Agreed, But Only So Far...
May. 8th, 2021 10:56 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
poliphiloI like this...
... From an article by Neal Lawson reflecting on the Labour Party's loss of seats in its former heartlands:
"Roberto Unger, the Brazilian political and economic theorist, describes institutions as the fossilised power of previous political movements. Labour today is merely the trapped energy of an industrial era that has long gone."
Very neatly put, I thought.
But I don't follow Lawson much further down the line. His conclusion, in very simple terms, is that what we need is a new party of the Left, while it seems to me that the implications of Unger's insight are rather...
...that it is in the nature of institutions- like political parties- to stay still...
...and calcify round a progressive agenda and render it old hat...
...And that therefore we should be looking at other ways of doing politics...
... From an article by Neal Lawson reflecting on the Labour Party's loss of seats in its former heartlands:
"Roberto Unger, the Brazilian political and economic theorist, describes institutions as the fossilised power of previous political movements. Labour today is merely the trapped energy of an industrial era that has long gone."
Very neatly put, I thought.
But I don't follow Lawson much further down the line. His conclusion, in very simple terms, is that what we need is a new party of the Left, while it seems to me that the implications of Unger's insight are rather...
...that it is in the nature of institutions- like political parties- to stay still...
...and calcify round a progressive agenda and render it old hat...
...And that therefore we should be looking at other ways of doing politics...
