citizenship' has been largely ism's drive towards unrestricted private absent from political dis- accumulation, its attack on public ex- cussion and debate for more penditure, collectivism and the 'de- than two decades. Only in pendency culture' made it the natural relation to questions of race and immig- enemy of citizenship in its modern, wel- ration did it carry a deep political fare-state form. As the prime minister charge. Were the boundaries of citizen- put it: 'There is no such thing as society, ship to be redrawn with the end of only individual men and women and their empire? Could there be more than one families.' class of citizenship for people of diffe- However, this unswerving commitment rent ethnic backgrounds? The debate, to individualism and the competitive crowned by the intervention of Enoch ethic has awakened, in its turn, the spec- Powell in the late 1960s, marked a high tre of Hobbes' 'war of all against all': the point in the political currency of this breakdown of a sense of community and dimension of citizenship. Elsewhere, the interdependence, the weakening of the concept seemed rather out-of-date. Sud- social fabric and the loosening of the denly, however, citizenship is once more hounds of social violence - so often fea- on the lips of politicians, academics and tures of a society dedicated exclusively to commentators of all political comple- competitive self-interest. Thatcherism xions. Why this renewed concern? What has therefore rediscovered the need for Left And is at stake in this debate about citizen- some concept to help integrate and 'bind' ship between Right and Left? society and has come up with the idea of A number of different factors seem to the 'active citizen', who engages in 'doing be responsible for the return of citizen- good' but in a purely private capacity. In Rights ship to the political agenda. Some derive this discourse, citizenship is detached from the experience of Thatcherism it- from its modern roots in institutional self: the dismantling of the welfare state, reform, in the welfare state and com- Citizenship has become the flavour of the growing centralisation of power, the munity struggles, and rearticulated with erosion of local democracy, of free the more Victorian concepts of charity, the month. It has re-entered the speech, trade-union and other civil philanthropy and self-help. In more political debate with a vengeance. rights. recent versions, the 'active citizen' is Some have a wider, more 'global', decked out in the pious homilies of Mrs Thatcher uses it: so does the Left. context: the growth of regional national- Thatcherism's version of the New Stuart Hall and David Held argue ism in Scotland and elsewhere; the Testament. prospects for greater European integra- Clearly, we need a framework for think- that the concept of citizenship must tion; the weakening of the old East-West ing about citizenship and its place in the lie at the very centre of a new frontiers under the Gorbachev offensive; agenda of the Left which sets it in the the growing pace of international in- context of recent developments. Far from socialist politics terdependence and globalisation - all, in simply returning us to the old language one way or another, exposing and eroding of citizenship, such an exercise requires the sovereignty of the nation-state, the us to confront new questions and to entity to which, until now, the modern rethink the concept itself in the light of a language of citizenship primarily refer- new historical situation. red. Does 'citizenship' belong, naturally and These changes have been accompanied exclusively, to the Left? It has been part by shifts in attitude towards the idea of of what can broadly be identified as a citizenship on both the Right and the variety of progressive historical move- Left. It used to be fashionable in some ments - from older ideas of a just moral sections of the Left to dismiss the ques- order to Paine's Rights Of Man and Chart- tion of 'rights' as, largely, a bourgeois ism. Nevertheless, it seems to be the case fraud. But the experience of Thatcherism that citizenship belongs exclusively to in the West and of Stalinism in the East neither Right nor Left, nor indeed to has gradually shifted the Left's thinking centre-ground. Like all the key contested on this question. The shift on the Right is political concepts of our time, it can be more complex and uncertain. Thatcher- appropriated within very different poli-

16 MARXISM TODAY JUNE 1989 tical discourses and articulated to very citizenship', absorbing a wide variety of universal status - the citizen. In the year different political positions - as its re- different struggles against different of the anniversary of the French Revolu- cuperation by the new Right clearly forms of exclusion under their rubric. tion, it is worth recalling that its three shows. The concept can only mean some- Certainly, class has constituted, histor- cardinal principles - , equality thing decisive for the Left if we are ically, one of the most powerful and and fraternity - formed a matrix within prepared to do some theoretical and poli- ramified of barriers to membership and which the citizens of the new Republic tical work around it, actively integrating participation by the majority. But this claimed universal recognition on the basis of a common equality. This lan- 'The law in it within a whole set of related political has also set up a tension within the idea ideas. of citizenship itself. Fbr, as