Centrist democratic ideologies and movements Books

Book SynopsisWhy do we always assume it was the New Right that was at the centre of constructing neoliberalism? How might corporatism have advanced neoliberalism? And, more controversially, were the trade unions only victims of neoliberal change, or did they play a more contradictory role? In How Labour Built Neoliberalism, Elizabeth Humphrys examines the role of the Labor Party and trade unions in constructing neoliberalism in Australia, and the implications of this for understanding neoliberalism’s global advance. These questions are central to understanding the present condition of the labour movement and its prospects for the future.Trade Review“In pointing out some of the unique characteristics of neoliberalism’s triumph in Australia, Humphrys enriches our understanding of the different pathways and contexts, including the incorporation of the labour movement, that can bring about such dramatic economic and social transformation in the interests of capital without massive social unrest.” – Sarah Gregson, in: Labour History 118 (May 2020) “How Labor Built Neoliberalism is a scholarly, erudite and persuasive account of Labor’s neoliberal turn and of the Accords. It should be widely read by labour historians, political economists, unionists and Labor politicians.” – Tim Lyons, in: Labour History 118 (May 2020) "[Humphrys'] critique offers both useful conceptual tools for understanding neoliberalism and an important caution in rushing towards the state for solutions. That is a challenge, particularly in Australia, where unions have often looked to political means to solve industrial problems. Her call also resonates with a growing number of critical voices within the union movement urging a renewed focus on industrial organising." — Ben Spies-Butcher, Macquarie University, in: The Economic and Labour Relations Review (2020) "How Labour Built Neoliberalism is an important contribution to the critical study of a period of history that has largely escaped honest appraisal. It builds on the work of Tom Bramble, Rick Kuhn and others, joining a small but important offering of literature that frankly explains the genesis of the unions’ current crisis. [...] How Labour Built Neoliberalism is critical reading for anyone who wants to understand the context of today’s trade union crisis." — Steph Price, in: Marxist Left Review, Issue 18, Winter 2019 "[F]ind yourself a copy of How Labour Built Neoliberalism... [Humphrys] makes a serious, well-researched and persuasive case, which challenges a great deal that’s been written about the recent past. If you’re at all concerned about the state of the Australian left, you need to engage with her work." — Jeff Sparrow, in: Sydney Review of Books, 23 September 2019 "The book opens up a discussion about the contemporary ‘profound disorganisation of trade unions’ not with the end of lamenting that which has been lost but as the starting point for how workers can win back control over their lives. [...] How Labour Built Neoliberalism points to the dead-end that is resolving a crisis of capitalism on capitalist terms. This is the strategic value Humphrys’ work brings to the present predicament of the labour movement." — Godfrey Moase, in: Overland, 1 April 2019 "[…] I wish to pay a huge tribute to Liz Humphrys for her book How Labour Built Neoliberalism. This publication is hugely significant. I feel we have waited 30 years for this analysis." – Lee Rhiannon, in: Progress in Political Economy, 24 March 2019 "[...] Elizabeth Humphrys challenges the narrative that neo-liberalism was generally imposed onto labour by right-wing governments such as the Thatcher government in the UK and the Reagan government in the US during the 1980s. Through a detailed analysis of the Australian political economy between 1983 and 1996, she demonstrates how restructuring was also carried out by a Labour Party in close co-operation with trade unions. [...] Written in a beautiful and highly accessible prose, she makes clear that trade unions are not automatically progressive or reactionary. Ultimately, trade unions too are sites of class struggle, which decides on whether a particular trade union is a force for social justice or not. [...] Humphrys’ book is a must-read in guiding our explorations of this question and the search for alternative, progressive strategies." — Andreas Bieler, Professor of Political Economy, University of Nottingham, UK, in: Progress in Political Economy, 14 January 2019 "This book offers a groundbreaking account of the transition to neoliberalism in Australia, focusing on the role of the Labor Party and the trade unions in the economic, social and policy shifts involved in that