24 November 1984 Marxism Today

MY AIM HERE is to explore an issue Where does the Left stand on the tic force, swallowing up almost the whole which is central to the strategy for the state? Straightforward. . . or is it? of civil society, and imposing itself (some­ renewal of the socialist project, about times with tanks), in the name of The which, however, I detect considerable con­ Not any longer. Ten years ago, the People, on the backs of the people. Who, fusion among socialists. This is the issue of Left was broadly for state interven­ now, can swallow without a gigantic gulp the state. Now a great deal has been said tion and state agencies - of the the so-called temporary, passing nature of about the role of the capitalist state by the the 'dictatorship of the proletariat'? On the Left, especially in recent times. It has appropriate kind. But postwar ex­ other hand, the very same period, since the almost acquired the status of a fashionable perience, and Thatcherism, are end of World War II, has witnessed a political topic. My purpose is not to review forcing a major rethink. parallel, gigantic expansion of the state this already complex literature, but to complex within modern capitalism, espe­ come at the problem from a slightly diffe­ cially in Western Europe, with the state rent angle. I believe that the status of the playing an increasingly interventionist or state in current thinking on the Left is very regulative role in more and more areas of problematic. Many socialists now stand in a The social life. It has become far and away the very different place, on the question of the largest single employer of labour, and state, than they would have taken up ten or acquired a dominant presence in every twenty years ago. And yet, I believe that State- sector of daily existence. What are we to we have not fully confronted or explained make of that unexpected development, to ourselves why we have changed our never adequately predicted in the classical minds or how this new thinking about the Marxist literature? state is likely to influence strategies for the Even more difficult to work out is, what Left. is our attitude towards this development? I am well aware that this kind of explora­ On the one hand, we not only defend the tion is a dangerous exercise. One of our welfare side of the state, we believe it present dilemmas on the Left is the habit should be massively expanded. And yet, of thinking that we already know what the on the other hand, we feel there is some­ content and future of socialism is. We talk thing deeply anti-socialist about how this of socialism as if it were an already com­ welfare state functions. We know, indeed, pleted agenda: the script of a play which is that it is experienced by masses of ordinary already written and only waiting for some­ people, in the very moment that they are one to put it on stage. Of course, there is a benefiting from it, as an intrusive manage­ tradition of socialist thought and struggle rial, bureaucratic force in their lives. to draw on. But, tradition is a tricky However, if we go too far down that concept, especially for the Left; a two- Socialism's particular road, whom do we discover edged sword, more diverse and contradic­ keeping us company along the road but - tory in reality than we make it appear when Old of course - the Thatcherites, the new we construct it retrospectively. Our think­ Right, the free market 'hot gospellers', ing about socialism must also reflect the who seem (whisper it not too loud) to be history and experience of socialism as it Caretaker saying rather similar things about the actually exists - with all its vicissitudes. It state. Only they are busy making capital must also ground itself in current realities, against us on this very point, treating take the pressure of our time, reflect the widespread popular dissatisfactions with world around us in order to transcend it. the modes in which the beneficiary parts of Paradoxically, socialism will perish unless Stuart Hall the state function as fuel for an anti-Left, it is able to grow out of the very soil of are instantly accused of treason, labelled as 'roll back the state' crusade. And where, to modern capitalism, which despite every­ the enemy, or dismissed as 'pink profes­ be honest, do we stand on the issue? Are we thing, is still expanding, still revolutionis­ sors misleading the Left' (in Tariq Ali's for 'rolling back the state' - including the ing the world in contradictory ways. recent, immortal phrase) and despatched welfare state? Are we for or against the I do not, therefore, believe that what 'we into outer darkness. management of the whole of society by the have always thought about the state' on the state? Not for the first time, Thatcherism Left will necessarily do for the next ten So why the problem? here catches the Left on the hop - hopping decades; or that posing ourselves difficult So, braving the terrors of excommunica­ from one uncertain position to the next, questions is necessarily a sign of the tion from the newly appointed guardians unsure of our ground. weakening of faith. We should leave Faith of orthodoxy, let us pose once more the Perhaps