The Hard Road to Renewal: Thatcherism and the Crisis of the Left

by Stuart Hall

Overview

Stuart Hall's writings on the political impact of Margaret Thatcher have established him as the most prescient and insightful analyst of contemporary Conservatism

Collected here for the first time with a new introduction, these essays show how Thatcher has exploited discontent with Labour's record in office and with aspects of the welfare state to devise a potent authoritarian, populist ideology. Hall's critical approach is elaborated here in essays on the formation of the SDP, inner city riots, the Falklands War and the signficance of Antonio Gramsci. He suggests that Thatcherism is skillfully employing the restless and individualistic dynamic of consumer capitalism to promote a swingeing programme of 'regressive modernization'.

The Hard Road to Renewal is as concerned with elaborating a new politics for the Left as it is with the project of the Right. Hall insists that the Left can no longer trade on inherited politics and tradition. Socialists today must be as radical as modernity itself. Valuable pointers to a new politics are identified in the experience of feminism, the campaigns of the GLC and the world-wide response to Band Aid.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781839761386
Publisher:	Verso Books
Publication date:	08/03/2021
Sold by:	Penguin Random House Publisher Services
Format:	eBook
Pages:	304
File size:	536 KB

About the Author

Stuart Hall (1932-2014) was Professor of Sociology at the Open University, the founding editor of New Left Review, and Director of the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies at the University of Birmingham.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements vii

Introduction: Thatcherism and the Crisis of the Left 1

Part 1 The New Challenge of the Right 17

1 Living with the Crisis ( Charles Critcher Tony Jefferson John Clarke Brian Roberts) 19

2 The Great Moving Right Show 39

3 The 'Little Caesars' of Social Democracy 57

4 The Empire Strikes Back 68

5 Cold Comfort Farm 75

6 No Light at the End of the Tunnel 80

Part 2 Questions of Theory 93

7 State and Society, 1880-1930 ( Bill Schwarz) 95

8 Popular-Democratic vs Authoritarian Populism: Two Ways of 'Taking Democracy Seriously' 123

9 Authoritarian Populism: A Reply to Jessop et al. 150

10 Gramsci and Us 161

Part 3 Crisis and Renewal on the Left 175

11 The Battle of Socialist Ideas in the 1980s 177

12 The Crisis of Labourism 196

13 The Culture Gap 211

14 The State - Socialism's Old Caretaker 220

15 Face the Future 233

16 Realignment for What? 239

17 People Aid - A New Politics Sweeps the Land (with Martin Jacques) 251

18 Blue Election, Election Blues 259

Part 4 Conclusion 269

19 Learning from Thatcherism 271