the politics of guage of theoretical universality and its majestic While there is no 'essence' to citizen- citizenship has been absorbed into class equality is what distinguished this mo- equality ship, it does have a long and rich history politics, so the citizenship idea has lost ment - the moment of the 'Rights of Man' with which any new conception must something of its specific force. - from earlier phases in the long march gives every of citizenship. But in the light of the man (prince come to terms. From the ancient world to owever, this exclusive refer- the present day, citizenship has entailed ence to class is one of the expansion and diversity of claims dis- and pauper a discussion of, and a struggle over, the things which is changing cussed above, the question must be posed alike) an meaning and scope of membership of the with the renewed interest in as to whether the variety and range of equal right to community in which one lives. Who be- citizenship. In reality, attempts to res- entitlements can be adequately express- longs and what does 'belonging' mean in trict membership and participation take ed through or represented by a single, sleep under a practice? Membership, here, is not con- many different forms, involving diffe- universal status like 'citizenship'. Is bridge or eat ditional: it is a matter of right and entitle- rent practices of exclusion and affecting there now an irreconcilable tension be- at the Ritz' ment. But it is two-sided, reciprocal: different groups. This should be enough tween the thrust to equality and univer- rights in, but also responsibilities to convince us that questions of citizen- sality entailed in the very idea of the towards, the community. These rights ship, though bound to place the issues of 'citizen', and the variety of particular have to be defined and specified, because class at their centre, cannot simply be and specific needs, of diverse sites and otherwise their loss cannot be chal- absorbed into class politics, or thought of practices which constitute the modern lenged, and may even go undetected. But exclusively in class terms, and in relation political subject? formal definition alone will not suffice. to capitalist relations of production. We will come back to this question of Rights can be mere paper claims unless A contemporary 'politics of citizenship' 'difference' later - it is, in some ways, the they can be practically enacted and real- must take into account the role which the joker in the citizenship pack. However, ised, through actual participation in the social movements have played in expand- what the previous discussion makes community. These then are citizenship's ing the claims to rights and entitlements clear is that contemporary claims to three leading notions: membership; to new areas. It must address not only citizenship are interrelated with a range rights and duties in reciprocity; real issues of class and inequality, but also of other political questions. What we participation in practice. questions of membership posed by think about this range of political ques- feminism, the black and ethnic move- tions will inevitably affect what we think The issues around membership - who ments, ecology (including the moral about citizenship itself. does and who does not belong - is where claims of the animal species and of the politics of citizenship begins. It is Nature itself) and vulnerable minorities, What does the language of citizenship impossible to chart the history of the like children. But it must also come to rights really mean in contemporary soci- concept very far without coming sharply terms with the problems posed by 'dif- ety? And who are the subjects of such up against successive attempts to res- ference' in a deeper sense: for example, rights? Citizenship rights are entitle- trict citizenship to certain groups and to the diverse communities to which we ments. Such entitlements are public and exclude others. In different historical belong, the complex interplay of identity social (hence Mrs Thatcher's difficulties periods, different groups have led, and and identification in modern society, and with them). They are 'of right' and can profited from, this 'politics of closure': the differentiated ways in which people only be abrogated by the state under property-owners, men, white people, the now participate in social life. The diver- clearly delimited circumstances (eg, in educated, those in particular occupa- sity of arenas in which citizenship is the case of imprisonment, which curtails tions or with particular skills, adults. being claimed and contested today is liberties which all citizens should other- However, as the struggles against exclu- essential to any modern conception of it wise enjoy). However, though citizenship sion have developed and broadened because it is inscribed in the very logic of is a social status, its rights are entitle- across history, so those stemming from modern society itself. ments to individuals. Individual citizens the exclusive enjoyment of the advan- However, this expansion of the idea of enjoy such entitlements on the basis of a tages of property, ownership, wealth and citizenship may run counter to the logic fundamental equality of condition - ie, ^ privilege - in short, questions of class - of citizenship, which has tended to their membership of the community. have come to dominate the 'politics of absorb 'differences' into one common, Citizenship rights establish a legiti- i