it might help if we knew how we to The Believers. Indeed, that other way - question of where we stand on the question got into this dilemma. How did we get socialism as an already finished project - is of the state. It is not difficult to see why the here? This is a vast topic in its own right, one of the most powerful sources of, and an state has become problematic in recent and I propose to look at only four aspects excuse for, that profound sectarianism years. This must reflect, on the one hand, here. First, how did the British Left which has always had a strong presence on our response to the whole experience of become so wedded to a particular concep­ the Left and which I detect rising like the 'actual-existing socialism' where, instead tion of socialism through state manage­ smog once again, as those who dare to put a of progressively withering away, the state ment, the essence of what I want to call question mark over our received wisdoms has become a gigantic, swollen, bureaucra­ 'statism' or a 'statist' conception of social- November 1984 Marxism Today 25

ism? Secondly, I want to sketch some of time, that statism took root in British fare, a measure of redistributive justice, the reasons why the very expansion of the political culture. In those days, what we pioneered through the state by a political state, for which so many on the Left now call 'statism' went under the title of elite legislating on behalf of the working worked so hard, turned out in practice to 'collectivism'. What is crucial for our classes, (who were required to elect 'their be a very contradictory experience. Third, analysis is the fact that there were many government' to office but who were, of I want to confront head on the confusion collectivisms. 'Collectivism' was a highly course, too inexpert to rule on their own caused on the Left by the 'libertarianism' contradictory formation, composed of behalf); resulting in a gigantic state com­ of the Right - the way Thatcherism has different strands, supported in different plex, administering more and more of exploited the experience of welfare statism ways by the Right, the Centre and the Left society in the interest of social efficiency, and turned it to the advantage of the new - if, for convenience, we can use those where the experts and the bureaucrats Right. Finally, I want to consider some somewhat anachronistic labels. Collectiv­ would exercise a 'benevolent dictatorship' aspects of the changing social and econo­ ism was regarded by many sections on the through the state, servicing society's many mic relationships today which have influ­ Right, and by some influential sectors of and complex needs. It was in this forma­ enced spontaneous attitudes on the Left - the leading classes, as the answer to Bri­ tive period that the statist conception of what I call the growth of a left libertarian­ tain's declining fortunes. The country - socialism became rivetted in place, as the ism. In conclusion, I can only roughly the new collectivists believed - required a dominant current within Labourism and indicate some directions in which our programme of 'national regeneration'. the British Left. thinking needs to be developed. This could only be undertaken if the old We have no space to sketch the long, shibboleths of laissez-faire were finally torturous route which led from the emerg­ The history abandoned and the state came to assume a ence of this statist conception of socialism First, how did the British Left get so far greater role of organic leadership in in the 1920s to the much-transformed deeply embedded in a statist conception of society. A 'populist' bloc of support, they reality of the modern state and state inter­ socialism? After all, it was not - as many believed, could be won amongst the ventionism as we know it since post-1945. people imagine - always like that. The dominated classes for such a project, pro­ Suffice it to say that the path from one to state did not have that central, all- vided the latter were 'squared' by state the other was by no means straightfor­ pervasive role in early socialist thinking. pensions and other Bismarck-type be­ ward. Nevertheless, the welfare state was Marx and Engels understood the role of nefits. This was the programme of both the constructed after 1945 on those earlier the capitalist state in developing a whole 'social imperialist' and the 'national effi­ foundations, and is rightly regarded as the social and political order around a particu­ ciency' schools, and of the highly author­ crowning achievement of the postwar lar mode of exploitation and spoke briefly itarian populist politics associated with Labour government, the high tide of the but vividly about the need to destroy it in them. And though they did not carry their spirit of popular 'war radicalism', and the its existing form. But their thinking about programme in detail, they were extremely most advanced achievement of the refor­ the future role of the state in the transition influential in pioneering the shift in the mist tradition of British social democracy. allegiance of British capital from its former to socialism was extremely sketchy. Other The logic behind