transition. The book is scholarly and informative, and it sets the standard for studies of neoliberal transitions elsewhere. This is essential reading for anyone wishing to understand the emergence of neoliberalism in Australia, or the contradictory role trade unions can play during an economic crisis." — Alfredo Saad Filho, King's College London "Humphry’s brilliant How Labour Built Neoliberalism utterly transforms our understanding of modern Australian politics and compels us to rethink established ideas about the role of the trade union movement in the making of neoliberalism. I consider this to be a landmark work in Australian political sociology and an invaluable contribution to the literature on global neoliberalism." — Melinda Cooper, University of Sydney, Author of Family Values: Between Neoliberalism and the New Social Conservatism (Zone Books, 2017) “Elizabeth Humphrys’s How Labour Built Neoliberalism: Australia’s Accord, the Labour Movement and the Neoliberal Project is a well-organized book that takes up the role of organized labor and the Australian Labour Party (ALP) in the construction of Australian neoliberalism, focusing on a social contract between the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) and the ALP called ‘‘the Accord,’’ between 1983 and 1996… [The book] is a valuable, theoretically grounded, well-documented analysis of the role of labor-left in Australia’s neoliberalization.” – Stephanie L. Mudge, University of California-Davis, in: Contemporary Sociology 50/1 (2021) “The great strength of Humphrys’ book is its almost forensic examination of what others have said and why the evidence suggest we need to tell a quite different story. This book is crisply and clearly written.” – Rob Watts, in: Journal of Australian Political Economy 86 (2020/2021)Table of ContentsAcknowledgements List of Illustrations List of Abbreviations 1 Introduction  1The ALP & ACTU Accord  2The Social Contract’s Gala Dinner  3Neoliberalism’s Corporatist Origins  4A Hegemonic Political Project  5Corporatist ‘involucro’  6A Note on Method  7Structure of the Book 2 Theorising the State–Civil Society Relationship  1Introduction  1.1Some Preliminary Comments  2Marx’s Critique of Hegel  3From Critique of Politics to Critique of Political Economy  4From Marx to Gramsci  4.1Lo stato integrale  5Gramsci contra Marx? The Limits of Integration  6Conclusion 3 Corporatism in Australia  1Introduction  2Understanding Corporatism  3Panitch’s Approach  4Corporatism and the Accord  5The Context of Arbitration  6Conclusion 4 Destabilising the Dominant Narrative  1Introduction  1.1Conceptual Diversity  2The Dominant Narrative  2.1Harvey: A Brief History of Neoliberalism  2.2Klein: The Shock Doctrine  2.3Peck, Theodore, Tickell and Brenner: ‘Neoliberalisation’  2.4Destabilising the Dominant Narrative  3A Class Approach to Neoliberalism  3.1Harvey: ‘The restoration of class power’  3.2Davidson: ‘An entirely new political regime’  3.3A Hegemonic Political Project  4Conclusion 5 Periodising Neoliberalism  1Introduction  2Periodising Neoliberalism in Australia  3Proto-neoliberal stage: 1973–1983  3.1The Economic Crisis  3.2The Whitlam Government  3.3The Fraser Government  4Vanguard Neoliberal Stage: 1983–1993  4.1The Impasse of the 1970s  4.2Developing the Accord  5Piecemeal Neoliberalisation Stage: 1993–2008  5.1Howard’s Piecemeal Neoliberalism  6Crisis stage: 2008 Onwards  7Conclusion 6 The Disorganisation of Labour  1Introduction  2The Accord Agreement  3Wages and the Accord  3.1The First Accord (1983)  3.2Accord Mark II (1985–1987)  3.3Accord Mark III (1986–1987)  3.4Accord Mark IV (1988–1989), V (1989–1990) & VI (1990–1993)  3.5Accord Mark VII (1993) & VIII (Draft Only)  4Wage Suppression  4.1Labour Disorganisation  5Conclusion 7 An Integral State  1Introduction  2Accord Divergences  2.1The National Economic Summit and Communiqué  2.2Prices  2.3‘Big bang’ and Other Neoliberal Reforms  2.4Trade Liberalisation  3Privatisation  4Social Wage and Contested Understandings  4.1Medicare  4.2Superannuation  4.3Worth the Cost?  5The Concord of Neoliberalism and the Accord  5.1A Brace against Neoliberalism?  5.2Theorising the Corporatism–Neoliberalism Connection  5.3An ‘informal Accord’?  5.4The Accord asinvolucro  6Conclusion 8 How Labour Made Neoliberalism  1Introduction  2From Worker Agency to State Agency  2.1The Shift to Support the Accord  2.2Planning as a Solution to Crisis?  2.3Consultation on, and Support for, the Accord  2.4Sticking with the Accord  2.5Industry policy and Australia Reconstructed  3Managing Dissent and Disorganising Labour  3.1Civil Legal Action against Labour Disputes  3.2Deregistration of the Builders Labourers’ Federation  3.3Pilots’ Dispute  4Enterprise Bargaining and the Antinomies of the Accord  4.1Hegemony Unravelling  5Conclusion 9 A Return to the International  1Introduction  2A Brief Detour in the Antipodes  3The British Social Contract (1974–1979)  4The Carter Administration (1977–1981) and Prior  5New York City Council Fiscal Crisis (1975–1981)  6Contemporary Finland  7Conclusion 10 Conclusion: Neoliberalism at Dusk  1Internal Relations  2Antinomies and Residues  3Neoliberalism at Dusk Appendices    Appendix B: Timeline of Predecessors to the AMWU References Index

