Abstract
The authors consider what can be learned from the opening up of British labour history in the contributions to this collection, and taken forward to inform debates about the future of society and politics. They distinguish between three spheres: the market economy, the state and civil society. They argue that neo-liberals threaten to allow the market economy to squeeze out communal values; but equally state-socialists threaten to expand the state as a substitute for voluntary association. A misplaced nostalgia for a mythical state-socialist past will only consolidate the current worship of large-scale, centralised solutions. A better appreciation of British labour’s real history could release resources for the revival of human-scale, diverse, civil society experiments.
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Ackers, P., Reid, A.J. (2016). Looking Forward: Civil Society After State-Socialism and Beyond Neo-liberalism. In: Ackers, P., Reid, A. (eds) Alternatives to State-Socialism in Britain. Palgrave Studies in the History of Social Movements. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-34162-0_12
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-34162-0_12
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Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
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