this development in commitment to laissez-faire, to its newer radical currents of thought in British the second half of the twentieth century is link with a certain type of capitalist state socialism were, if anything, more anti- not difficult to understand, even though interventionism. state than pro-state in their general tenden­ we may not subscribe wholeheartedly to it cy. Even in the key period, between the nowadays. The argument ran as follows: revival of socialism in the 1880s right Statism equals socialism capitalism has a thrust, a logic of its own - through to the 1920s and the emergence of There is no space to deal with the links the logic of private property, capital accu­ the Labour Party in its modern constitu­ between collectivism and the 'centre', but mulation, possessive individualism and tionalist form as the majority party politi­ it is a critical link in the story to remember the free market. This logic 'worked', in the cally representing the working classes, a that it was also on this very question of 'the sense that it created the modern capitalist statist-oriented brand of socialism within state' that the 'old' Liberalism transmuted world - with, of course, its necessary Labourism and the labour movement, had itself into the 'new' Liberalism: and that 'costs': exploitation, poverty, insecurity to contend with many other currents, the new Liberalism was, in its own time, for the masses, class inequality, the many including of course the strong syndicalist the pioneer of the thinking which lay inevitable victims of its 'successes'. The currents before and after World War I, and behind the early installment of the welfare Left, it seemed, had only one alternative: the ILP's ethical Marxism later with their state (in the 1906-11 Liberal administra­ to break the 'logic of the market' and deep antipathy to Labour's top- tion) and, in our time, is really the political construct society around an alternative downwards, statist orientation. One of the force which created that'space in British logic - a socialist one. But to do this, it many tricks which the retrospective con­ politics which we would now call 'social needed an alternative centre of power, an struction of Tradition on the Left has democracy'. opposing rallying-point, to that of capital performed is to make the triumph of But the key factor for our purposes was and the market. This opposing force was Labourism over these other socialist cur­ the progress which collectivism made, the state. Either the state could be used to rents - the result of a massive political under essentially Fabian inspiration, in­ make inroads into the 'logic of the market', struggle, in which the ruling classes played side the labour movement and in the to modify its excesses, abate its extremes, a key role - appear as an act of natural and Labour Party. In this period Fabianism graft alternative goals (eg, needs not pro­ inevitable succession. established its ascendancy as the philoso­ fits) on to the system, impose a redistribu­ And yet, it was precisely in this critical phy of socialism for Labour. Collectivism tive logic on the unequal ways in which period - between 1880s and the 1920s - became, to be blunt, what the Webbs and capitalism 'naturally' distributes its goods when the parameters of British politics for their many followers meant by socialism. and resources: this was the reformist the following 50 years were set for the first That is, progressive legislation, social wel­ alternative. Or else, the power of capital 26 November 1984 Marxism Today

and the market, installed behind the capi­ capitalist democracy has depended. It was the welfare state. And those boys - Sir talist state, had to be actively broken - the shifting of these boundaries, in some Keith Joseph's shock troops masquerad­ 'smashed' - and the major social processes sectors, away from the free play of market ing as an independent research unit- know 'socialised' or made public by being prog­ forces, and closer to the reform-through- what they are doing. This centrality of the ressively absorbed and taken over into the the-state pole, which constituted the 're­ state to the Left is not confined to the area state: this was the revolutionary road. volution' of the Keynesian welfare state of welfare and benefits. We have tended to Both, it is clear, involved, to different and the post-1945 settlement. This new think that the nationalisation measures of degrees, massive inroads into the 'logic' of consensus, basically, lasted up to the ad­ the 1940s and 1950s and the Keynesian the market by expanding the role of the vent of Thatcherism in the mid-70s. It is interventions in economic life, which in­ state. this 'settling of boundaries' which the new creased rapidly in the 1960s and 1970s, Right challenged. Restoring the free mar­ failed, not because they went too far, but The two great blocs ket principle to its former ascendancy is because they did not go far enough. The I believe this crudely drawn political land­ once again the fulcrum of politics, the key Left is still basically wedded to a positive scape, blocked out into its two, great, dividing line between Right and