Hilary Wainwright

Millions passionately desire a viable alternative to austerity and neoliberalism, but they are sceptical of traditional leftist top-down state solutions. In this urgent polemic, Hilary Wainwright argues that this requires a new politics for the left that comes from the bottom up, based on participatory democracy and the everyday knowledge and creativity of each individual. Political leadership should be about facilitation and partnership, not expert domination or paternalistic rule. Wainwright uses lessons from recent movements and experiments to build a radical future vision that will be an inspiration for activists and radicals everywhere.

A New Politics from the Left

Experiments in Popular Democracy

Reclaim the State

David Elliott

Account of the evolution of the Lucas plan, a new trade unionism approach in the UK to counteract redundancy by transforming the Lucas defence industry and aerospace industry into a workers controlled industrial enterprise developing socially more useful industrial products such as a road-rail bus and a heat-pump - traces the set-up of the Shop Stewards' Combine Committee, the successful collective bargaining for employment security, wages and other working conditions, and workers participation. Chronology (1965-1982), illustrations and references.

A New Trade Unionism in the Making?

The Lucas Plan

Lynne Segal

Sheila Rowbotham

"The last decade has seen the women's movement gain strength among all classes of society. At the same time, the left has too often floundered, as fragmented groups of party liberals and leftists struggle against a growing right-wing trend. There's an important reason for all of this, say the authors. It lies in the very different structure of the women's movement as compared to that of most socialist organizations. This book shows what the left must learn if it is to become an effective force for grassroots change."--

Feminism and the Making of Socialism

Beyond the Fragments

As disillusion sets in with the free market right- the legacy of Thatcher, Reagan and Geoffrey Sachs-Hiliary Wainwright retrieves and develops what was best in the thinking and practice of the new left. Challenged by the appeal of neo-liberalism to young organizers in the civic movements of Central Europe, she tackles Hayek's critique of the all-knowing state, and his regonition of 'practical knowledge' that no state or party can secind guess. Drawing an alternative view of knowledge from the practice of social movements (from the 1968 student revolt, through militant shop stewards organizations and the women's movement, to green activism of the 1980's) as well as from new philosophical currents, Wainwright counters Hayek's individualism and denial of the legitimacy of the collective action, with a conception of knowledge as fundamentally social.On this foundation she establishes a new understanding of transformative political agengy as well as self-consciously experimental and involving a combination of representative and participatory forms of democracy. Arguments for a new Left is sure to provokr wide discussion.

Answering the Free-Market Right

Arguments for a New Left

A Tale of Two Parties

Labour

Maureen Mackintosh

The Politics of Local Economics

A Taste of Power

From England to Brazil, and Norway to China, Hilary Wainwright sets out on a quest to discover how people are creating new, stronger forms of democracy.

Ian G. R. Shaw

About

Books

Join the club