17 MARXISM TODAY JUNE 1989 mate sphere for all individuals to pursue relations between men and women, be- Hayek, a leading advocate of these ideas, their actions and activities without risk tween employers and employees, between argues that a free liberal order is incom- of arbitrary or unjust political interfer- the social classes, or blacks, whites and patible with rules which specify how ence. Early attempts to achieve citizen- other ethnic groups, allow citizenship to people should use the means at their ship involved a struggle for the autonomy become a reality in practice. disposal. Governments become coercive or independence of individuals from the This question lies at the centre of the if they interfere with people's capacity to locale in which they were born and from 'politics of citizenship' today. Any cur- determine their own objectives. Hence prescribed occupations. Later struggles rent assessment of citizenship must be the reliance in Hayek's work on 'law', his have involved such things as individual made on the basis of liberties and rights critique of the so-called 'totalitarianism' entitlement to , ex- which are tangible, capable of being involved in social planning and rejection pression, belief, information, as well as enjoyed, in both the state and civil socie- of the idea that the state can represent 'The the on which ty. If it is not given concrete and practical the 'public interest'. weaknesses trade-union rights depend, and freedom content, liberty as an abstract principle ayek's prime example of and of women in relation to marriage and can scarcely be said to have any very coercive government is limitations of property. Citizenship rights can there- profound consquences for everyday life. legislation which attempts fore be thought of as a measure of the It is difficult to hymn the praises of to alter the 'material posi- a purely autonomy an individual citizen enjoys as liberty, when massive numbers of actual tion of particular people or enforce dis- statist a result of his or her status as 'free and individuals are systematically restricted tributive or "social" justice'. Distributive conception of equal' members of a society. The other - for want of a complex mix of resources justice, he argues, always imposes on citizenship important feature is that, though they and opportunites - from participating some person or group someone else's are guaranteed to citizens by the state, actively in political and civil life. Gross conception of merit or desert. It requires have become they are also, in an important sense, inequalities of class, sex and race sub- the allocation of resources by a central much more guaranteed against the arbitrary exer- stantively hinder the extent to which it authority acting as if it knew what people obvious in cise of state power. Citizenship in its full can legitimately be claimed that indi- should receive for their efforts or how to the light of sense therefore combines, in rather un- viduals are really 'free and equal' in behave. In his view, there is only one usual ways, the public and the social with contemporary society. mechanism sufficiently sensitive to de- recent the individual aspects of political life. There is therefore, much of substance to termine collective choice on an indi- history' The left critique of this position is by the Left's critique of the liberal concep- vidual basis without such imposition - now quite familiar, and carries consider- tion of citizenship. On the other hand, the free market. When protected by a able weight. It centres on the emphasis, this may have led us to go too far in the constitutional state and a framework of in the language of rights, on individual opposite direction. We must test every law, it is argued, no system provides a entitlement. There are really three 'formal' right we are supposed to enjoy mechanism of collective choice as dyna- strands to this critique. First, the degree against its substance in practice. But mic, innovative and responsive. The free to which individuals really are 'free' in this does not mean that the formal defini- market is, for the new Right, the key capitalist democracies is open to ques- tion of rights - for example, in a constitu- condition of the liberty of citizens. When tion. Second, everything depends on how tion or bill of rights - is unimportant, or a operating within the framework of a freedom is defined. The rights and free- matter of 'mere form'. Until rights have minimal state, it thus becomes constitu- doms which interest the new Right refer been specified, there is no way of moni- tive of the nature of citizenship itself. to a very narrow arena of social action, toring their infringement or of calling to The Left has always taken issue with and are constructed around a very account their practical implementation. this line of argument. The free market, it limited conception of individual needs has argued, produces and reinforces and desires. Largely, these are restricted those very forms of exclusion and 'clo- to individuals as isolated atoms, acting in In general, what this discussion suggests is that the 'politics of citizenship' today sure' associated with private property their own interests, maximised through and wealth, against which the idea of exchange in the marketplace. Rights are must come to terms with, and attempt to strike a new balance between, the indi- citizenship was directed. Hence, through not considered to have a social dimension the redistributive welfare state, the