Political economy and the Labour Party : the economics of democratic socialism 1884-2005 Thompson, Noel

Table of Contents:

Part I - 1884-1929
1. Marxism, state socialism and anarcho-communism
2. Fabian socialism
3. Guild socialism
4. Liberal socialism
5. Ethical socialism
6. The political economy of Ramsay MacDonald and Philip Snowden
7. The economic literature of the Labour Party, 1918-29

Part II - 1929-45
8. Labour in office, 1929-31
9. The stabilisation and management of capitalism
10. Building a socialist economy

Part III - 1945-70
11. Theory into practice, 1945-51
12. Socialism in an age of affluence
13. Party thought and party policy

Part IV - 1970-present
14. Rethinking socialism : left-wing revisionism in the 1970s
15. Liberal socialism revised : the 1970s
16. The alternative economic strategy and after
17. Liberal socialism rejuvenated : the 1980s
18. Supply-side socialism : the 1990s
19. From stakeholderism to the third way.

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.

(https://www.routledge.com/Political-Economy-and-the-Labour-Party-The-Economics-of-Democratic-Socialism/Thompson-Thompson/p/book/9780415328814)