Left. view of the state's role in socialist construc­ opposed 'continents' - the domain of capit­ That is why the question of the Left's tion. al and the market versus the domain of the attitude to the state now matters so pro­ logic of social needs, imposed through the foundly. The two-edged state state - is how the vast majority of us first All this makes it sound as if the balance Matters are not quite so simple. Few areas entered into basic political thinking. It is of forces on this question has been steadily of the welfare state are as clear cut in their only a slight exaggeration to say that these moving in the reformist direction. Why, positive image as the NHS. Also the remain the two fundamental formations in then, has this development of the state welfare and benefit side is not the only British political culture - more inclusive, been so problematic for the Left? One form in which the state has expanded in in a way, than the traditional division into reason is that the state has gone on expand­ post-war society. We have seen the parallel Left and Right. They have helped to set ing and developing powered, so to speak, expansion of the warfare state, too. And of the parameters within which British poli­ by both the Right and the Left. We still the repressive, 'policing' aspects of the tics have fluctuated since the turn of the speak of the 'capitalist state'. But, in fact, state: the state as coercive agent, defending century. An essential part of the 'historic we no longer behave as if it had single, the social order, punishing the deviant, compromise' between the classes struck in monolithic class character. The Left, de­ extending its surveillance into civil society, the interwar period was the new balance spite its rhetoric, has its part of the state disciplining the citizenry on to the straight established between 'state' and 'civil socie­ too: the welfare state, which distributes and narrow, its operations increasingly ty'. On this basic 'settling of the bound­ benefits to the needy; serves society's shrouded in secrecy, beyond all normal aries' much of the stability of Britain as a needs; redistributes resources to the less forms of accountability. The 'Orwellian' well-off; provides amenities - and all on a state is alive and well, not only in Eastern universalistic basis, rather than on the European socialist democracies, but in market terms of 'ability to pay'. The NHS Western European class democracies, is the classic example. Despite its depend­ alongside the welfare state. The state ence on the private sector and the inroads which gives out benefits also snoops on its into it made by private medicine, the NHS recipients. Then there is the size and scale is still generally regarded and experienced of the administrative side of the state, as having broken the logic which con­ coupled with its bureaucratic mode of nected health and medical care to wealth operation. People, when they are being and the private ability to pay, and installed 'done good to' by the state, increasingly in its place the idea of medical need served experience it, in reality, as being 'put in by a universal provision. The history of their place' by it: by 'experts' who always Nye Bevan's struggles to install the NHS know better, or state servants who seem demonstrate, not only how bitterly the oblivious to the variety of actual needs on market forces resisted this inroad into their the other side of the counter. The feeling is territory, but how impossible it would very deep that the way the welfare state have been without an alternative centre, works makes people into passive, greedy, capable of organising a materially different dependent clients much of the time, rather system of provision - the state. than people claiming rights from a state which is supposed to be their state, repre­ How could anyone who understood the senting them against the logic of the material difference which this has made in market. the lives of countless ordinary people re­ gard this development as contrary to the Then there is the awareness that welfare logic of socialism? We - rightly - want to states have become general throughout see more of this, not less: more aspects of capitalist systems, with levels of benefit life organised on a similar principle. The which have long since outstripped ours, Social Affairs Unit of the Centre for Policy and performing functions not only im­ Studies, the Thatcherite 'think tank', posed on capital by the working class but proposed in its pamphlet, not simply to cut necessary to the survival of capital. Free back the welfare state on pragmatic secondary education is, after all, both a grounds of cost but to 'break the spell' of long standing radical demand and a reform November 1984 Marxism Today 27 imposed on the idea of an educational The problem for the Left is that the Freedom is not compatible with - is in fact market place and the degree of training and dissatisfactions with the state are real and deeply undermined by - the idea of a state skilling a modern capitalist system re­ authentic enough - even if Thatcherism which takes over everything, which quires. The welfare-reformist and the