pre- or an interdependent character. Third, vidual and the social dimensions of citizenship rights. These two aspects are rogatives of property and wealth had to citizenship rights, particularly in Bri- be cross-cut, modified or, in T H Mar- tain, are largely defined negatively. There interdependent and cannot be separated. Neither, on its own, will suffice. On the shall's famous phrase, 'abated', by the are no laws preventing you entering the countervailing rights of citizenship. In Ritz or buying property in Docklands or other hand, there is no necessary contra- diction between them. practice, the only force of sufficiently applying for most jobs. Whether in fact compelling weight to bring to bear you have the means or the capacity to do The new Right would argue exactly the opposite, and this is one reason why the against the powers of property and capit- or achieve any of those things, positively, al was that of the state. Hence, for the is a quite different matter. In the famous relationship between the individual and the social dimensions of rights becomes Left, the state was not inimical but essen- words of Anatole France: The law in its tial to the very idea of citizenship. majestic equality gives every man one of the key issues at stake in ex- changes between the the new Right and It is indeed difficult to see how a proper (prince and pauper alike) an equal right conception of citizenship could be estab- to sleep under a bridge or eat at the Ritz.' its left critics. The new Right has a very clear and consistent position on the ques- lished or effectively secured without the intervention of the state. On the other his is really another way of tion and the related issues of freedom and equality. hand, it is not necessary to accept restating the Left's critique of Hayek's line of reasoning to see that classic liberalism in terms of The new Right is committed to the citizenship also entails the protection of the tension between 'formal' classic liberal doctrine that the collective the citizen against the arbitrary over- Tand 'substantive' rights. The citizen may good can be properly realised in most weening exercise of state power. The formally enjoy 'equality before the law'. cases only by private individuals acting weaknesses and limitations of a purely But, important though this unquestion- 'in competitive isolation, pursuing their 'statist' conception of citizenship have ably is, does he or she also have the interests with minimal state interfer- become much more obvious in the light material and cultural resources to ence. At root, the new Right is concerned of recent history. choose between different courses of ac- with how to advance the cause of 'liberal- tion in practice? The 'free and equal ism' against 'democracy' (or, as they put There is, then, an inevitable tension in individual', as one commentator sug- it, 'freedom' against 'equality') by limit- the Left's position on citizenship, since it gests, is a person found more rarely in ing the possible uses of state power. On both requires and can be threatened by practice, than liberal theory suggests. this view, the government can only legiti- the state. One tendency of the Left has What liberal theory, in both its classic mately intervene in society to enforce been to resolve or bypass this difficulty and contemporary forms, takes for general rules - formal rules which by, so to speak, dissolving the whole granted has, in fact, to be seriously broadly protect, in John Locke's works, question into that of democracy itself. questioned. Namely, whether the existing the 'life, liberty and estate' of the citizen. The extension of popular democracy, it is •

19 MARXISM TODAY JUNE 1989 thought, will resolve all these knotty Left, in contrast, has perhaps too hastily Everywhere, the nation-state itself - the problems. Hence the Left's advocacy of put aside the problems. In making demo- entity to which the language of political collective decision-making and democra- cracy, at all levels, the primary social citizenship refers - is eroded and chal- tic participation as a resolution to all the objective to be achieved, the Left has lenged. The processes of economic, poli- problems of citizenship. Why bother to relied on 'democratic reason' - a wise and tical, military and ecological inter- define and entrench specific rights if, in good democratic will - for the determina- dependence are beginning to undermine an expanded democracy, every indi- tion of all just and positive social outcom- it as a sovereign, self-contained entity vidual is destined to become 'fully es. But can 'the people' always be relied from above. The rise of regional and local sovereign'? Thus, by focusing squarely upon to be just to minorities or to margin- 'nationalisms' are beginning to erode it on the extension of democracy, the Left al and so-called 'unpopular' interests? from below. In certain respects, this may has tended to leave any further specifica- Can one assume that the democratic will have negative consequences for citizen- in the tion of particular citizenship rights, and will always be wise and good? ship: how to give effect to the 'rights' of relationship the complex relations between liberty, his is not a matter of abstract the citizens of Bhopal against chemical between social justice and democratic processes, theoretical debate. It is around pollution caused by a multinational com- citizenship to the ebb and flow of democratic negotia- some of these tensions that the pany registered in New York and operat- tion. From Karl Marx to Lenin to Roy new Right generated so much ing worldwide? In other respects, its and Hattersley (in his recent defence of Tpolitical capital against the Left. It consequences for citizenship may be democracy is Labour Party policy against Charter 88) forced the Left to acknowledge the un- positive. The European Court has cer- entailed a this is a constant and recurring theme. certain outcomes of democratic life: the tainly provided a critical bulwark for the 'The people' are to become sovereign ambiguous results of the welfare state, citizen of the UK against the steady new balance (via, respectively, the Commune, Soviets, for example. It highlighted the fact that erosion of under Thatcher- -a new Parliament). 