Eye of the Storm ("Soundings")

by JonathanRutherford (Editor)

• Used

  Paperback
  2010

  $11.94

  During first days of coalition government there has been little sense of epochal change, as happened with the Tory victory of 1979 or Labour's landslide in 1997. This is partly because the full impact of the return of the right has not yet been felt, and partly because there is a feeling that a Labour government under Brown might not have pursued widely differing policies. But it is also the result of a political process in which there is a constant and relentless narrowing down of the terms of debate. Across Europe everyone now appears to agree that the main task facing us is to cut back on spending. But the debate must be opened up again. The storm will break. The economy will not be rescued by a blind faith in the ability of the private sector to recover without state intervention. Large numbers of people are going to suffer as they lose their jobs, and as social protection is withdrawn. It is therefore crucial to make every effort to challenge the continuing neoliberal consensus. Contributors in this issue chart some of the debates, look at the prospects for Labour revival, discuss the financial crisis and outline the problems in carbon trading - a classic example of the failure of market solutions. We also carry an extended discussion on the importance of Luc Boltanksi and Eve Chiapello's The New Spirit of Capitalism; a defence of ethical socialism and the legacy of William Morris; a meditation on the problems faced by the generation that grew up with New Labour; and a thought-provoking article by Vron Ware about the ways in which the lives and deaths of individual soldiers have become ever more central to debates about Britain's wars.