re­ then mis-describes and mis-explains them. absorbs all social life, all popular energies, productive aspects of the state are in­ Thatcherism did not invent them - even if all democratic initiatives, and which - creasingly difficult to distinguish. As state its remedies for the problem are fictitious. however benevolently - governs society in functions multiply, so more of us are Further, it exposed a weakness, a critique, place of the people. working in state-related jobs. The chang­ of the existing system which the Left had ing composition of the working class and made too little of: the deeply undemocratic Choice the changing pattern of industrial conflict character of state-administered socialism. Perhaps we can all agree about 'emancipa­ have moved increasingly to these contested Most disconcerting of all, this revealed tion'. It has a resonant feel to it, and sites within the state. Even there we are that the Left and the new Right share, on touches very deep chords - as the new aware of the double-sided character of our this question, some of the same ground! Right correctly understood. But what ab­ work. The slogan which most accurately This was particularly disconcerting be­ out another, trickier aspect of Freedom: expresses our dilemma and captures this cause the Left believes that ideology mar­ the question of choice? I am not sure the contradictory reality is 'In And Against ches in exclusive blocks of ideas, each idea of 'choice' has so far played a very The State'. Increasing numbers of us are, block attached to its appropriate class or central role in thinking on the Left. And regularly, both. political position. It is therefore extremely yet the most widespread and basically odd to find the Left sharing with 'the class correct 'image' of actual-existing socialism New Right libertarianism enemy' a critique of statism - even if, when among ordinary working people is the drab This brings us to the 'libertarianism' of the the conclusions from that critique are lack of diversity, the omnipresence of new Right. Because it is exactly this con­ drawn, the two sides radically part com­ planned sameness, the absence of choice tradictory experience of the state on which pany. Of course, the problem here lies in and variety. Our concept of socialism has Thatcherism capitalised. It rooted itself in the fact that ideology does not function in been dominated by images of scarcity. The these dissatisfactions, and inflected them blocks. The idea of liberty, on which the trouble is that on the question of choice, into a whole broadside against the very whole anti-state philosophy was predi­ capitalism and the free market seem so far principle of welfare as such. The new Right cated, does not belong exclusively to the to have the best tunes. But is the idea of harnesses these popular discontents to its Right. They appropriated a certain version choice, which is intrinsic to the whole cause, converted a dislike of the of it, linked it with other reactionary ideas critique of statism, an essentially reaction­ bureaucratic features of statism into a to make a whole 'philosophy' and con­ ary, right-wing capitalist idea? full-scale assault on the 'creeping tide of nected it into the programme and the I suspect this is partly a generational socialism' and the 'nanny state'. On these forces of the Right. They made the idea of matter. Socially, culturally, in everyday negative foundations it built the new posi­ Freedom equivalent to and dependent on economic life, younger people set enor­ tive gospel of the market as the universal the 'freedom of the market - and thus mous store by choice and diversity. And provider of goods and of The Good; laun­ necessarily opposed to the idea of Equal­ they see as the principal enemies of diversi­ ched the savaging of public expenditure as ity. But freedom or liberty - in the wider ty both big, corporate capital and the big a testament to Virtue; initiated the priva­ sense of social emancipation - has always state. They know what Thatcherite eco­ tisation 'roll back'; and raised the war-cry been a key element in the philosophy of the nomists do not seem to know - that the of Freedom and its identity with the free Left. Within this chain of ideas, emancipa­ maximisation of popular choice does not market. The new Right presented itself as tion depends on equality of condition. It is flourish in the storehouse of corporate the only party committed to oppose the the equation with the market and posses­ capital, with its carefully calculated exponential growth of the state, its sive individualism which limits it. So what marketing and financing strategies. And penetration into every corner of life. This the Left urgently needs is to reappropriate they do not naturally associate it with the was one of the key ways in which Thatch­ the concept of freedom and give it its real equally corporatist 'bureaucratic' modes of erism cut into the territory of the tradition­ expression within the context of a deepen­ operation of the state. But, unfortunately al Left, disorganised its base and made ing of democratic life as a whole. The for the Left, they have found a measure of itself 