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Book SynopsisIn Co-operative Struggles, Denise Kasparian expands the theoretical horizons regarding labour unrest by proposing new categories to make visible and conceptualize conflicts in the new worker co-operativism of the twenty-first century. After the depletion of neoliberal reforms at the dawn of the twenty-first century in Argentina, co-operativism gained momentum, mainly due to the recuperation of enterprises by their workers and state promotion of co-operatives through social policies. These new co-operatives became actors not just in production but in social struggle. Their peculiarity lies in the fact that they shape a socio-productive form not structured on wage relations: workers are at the same time members of the organisations. Why, how and by what cleavages and groupings do these co-operative workers without bosses come into conflict?Trade Review"Denise Kasparian’s Co-operative Struggles provides an in-depth study of two worker co-operatives in the Buenos Aires area today to reveal how co-operatives emerge, are governed, and disappear. She successfully confronts people’s implicit assumptions about co-operatives with observations from everyday realities of working in Argentinian worker co-operatives in the 2000s and 2010s. Her research thereby puts several dominant myths about the co-operative economy into perspective [...] Sociological research provides a litmus test that checks which myths have become invalid or are not applicable to a particular economic sector. Kasparian has admirably shown how such a test would work in the specific political and economic conjuncture of contemporary Argentina". Tim Christiaens, in Critical Sociology, 8 April 2022. Critical Sociology “El libro amplía los horizontes teóricos sobre el conflict laboral, proponiendo nuevas categorías para visibilizar y conceptualizar las contiendas en el nuevo cooperativismo de trabajo del siglo XXI”. In Centro de Estudios de Sociología del TrabajoUniversidad de Buenos Aires, 21/04/2022. "This book, made up of two unlikely types of cooperatives, one formed voluntarily and the other formed through state-sponsorship, contributes to the literature of self-management and co-operatives and provides a deeper understanding that aspects of the democratization of conflict in co-operatives are context-specific. Future research should deepen and expand the study of self-management and conflict in the broader ecosystem of worker-recuperated, state-sponsored and traditional worker co-operatives, and thus contribute further to generalizable ideas about self-management." Stefan Ivanovski, in ILR Review, ILR ReviewTable of ContentsForeword The Democratisation of Conflict Acknowledgements List of Figures, Tables and Images Introduction  1 The Question of Work Conflicts in New Co-operatives  2 Dimensions of New Social Conflicts in Co-operative Socio-productive Contexts  3 The Challenge of Comparing Paradigmatic but Non-equivalent Experiences: Studying a Whole That Acts as a Whole  4 The Structure of the Book 1 Co-operatives ‘Made in Argentina’ The Process of Enterprise Recuperation by Their Workers  1 The Socio-genesis of the Processes of Enterprise Recuperation  1.1 When Worker Resistance Becomes an Offensive Movement  1.2 The Widespread Crisis of 2001–2002, or Adding Fuel to the Fire  1.3 The Movement of the Flames  2 The Evolution of Enterprise Recuperation Processes  2.1 The Fuel of the Growing Economy Keeps the Flames of Production Moving  2.2 The Moral Economy of Work in the Continued Presence of Enterprise Recuperations  2.3 “Argentina Is One Big, Recuperated Factory”: Public Policies for Recuperated Enterprises  2.4 The Movement’s Fragmentation, Co-operative Convergence and Union Rapprochement 2 Incubated Co-operatives Co-operative Formation under the Argentina Works Programme  1 Social Schemes with Work Requirement: From Workfare to the Argentina Works Programme  2 The Mediation of Unemployed Workers’ Organisations: Civil Associations, Productive Units and Co-operatives  3 The Dual Logic of the Argentina Works Programme’s Socio-genesis: Creating Jobs and Co-ordinating Local Politics  4 Induced Co-operatives? The Struggle of Unemployed