'The people' are to become distributive justice can also lead to ism. But whether these processes work settlement - governors of their own affairs - without bureaucracy, surveillance and the exces- to the advantage or disadvantage of between limit, so the argument runs. Within this sive infringement of individual options citizenship, the question remains: is this broad democratic advance, the specific (and not only in Eastern Europe). It the right moment, historically, to be liberty and questions of citizenship and the difficul- represented the reallocation of re- trying to define claims and entitlements equality' ty of defining particular rights will take sources by the local state (for example, in made in terms of membership of the care of themselves. the form of 'equal opportunities' and nation-state? 'anti-racist programmes') as an imposi- tion of minority interests on the major- This 'democratic' solution is in many ways There are then all kinds of problems which an attractive argument. But it presents ity! These experiences have not neces- undermine any certainty that greater certain real difficulties. It is vulnerable sarily made people more optimistic about democracy will, in and of itself, resolve to the charge of having failed to address collective democratic decision-making or the dilemmas of citizenship. Is there any the highly complex relations in modern more ready to fight to defend it. way through this impasse? Take the question of 'popular sovereign- societies between individual liberty, dis- One point which does follow directly tributional questions of social justice, ty'. Will the fact that we are all members of the great, collective democratic sub- from the foregoing discussion can be and democratic processes. It does not stated clearly, and provides us with a really resolve the question of who 'the ject - 'the people' - provide a guarantee of the rights and the liberties of the fresh start. There is a need to think people' are whose democratic sovereign- through, and give institutional express- ty and enfranchisement is supposed to individual citizen? Not necessarily. 'The people' is, after all, also a discursive ion to, the demands of citizenship and settle at a single stroke so many ques- democracy as closely-related issues: but tions about particular rights. And it figure, a rhetorical device, a mode of address. It is open to constant negotia- it is important to keep these questions poses the extremely awkward issue of distinct. Democracy can only really exist whether there are to be any specifiable tion, contestation and redefinition. It rep- resents, as a 'unity', what are in fact a on the basis of 'free and equal citizens'. limits to democracy. In short, is 'demo- But citizenship requires some specifica- cracy' alone, unsupplemented and un- diversity of different positions and in- terests. In its populist form - 'giving the tion, and some institutional and political modified by any concept of citizenship, protection, separate from and beyond the any longer enough? people what they want' - it has been exploited by Thatcherism as a form of extension of democracy. In short, in the Should there be any limits on the power populist mobilisation against a range of relationship between citizenship and of 'the people' to change or alter political different minorities who are 'not one of democracy is entailed a new balance - a circumstances? The experience of 10 us'. new settlement - between liberty and years of 'elective dictatorship' under Mrs equality. Thatcher may have changed the Left's 'The people' has also functioned so as to Can the parameters of such a 'new thinking on this question. For example, silence or marginalise the conflicts of settlement' be further specified? It should the winning of a majority vote at interest which it claims to represent. appears that a plausible resolution of an election constitute a mandate to des- Thatcherism has operated within a nar- some of the dilemmas of contemporary troy parts of the system of local govern- row and exclusive definition of 'the peo- politics can only be provided if enhanced ment which has been so important a ple'. It defines 'the people' as those who political participation is embedded in a counterweight to the encroaching powers identify with or have done well out of the legal and constitutional framework that of a centralising state - especially if enterprise culture. But since, in reality, protects and nurtures individuals and achieved under our highly lopsided, first- only a small number of prosperous peo- other social categories as 'free and equal past-the-post electoral system? Should ple, mainly living in parts of the south citizens'. However, to go down that road