'popular'. problem is that this socialist conception of choice in what we can only call the inter- 28 November 1984 Marxism Today stices of the market. At the small end of the including those of the younger generations inadequate conception of how a socialist market, where the big battalions and com­ on the Left. state would operate in ways which are petition to the death do not entirely domin­ Does all this then add up to a covert radically different from that of the present ate, small initiatives sometimes have a invitation to give up another set of 'old' version. chance, and a degree of entrepreneurship socialist ideas, lie back and learn to love the We can't afford to be naive about the can create openings, or recognise a new free market? Not at all. But it is an market either. It is the principal exploita­ need, even a new social need, and experi­ invitation to open our minds and fertilise tive mechanism of a capitalist social order ment to a degree with satisfying it. I our imaginations a little by direct infusions when set to work in the context of private certainly don't mean to paint a rosy picture from the contradictory reality of what property and capitalist economic forms. I of the degree of openness which exists Marx, in his simple way, used to call 'real am not sufficient of an economic expert to here: all markets are constrained above all history'. For one thing, we know that, know whether some aspects of the market by inequality. But most of the innovatory wherever in Eastern Europe, under the can be combined with socialist economic trends in everyday life with which younger actual-existing socialism, the system of forms but I am sure we need to ponder the people spontaneously identify - in music, rigid economic planning of life, from steel idea more deeply. Certainly, I feel sure clothes, styles, the things they read and factories to hat pins, has been relaxed a that socialism cannot exist without a con­ listen to, the environments they feel com­ little, the first - though not necessarily the ception of the public. We are right to regard fortable in - operate on what one can only final - form which this has assumed is a the 'public sector', however little it repre­ call an 'artisan capitalism' basis. These return, within the framework of socialist sents a transfer of power to the powerless, things are in constant danger of being planning, of some 'free market mechan­ as an arena constructed against the logic of regulated out of existence by the state or isms'. This is not a problem to be left to left capital. The concept of 'public health' is ripped off by the big commercial pro­ economists and experts on Eastern Europe different from the idea of private medicine viders. since the image and reality of actual- because it deals with the whole environ­ existing socialism is a problem for all ment of health, which is more than the sum Left libertarianism socialists and has been such a trump card of individual healthy bodies - a social Nevertheless, inevitably, the actual daily in the Right's struggle against the very conception of health as a need, a right. cultural experience of diversity has come appeal of socialism in the West. The 'Public transport' is not simply a practical to be identified with a certain conception, second lesson we might draw is linked with alternative to private transport because it or rather, a certain experience of the mar­ this re-evaluation of a whole historical embodies conceptions of equal access to ket. And this is by no means confined to experience, though not in a directly orga­ the means of mobility - to movement non-political people. Culturally, where nisational way. It is simply the re­ around one's environment as a publicy- would the Left be today without initiatives examination of the new impetus towards validated right. The idea of 'public space' like City Limits or a thousand other small, choice, the new spirit of pluralism and signifies a construction of space not bound­ 'independent' publications; or Gay Sweat­ diversity, which has become such a driving ed by the rights of private property, a space shop and hundreds of other little theatre force of the masses under advanced capi­ for activities in common, the holding of groups; or Virago and History Workshop talism and which will have to be more space in trust as a social good. In each case and Readers and Writers Cooperative and centrally reflected in our thinking about the adjective public represents an advance Compendium and Centreprise and Com- socialism if we are ever to convince large in conception on the limits of possessive edia and - you name it? Young people on numbers of people that socialism is a individualism, of liberal thought itself. In the Left or Right do not expect to hear the superior 'way of life' to that which, with all this conception of the public and the new sounds which speak to them of their its ups and downs, they already know. social, socialism is still ahead. And the time on either BBC or ITV, though they Why else should the toiling masses under public can only be carved out of market might catch them from the 'independents' capitalism ever commit themselves to an space, capital's