James Forsyth James Forsyth

Even the left is beginning to abandon the idea of change from above

Soundings, the left-wing journal, has just released a book entitled The Crash: A  view from the left (you can download it for free here). Edited by Jon Cruddas and Jon Rutherford, it is—as the title suggests—an explicitly left-wing take on recent events. Unsurprisingly, I don’t agree with the book’s economics. Its contributors don’t see that the economic consensus in Britain was sadly not pro-market, but pro-corporate—a different thing entirely.

But what should interest Coffee Housers, is how even the left is moving away from top-down solutions. In their introduction, Cruddas and Rutherford call for a “socialism of equality, freedom and solidarity – not dictated by the few from above, but made by the many from below.”

In the leadership battle that will follow a Labour general election defeat, one of the main dividing line will be between those who believe in change from above—notably, Ed Balls—and those who want change from the ground up.

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