leo Panitch: Socialists and the Labour Party - Ralph Miliband: Socialist Advance in Britain - Leo Panitch: Socialist Renewal and the Labour Party - Colin Leys: The British Labour Party's transition- David Coates: Labour Governments: Old Constraints - Part 3: MOVING ON - Hilary Wainwright: Once More Moving On and Building New Parties for a Different Kind of Socialism: a Response - David Coates and Leo Panitch 'The Continuing Relevance of the Milibandian Perspective

234x156mm 270 pages approx.