space, by the engine of clustered around Channel Four, from alternative which offers them less than they state action. Radio Laser or even, God help us, the can currently get? dreaded, arch-commercial, 'pirate' Radio The state and society Caroline. Much of this is radical initiatives No room for naivety On the other hand, 'the public' cannot be operating precariously in the margins of I don't think we can afford to be naive identical with the state. Once the logic of the capitalist market. But even when you about the state. Negatively, though the capital, property and the market are move from the margins of the market, the state is a contradictory force, it does have a broken, it is the diversity of social forms, postivie sentiments of younger people on systematic tendency to draw together the the taking of popular initiatives, the recov­ the Left, post-1968, instinctively gravitate many lines of force and power in society ery of popular control, the passage of to those local or 'grass roots' initiatives, and convert them into a particular 'system power from the state into society, which where people, by their direct self-activity, of rule'. In that sense, the state does marks out the advance towards socialism. can be persuaded to supplement or de­ continue to organise and orchestrate the We can envisage a 'partnership' between velop new struggles around the existing space of capital accumulation in its broad state and society, so long as the initiative is bureaucratic forms of provision of the societal aspects, and hold a particular, always passing to society, so long as the state. The libertarianism of the Right has exploitative social order in place. This is monopoly over the management of social been matched, I believe, by a steady and not a neutral function - though it is not the life does not come to a dead halt with the unstoppable, slow but strong current of state's only function, either. But insofar as state elite, so long as the state itself is 'libertarianism' on the Left - mirroring, in it is its role, the state has to be dismantled, rooted in, constantly draws energy from, its own way many of the broader social and and another conception of the state put in and is pushed actively by popular forces. economic trends at work in society, trans­ its place. The lesson I"think we can draw One of the reasons why some of the things forming daily life and everyday attitudes, here is that we have as yet a wholly which have developed around the GLC are November 1984 Marxism Today 29 so exciting, so pre-figurative for the Left, is precisely that one begins to see here and there a glimmer of a local state transform­ ing the ways in which it 'represents' society politically; being more dependent on the passage of power, through the state, to the constituencies than it is on monopolising power; hence, of how a new principle, centralised through the instrumentality of the state, can then yield space to a wide variety of different forms, social move­ ments and initiatives in civil society. What is no longer tenable or tolerable is the state-management of society in the name of socialism. Pluralism, in this sense, is not a temporary visitor to the socialist scene. It has come to stay. We could put all this another way by reminding ourselves that what Marx spoke of when he referred to socialism was the social revolution. The democratisation of society is as important as dismantling the bureaucracies of the state. Indeed, perhaps the most important lesson of all is the absolute centrality to all socialist thinking today of the deepening of democracy. Democracy is not, of course, a formal matter of electoral politics or constitu­ tionalism. It is the real passage of power to the powerless, the empowerment of the excluded. The state cannot do this for the powerless, though it can enable it to hap­ pen. They have to do it for themselves, by finding the forms in which they can take on the control over an increasingly complex society. Certainly, it does not happen all at once, through one centre - by simply 'smashing the state', as the sort of socialist thinking which is fixated on the state would have it. It has to happen across a multiplicity of sites in social life, on many different fronts, including, of course, the state itself, whose tendency to concentrate power is precisely what constitutes it as a barrier to socialism. Gramsci advanced the profound idea that hegemony is not consti­ tuted only by the state, but in the multiple centres of civil society. It follows that an alternative conception of socialism must embrace this struggle to democratise pow­ er across all the centres of social activity - in private as well as public life, in personal associations as well as in compulsory obligations, in the family and the neigh­ bourhood and the nursery and the shop­ ping centre as well as in the public office or at the point of production. If the struggle for socialism in modern societies is a war of position, then our conception of socialism must be of a society of positions - different places from which we can all begin the reconstruction of society for which the state is only the anachronistic caretaker.