the nature and scope of the liberty of east, can be represented in this figure, it has some real political consequences. It individuals be left entirely to the 'play' of is in effect a way of suppressing the requires us, for example, to recognise democratic decision? Don't individuals rights, marginalising the needs and de- the importance of a number of fun- need to have their rights to freedom of nying the identities of large numbers of damental tenets, often dismissed be- speech, thought and expression pro- other 'people' - including the Scots, the cause of their association with liberal- tected? Must minorities conform, simply poor, the unemployed, the homeless, the ism; for example, the centrality, in prin- because they are minorities? underclasses, black pe'ople, many ciple, of an 'impersonal' structure of By answering questions about the women, single-parent mothers, gay and public power; the need for a constitution necessary limits to democracy in the lesbian people, and so on. Far from re- to help guarantee and protect rights; a affirmative, the new Right at least recog- solving anything, it is a highly-contested diversity of power centres, both within nises the possibility of real tensions and contestable idea, around which a the state and outside it, in civil society; between individual liberty, collective de- great deal of 'ideological work' is con- mechanisms to promote open debate be- cision-making and the institutions and stantly going on. tween alternative political platforms; an processes of democracy. By not syste- Then there is the problem of what poli- institutional framework of enforceable matically addressing these issues, the tical entity the citizen is a citizen of. and challengeable rights.

21 MARXISM TODAY JUNE 1989 In many countries, West and East, the will remain highly vulnerable and depen- deeper, more troubling issues, which are limits of 'government' are explicitly de- dent on the charity or goodwill of others - not easily resolved in the short term. fined in constitutions and bills of rights a condition which, despite Mrs Thatch- Older European ideas of citizenship which are subject to public scrutiny, er's passion for replacing welfare rights assumed a more culturally-homogeneous parliamentary review and judicial pro- with private philanthropy, is in contra- population, within the framework of a cess. The Left has sometimes been impa- diction with the very idea of citizenship. strong and unitary national state. It tient with this procedural approach - Such a system of rights must specify seemed appropriate, therefore, to believe and it is certainly true that no written certain responsibilities of the state to that widening the democratic franchise constitution or judicial review, alone, has groups of citizens, which particular gov- and participation of all citizens would, been able to guarantee the rights of the ernments could not (unless permitted by naturally, enlarge the freedoms, rights 'Charter 88 citizen against a state which is deter- an explicit process of constitutional and liberties of everyone. mined to abolish or reduce them. Never- amendment) override. The authority of But social and cultural identities have is a necessary theless, the experience of recent history the state - even of a much more democra- become more diversified and 'pluralised' but not a suggests that this idea is fundamental to tic one than we enjoy at the moment - in modern society. The modern nation- sufficient democracy, conceived as a process which would thus, in principle, be clearly cir- state is increasingly composed of groups bites deep into the structure of state and cumscribed; its capacity for freedom of with very different ethnic and cultural meansfor society. Constitutional entrenchment, action to a certain degree bounded. This identities. Many of these groups belong people to however, is not enough. Any conception of challenges some fundamental assump- to other histories, cultures and traditions establish democracy which seeks to elaborate it as tions still widely held on the Left. very different from those of the indige- themselves a form of 'socialist pluralism' requires We would go further. The important nous people. These cultural differences in their the limits on 'public power' to be reasses- point about such a constitution or bill of are crucial to their sense of identity, sed in relation to a far broader range of rights would be that it radically enhances identification and 'belongingness'. Simi- capacity as issues than has been hitherto commonly the ability of citizens to take action lar differences are also beginning to citizens' presupposed. against the state (including a socialist show through in the communities and hat would be included in state) to redress unreasonable encroach- regions which originally constituted the such an expanded system ments on liberties. This would help tip the . These differences pre- of rights? A constitution or balance from state to parliament and sent new challenges to, and produce new bill of rights which en- from parliament to citizens. It would be tensions within, what we called earlier Wshrined the idea of the 'double focus' of an 'empowering' system, breaking with the 'universalising' thrust in the idea of citizenship - equal rights and equal any assumption that the state can suc- citizenship. practices - would have to specify rights cessfully define citizens' wants and Of course, permanent residents in the with respect to the processes that