[p2p-research] p2p-oriented new left movements in the UK

[Michel Bauwens]

Dear Daniel,

cfr.
http://www.newstatesman.com/uk-politics/2009/09/society-guiding-progressive on
left republicanism and communautarianism

I wonder if you could help me identifying links the material cited below, or
eventually write also a blog comment referring to that article, for the p2p
blog?

I'm especially interested in

*Building a Citizen Society* by Stuart White and Daniel Leighton (published
in association with Compass)*, which also contains contributions by Marquand
and Alan Finlayson; *
**
* Associative Democracy*  by Paul Hirst;

*Left Communitarianism*

*Philosophy* Neoliberalism rests on an atomistic picture of the individual
as an isolated, competitive profit maximiser. But human beings are social
creatures: we need to recognise our interdependency and make a virtue of it.
We need a social vision that emphasises solidarity and mutuality. This is
the "good society". Concretely, this points to a renewed emphasis on
economic equality and collective action, albeit with a stronger role for
civil society than in the past. The market must be kept firmly in its place,
which is not in the public sector.

*Supporters* The Labour MP Jon Cruddas; Jonathan Rutherford, academic and
chair of the Compass Good Society working group; Neal Lawson, chair of
Compass; and Madeleine Bunting, *Guardian* columnist and former Demos
director.

*Guiding spirits* The communitarian philosopher Charles Taylor; figures of
the "culturalist" new left such as Raymond Williams; and ethical socialists
such as R H Tawney. The emphasis on cultural renewal also suggests a link to
Antonio Gramsci.

*Texts* Cruddas and Rutherford's NS review of Richard Reeves and Philip
Collins's *The Liberal Republic*; "No turning back", by Neal Lawson (NS, 5
March 2009); Bunting has written sympathetically about another communitarian
philosopher, Michael Sandel, who, in his 2009 Reith Lectures, called for
religious ideas to be given greater prominence to counter the amoralism of
the market.

*Least likely to say*
“Let's privatise the Post Office."

*Left Republicanism*

*Philosophy*
The task of progressive politics is radically to disperse power and
opportunity and to rebuild a deliberative public sphere. This requires
restructuring the state so that individuals participate more directly in
decision-making (for instance, through decentralisation and collective
co-production). It requires resituating Labour politics in the context of a
wider, grass-roots social-movement politics. It also requires a new politics
of ownership, one that seeks both to widen individual asset ownership and to
democratise the control of capital through, for example, new social pension
funds.

*Supporters*
David Marquand, historian and former Labour MP. This position is not yet
fully expressed in party politics, but is latent in the work of
organisations such as London Citizens.

*Guiding spirits*
Jean-Jacques Rousseau; Thomas Paine; John Rawls; and (sometimes) Barack
Obama.

*Texts
Building a Citizen Society* by Stuart White and Daniel Leighton (published
in association with Compass)*, which also contains contributions by Marquand
and Alan Finlayson; Cécile Laborde's Critical Republicanism; Marquand's
Britain Since 1918; Associative Democracy*
by Paul Hirst; Barack Obama's inauguration speech, January 2009.

*Least likely to say*
“The police did a fantastic job of policing the G20 protests."


-- 
Work: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhurakij_Pundit_University - Research:
http://www.dpu.ac.th/dpuic/info/Research.html - Think thank:
http://www.asianforesightinstitute.org/index.php/eng/The-AFI

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