11/20/2004|||110096800025988098||||||

THE LEFT, R.I.P?

Martin Jacques, former editor of Marxism Today (how quaint that magazine title now sounds), provides an obituary for old-school socialism. Is Europe facing inevitable decline too? I think he's overly gloomy on that score, but the point is worth pondering:

"Europe was the intellectual and political birthplace of socialism. It was the home of the modern labour movement. And it was from Europe that the idea was exported - to the US, Russia, China, Latin America and around the globe. The worldwide socialist project was a product of the expansiveness and self-confidence of Europe. But the latter has turned into the opposite.

"Europe itself is a declining continent, squeezed between the overweening power and influence of the US and the irresistible rise of east Asia. The latter, in their different ways, embrace very distinct values, cultures, histories and institutions from those of Europe. The global contraction of European influence has served to accelerate and deepen the crisis and confusion of the left."

|||Clive|||http://clivedavis.blogspot.com/2004/11/left-r.html|||11/20/2004 04:10:00 pm|||||||||

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