Political Economy And The Labour Party

`In Political Economy and the Labour Party, Noel Thompson gives an informative and stimulating outline of the ideas and theories that have shaped the party’s economic policy since 1900.’ - Times Literary Supplement A new edition of the American Library Association's `Outstanding Academic Book' award winner. This new volume brings this study of the rich tradition of British socialist political economy and its influence on the British Labour Party fully up-to-date. Surveying the Labour tradition from the Fabianism of the Webbs to the `social-ism’ of Tony Blair’s Third Way, this new edition considers the critical engagement of these political economies with capitalism and the policies they articulate. It also discusses the manner in which they influence, or establish the context for, Labour’s economic thinking and policymaking and traces the ideological trajectory British social democratic political economy over the course of the twentieth century. In its concluding chapter this volume assesses the present character of the political economy advanced by the Labour Party and raises the question as to whether it can any longer be considered part of the social democratic tradition. This is an essential new edition of this now standard text for students taking courses on the history of political and economic thought and, more generally, courses on the political and intellectual history of nineteenth- and twentieth-century Britain.

This book examines British socialist political economies and the way in which they have influenced economic thinking within the Labour Party from the Fabianism at the beginning of the century to the Blairism of today.

This work provides a systematic assessment and evaluation of the modernization of the British Labour Party in light of its landslide victory in 1997. It also represents an attempt to locate Labour's modernization in terms of the distincitive political economy of contemporary British capitalism and the impact of globalization, the evolution and transformation of the British State in the post-war period, the legacy of Thatcherism, and the specifics of electoral strategy and competition in contemporary Britain.

Theoretical writing on the company and company law has been dominated in recent years by economics. This collection of essays by a distinguished team of authors drawn from a variety of disciplines seeks to build on the insights of this economic analysis and broaden understanding by examining the company in a wider historical,legal, political, and sociological context. Issues discussed include the attitudes of political parties in the UK to the company, the rise of the non-executive director, institutional activism and stakeholder protection, and the evolution of the nexus of contracts theory of the company. There is also a strong comparative theme, with discussions of the political and sociological context of corporate governance in France, Germany, and Japan, together with developments at the European level.

This collection of essays attempts to demonstrate how an adequate analysis of trade unions, strikes and collective bargaining must be rooted in a broader understanding of their political and economic context. The second part of the book deals with the central problems of trade unionism.

This book provides an accessible yet critical analysis of the Labour Party under the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn (‪2015-2020) in the context of the contemporary British political economy. It analyses structural constraints on left-wing politics and evaluates the transformative potential of Labour’s economic and social policies under Corbyn. Drawing from a neo-Marxist and neo-Gramscian framework, the book argues that the material, institutional and ideological conditions before 2015 opened political space for a left-wing Labour Party, although the dominant historical structures severely limited its chance of coming to power. In addition, the book argues that Labour under Corbyn should not be dismissed as ‘populist’, and that its policies aimed to redress structural economic problems, promote economic democracy and tackle contemporary challenges. The book also highlights the importance of adopting a long-term approach to counter-hegemonic political struggle so as not to shrink the space for progressive politics.

This is the first comprehensive account in any language of Israel's central labour organization, the Histradut, and the Israeli Labour Party, which dominated politics for more than four decades. The author develops a political economy approach which draws on contemporary theories of labour movements, labour markets, and state/economy relations. In comparison with the corporatist social democracies of Western Europe, the Israeli case is shown to be in many ways paradoxical. Shalev demonstrates that unravelling these paradoxes provides both challenges and insights for comparative studies of the advanced capitalist democracies. At the same time, he offers students of Israeli society a critical alternative to previous scholarship on labour relations, left-wing politics, and domestic public policy. This volume provides a controversial and theoretically informed assessment of the historical record, complemented by a novel interpretation of the dramatic political and economic instability which surfaced in Israel during the 1970s.

An exploration of Labour's 1931 pledge to create a planned socialist economy and the reasons for its failure to do so. In the general election of 1931, the Labour Party campaigned on the slogan "Plan or Perish". The party's pledge to create a planned socialist economy was a novelty, and marked the rejection of the gradualist, evolutionary socialism to which Labour had adhered under the leadership of Ramsay MacDonald. Although heavily defeated in that election, Labour stuck to its commitment. The Attlee government came to power in 1945 determined to plan comprehensively. Yet, the aspiration to create a fully planned economy was not met. This book explores the origins and evolution of the promise, in order to explain why it was not fulfilled. RICHARD TOYE lectures in history at Homerton College, Cambridge.