Reflections on the Future of the Left (Building Progressive Alternatives)

What is the future for progressive politics in advanced capitalism? With its political fortunes so low, how might the Left move forward? These essays from leading left intellectuals—Dean Baker, Fred Block, David Coates, Hillary Wainwright, Colin Crouch, Wolfgang Streeck, and Leo Panitch—reflect on the scale and nature of the task that the Left now faces. The contributors, whose experiences stretch back to the headier days of 1968, consider what it is that they should pass on to a younger generation of thinkers and activists tasked with taking progressive politics forward today.

Their views and opinions vary—some are optimistic, some pessimistic—but all offer searching insight into the task the Left now faces and what, especially if it was complicit in the neoliberal settlement it has left to draw on, from its intellectual heritage and practical experience to deal with its contemporary challenges. Akin to The Forward March of Labour Halted published some thirty years ago, these essays represent a major statement on the future for center-left politics and a frank appraisal of the Left's current capabilities to keep conservatism at bay and radical politics in the ascendancy.

David Coates holds the Worrell Chair in Anglo-American Studies at Wake Forest University, North Carolina.