Workers’ Organisations  4.1 The Evolution of the Argentina Works Programme  4.2 The Intensity and Dynamics of Contentious Action  4.3 The Demands and Forms of Contentious Action 3 Keeping and Having a Job A Milestone in Constitutive Conflicts  1 ‘Occupy, Resist, Produce’ … and Have!  2 From ‘Induction’ to the ‘Co-operative without Brokers’  3 A Comparative Lens on Constitutive Conflicts 4 The Recuperated Enterprise and Social Power in Production  1 Recuperators, Activists and the ‘Born and Bred’  2 Property Relations: Social Possession and Differential Appropriation of the Fruits of Labour  3 The Logic of Production and the Issue of Sustainability in Recuperated Enterprises  4 The Political Dimension: Between Self-management and Delegation  5 Social Groupings and Potential Antagonisms: Opportunity Hoarding, Enterprise Projects and Work Generations 5 The Argentina Works Co-operative and State Power in Production  1 The Labour and Socio-spatial Precarity of Argentina Works Programme Workers  2 Property Relations: Social Possession and Autonomy  3 The Logic of Production: Between Subsistence and Political Accumulation  4 The Political Dimension: State Power and Co-management  5 Social Groupings and Potential Antagonisms: State Officials, Co-operative Members and Activists 6 The Production of Co-operative Conflict  1 Board Removals: Conflicts over the Running and Expansion of the Productive Process  2 Regulations, Sanctions and Exclusions: From ‘Founder Members’ to ‘Founderer Members’  3 “We Fought over the River Module”: The Conflict over Autonomous Work  4 Between Subsistence Consumption and Political Accumulation in the Social Organisation  5 A Comparative Lens 7 Conclusions  1 The New Twenty-First-Century Co-Operativism and Its Struggles Around Work  2 What Patterns of Conflicts are There without Bosses? Towards a Theory of Unrest in Worker Co-operatives  3 From Prelude to Present: A Toolbox for New Research Questions Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisHelena Silverstein is Professor and Department Head of Government and Law at Lafayette College, USA. She has authored such books as The Supreme Court (2021); Girls on the Stand: How Courts Fail Pregnant Minors (2007); and Unleashing Rights: Law, Meaning, and the Animal Rights Movement (1996).

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Book SynopsisThe executive Washington editor of The Wall Street Journal chronicles the astonishing rise, climax, and decline of one of the great political movements in American history—the forty-year reign of the conservative movement, from the election of Ronald Reagan to the Republican Party''s takeover by Donald Trump—with a new introduction covering the 2020 election and the future of the GOP“Ably captures the most consequential American political developments in half a century.” —Peggy NoonanIn 1980, President-Elect Ronald Reagan ushered in conservatism as the most powerful political force in America. For four decades, New Deal liberalism had been the country’s dominant motif, creating such popular programs as Social Security and Medicare, but it had become creaky in the face of soaring inflation, high unemployment, and a growing sense that the United States was no longer the dominant force on the world stage. Reagan''s efforts to reshape the government with tax cuts, deregulation, increased military spending, and a more conservative social policy faltered at first. But the economy roared back, and the Reagan revolution was on.In We Should Have Seen It Coming, veteran journalist Gerald F. Seib shows how this conservative movement came to dominate national politics, then began to evolve into the populist movement that Donald Trump rode to power. Conservative institutions including the Heritage Foundation, the National Rifle Association, Americans for Tax Reform, Rush Limbaugh and Fox News gave the conservative movement a support system, paving the way for Newt Gingrich''s Contract with America and George W. Bush''s compassionate conservatism. But we also see multiple warning signs, many overlooked or misread, that a populist revolution was brewing. Pat Buchanan, Ross Perot, Sarah Palin, and the Tea Party—all were precursors of the Trump takeover.With behind-the-scenes anecdotes, Seib explains how Trump capitalized on that populist movement to victory in 2016, then began breaking from conservative orthodoxy once in office. He shows how Trump altered Republican relations with the business world, shattered conservative precepts on trade and immigration and challenged America’s long-standing alliances. This scintillating work of journalism brings new insight to the most important political story of our time.

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