deter- needs for them, and become the 'caretak- society, whatever their differences of mine outcomes. Thus, not only equal er of existence'. It would redefine the origin, history and culture, must be able rights to cast a vote, but also to enjoy the balance between state and civil society, to claim common rights and entitle- conditions of political understanding, in- which is at the heart of so much rethink- ments, as full members of the political volvement in collective decision-making ing, from Left and Right alike. community, without giving up their cul- and setting of the political agenda which Of course, empowerment would not tural identities. This is a key entitlement make the vote meaningful. These condi- thereby be guaranteed. But rights could in any modern conception of citizenship - tions for real political participation in- be fought for by individuals, groups and especially in societies whose populations clude, rights with respect to information, movements and could be tested in, among are increasingly culturally and ethnical- education, the 'right to know', including other places, open court. The American ly diverse. But this may not resolve all the the defence of the right to make public system makes it clear that this can lead problems. Differences of all kinds will things which governments prefer to keep to interminable wrangles, social change continue to create special and particular under official restriction. There would getting delayed and bogged down in 'due needs, over and above those which can be have to be a bundle of social rights linked process' within the system. On the other addressed within a universalistic con- to reproduction, childcare and health; hand, the European Convention on Hu- ception of citizenship. As the Rushdie and economic rights to ensure adequate man Rights has been a better defence of affair demonstrates, it is not always pos- economic and financial resources for a civil liberties than Britain's more vener- sible to keep universal political claims citizen's autonomy. Without tough social able, customary arrangements. On ba- and particularly cultural ones in sepa- and economic rights, rights with respect lance, the gains from going in this direc- rate compartments. They keep overlap- to the state could not be enjoyed in prac- tion are preferable to the present situa- ping and invading each other's territory. tice; and without rights in respect of the tion where it is extremely difficult to he politics of citizenship, in state, new forms of inequality of power, bring our archaic state system, operat- sum, throws us into the deep wealth and status could systematically ing so much of the time on the basis of end of some very profound, disrupt the implementation of social and undefined 'club' rules, to any open T general, theoretical concerns economic liberties. accountability. about politics as well as posing a set of For example, a right to reproductive Enter Charter 88. Charter 88 is rightly complex organisational issues. To think it freedom for women entails making public concerned with enshrining the rights through - a project only just beginning - authorities responsible, not only for and liberties of British subjects in a bill we need to attend to both dimensions. The medical and social facilities to prevent or of rights and a constitution - and thereby elements of equality and universality assist pregnancy, but also for providing making them 'citizens' for the first time associated with the idea of 'the citizen', the material conditions which help to in their history. The Charter is an im- and the diverse and particular require- make the choice to have a child a genuine- mediate and practical intervention in ments of different groups which have to ly free one. A right to the capacity really current political discussion of the first be met if they are to enjoy 'free and to choose between courses of action importance and, as such, is to be wel- equal' status, demand that the Left clar- obliges the state to implement ways of comed and endorsed. But, if the argu- ify, more profoundly than it has so far, distributing wealth and income much ment above is correct, then it is a neces- both the principles of the politics of more equitably. One way of making such sary but not a sufficient means for people citizenship and their institutional re- resources available may be a guaranteed to establish themselves in their capacity quirements. What is at stake is nothing minimum income for all adults, irrespec- as citizens. In the context of the long- less than reformulating socialism to take tive of whether they are engaged in wage term struggle for socialism, it can be better account of 'citizenship' and the or household-labour. Strategies of this seen as one, but only one, essential mo- conditions and limits this imposes on type have to be treated with caution since ment in the elaboration of a diverse range state action and political strategy. • their implications for collective or societ- of new rights and their conditions of Different elements of the argument in this article are al wealth-creation are complex and not existence. elaborated in Stuart Hall, The Voluntary Sector Under fully clear. However, without a minimum Attack (an IVAC publication) and in David Held, Poli- The question of difference, however, tical Theory And The Modern State (Polity Press, guaranteed resource-base, many people which we discussed earlier, raises much forthcoming, July).

23 MARXISM TODAY JUNE 1989