Reinventing the Left / edited by David Miliband.

Includes bibliographical references.

Introduction / David Miliband -- 1. Brave New World: The New Context of Politics / Anthony Giddens -- Comment: Power, Politics and the Enlightenment / Perry Anderson -- 2. Inequalities of Power, Problems of Democracy / David Held -- Comment: Deciding about Rights / Anna Coote -- 3. Equality, Difference and Democracy / Elizabeth Meehan -- Comment: Citizenship and Political Change / Raymond Plant -- 4. Ethnic Difference and Racial Equality: New Challenges for the Left / Tariq Modood -- Comment: Minority Rights, Majority Values / Bhikhu Parekh -- 5. The Politics of Potential: A New Agenda for Labour / Gordon Brown -- Comment: Whose Community? Which Individuals? / Anne Phillips -- 6. Productive Solidarities: Economic Strategy and Left Politics / Joel Rogers and Wolfgang Streeck -- Comment: Don't Forget the Demand Side / Robert Kuttner -- 7. Social Solidarity in a Mixed Economy / Michel Rocard -- Comment: The Social Market in a Global Context / Will Hutton.

8. Equality and Work in the Post-industrial Life-cycle / Gosta Esping-Andersen -- Comment: Economic Imperatives and Social Reform / Frances Fox Piven -- 9. Sustaining Social Democracy: The Politics of the Environment / Stephen Tindale -- Comment: Sustainability and Environmental Policy: Five Fundamental Questions / Susan Owens -- 10. Reinventing Federalism: Europe and the Left / David Marquand -- Comment: European Constitutional Patriotism / Jos de Beus -- 11. Reinventing Politics / Manuel Escudero -- Comment: Turning Outwards: Towards a New Sort of Party / Margaret Hodge -- 12. Dos and Don'ts for Social Democrats / James Cornford and Patricia Hewitt.

Communism is dead, traditional social democracy is weak, and neo-liberalism has failed. Can the Left fill the vacuum?

The essays in this book argue that there is a viable future for left-of-centre 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 industrialized 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.

This book combines social and economic analysis with radical prescription both for the substance of politics and its practice. It will be of interest to all those concerned with the future of democratic politics, and especially left-of-centre politics, in Europe and North America.