12 December 1985 Marxism Today Realignment- Realignment is the order of the day. At root it is about the crisis of the Left. And that is what it must address. It is a means not an end, a beginning not a conclusion. for What? Stuart Hall IN RECENT WEEKS, the process of the Left. (see Martin Jacques' assessment realignment on the Left has been rapidly in the last MT). The speech, with its 'new gathering steam. By realignment, I mean a left' touches and its hard-edged assault on narrowly conceived parliamentary 'real­ fundamental regrouping of people and the far Left, stirred up turbulent and ism'. Whatever else realignment is about, ideas across the existing boundaries, in­ ambivalent feelings everywhere, while at it is certainly not about that. itiating a process by which the Left slowly the same time being somehow cathartic. The relevant questions remain: what and painfully acquires the capacity to Another, less tangible sign, is my impress­ new political positions are being staked address its own crisis. It seems now as if ion that it has become easier for people to out? Is the process addressed to the fun­ what the Left could not achieve on its own ask awkward questions, air fundamental damental issues of the crisis of the Left? may yet happen as a result of combined Where, in all this, is the renewal of the pressure from two different directions at meaning, content, perspectives and lan­ once. The first is from 'Thatcherism' - there is a tiny bit of hard Left guages of the Left? weaker, now, but still, after the riots, very inside of all of us The failure to grasp this brings in its much 'in place' - which has brought the wake all sorts of short-circuits and false crisis of the Left to a head by disorganising stopping points. Realignment is not an it and effectively rewriting the political uncertainties and express scepticism about event but a process which has to be agenda. Second, as the result of a series of the commonsense of the Left without continuously negotiated. If realignment is strategic reversals - amongst which I having their heads bitten off or their left defined exclusively in organisational would list the defeat of the miners' strike credentials instantly questioned by the terms, then it is perfectly possible to (despite the heroic struggle); the subse­ keepers of holy writ. Nothing but good can assume that, once a few extremists have quent emergence of the UDM breakaway flow from this oiling of rusty political left or some new alliances forged, the union in Nottingham and elsewhere; the wheels. process has been completed. Another false crisis about ballot money which the TUC seems too paralysed to resolve; the debacle What's it all about? around rate-capping and the sluggish qual­ This seems an opportune moment, then, ity of Labour's recovery in the polls. to ask what realignment is really about? Realignment is already beginning to Why does the Left need it, and is what it deliver some tangible results. The defeat of needs what it is getting? Some things can the Morning Star challenge at the Com­ be definitively said at this point about what munist party congress in May, the emerg­ realignment is not about. It was never ence of a left critique of the Scargill about getting quick popularity in the opin­ leadership in the NUM and David Blunk- ion polls by an opportunistic move to the ett's attempt at the Labour party confer­ centre or by subordinating everything to ence to find an alternative to the disaster winning the next election. It was never looming at Liverpool are all, in their principally 'about' - and cannot therefore different ways, straws in the political wind be measured in terms of- greater loyalty to of realignment. Another is the drift of or 'rallying around' the Labour leadership. many people in the Campaign, Tribune and There is nothing new about this type of Chartist groupings within the Labour Left loyalism. It has consolidated a variety of towards the Labour Coordinating Com­ Labour leaderships, of varying political mittee and the painful detachment of Ken complexions, in the past without setting in Livingstone from the 'impossibilists' in motion any fundamental reappraisal or the old GLC coalition. Clearly, some of the forging any new strategies for change. On stable formations of the Left are beginning the contrary, loyalism has most often been to dissolve and regroup. Part of the same associated with a tactical closing of ranks, a phenomenon was the impact of Mr Kin- surge of electoral opportunism and the nock's conference speech on the whole of taming of the Left within the confines of a December 1985 Marxism Today 13 ending is to be found in the belief that everywhere the whiff of grapeshot directed don't happen to share. There are differ­ swearing at the 'hard Left' is really what it at the Hatton 'extremists', but you would ences of this kind, the product of different is all about and is, in itself, sufficient. have searched in vain for the slightest hint traditions, outlooks and formations, on the Nothing could be further from the truth. It of how significant, in Labour's thinking, Left which are likely to persist for the is one thing to expose the disastrous con­ the strategy of the GLC should have foreseeable future. Indeed, the whole idea sequences of the one-eyed militancy become, and the political lessons which of a 'monolithic Left' now seems to be a espoused by the Liverpool council under should be drawn. contradiction in terms, against the grain of Hatton's leadership, whose constancy in contemporary experience. the issue of the rates is having to be bought Rather, it is the 'hard Left' as a peculiar at the price of sacking thousands of council the ritual expurgation of the and distinctive political style, a set of workers whose jobs the strategy was in part habits, a political-cultural tradition, devised to protect in the first place. hard Left is not what stretching right across the actual organisa­ But it is not enough. It is Mrs Thatcher's realignment is about tional sub-divisions of the Left, which is at government, not Derek Hatton, who issue. It is the 'hard Left' as keeper of left chose local authority spending as a consciences, as political guarantor, as the strategic front of struggle. The Liverpool The hard Left litmus paper of orthodoxy, which is the crisis flows directly from the application of Realignment, then, is only a means to a monetarist doctrine to local authority larger end. In this context, the attempt to spending, the general attempt to restore isolate the 'hard Left', which has become market criteria at the expense of public the cutting-edge of the process, does not need, the attack on the living standards of mean trying to get rid of this or that the less well-off and the government's grouping whose political position (on, say, authoritarian and anti-democratic charac­ nationalisation or council housing or the ter. It is an offensive aimed explicitly at state or the Soviet Union or Poland) we Labour and its constituents and its politic­ al base in the large urban conurbations. What is more, it is precisely along this very front that, in some places-most notably in the GLC, but also in South Yorkshire - that the Left has made the most imagina­ tive and innovative political response, in the form of the new 'municipal socialism'. Yet, if you listened carefully to Mr Kin- nock's speech, you would have caught 14 December 1985 Marxism Today problem. That is why realignment turns tion associated with the days of a trade Its conception of socialism remains pro­ out to be a lengthy process with all sorts of unionism shaped by the experience of the foundly statist - Fabian or Soviet style. It stopping points, and why it keeps running white, skilled, organised, male labour has never really squared up to the pro­ into the sand. It is because there is a tiny force in heavy productive industry, which found damage done to the Left by the bit of the 'hard Left' inside all of us - continues to dominate trade union think­ experience of actual-existing socialism. It patrolling the frontiers of consciousness, ing and strategy long after the actual social has lost the capacity to advance a convinc­ repressing from memory certain profound composition of its membership has been ing political vision of a more egalitarian, but awkward facts, ruling certain ques­ transformed. It is to be found in what I can more open, more diverse, more liberta­ tions 'out of court', keeping us all on the only call the untheorised 'neo-trotskyism' rian, more democratic, more self- straight and narrow and thus helping to which shapes some of the unthinking organising type of socialism, conceived in hold in place certain automatic and un­ responses of the independent Left. For relation to the actual historic trends at questioning responses. example, the nostalgia for an undefined work in the world today. This is what is Ken Livingstone is a good case in point 'class politics' recently to be heard from really meant by the 'hard Left'. here. In the political areas where he moves some sections of the feminist movement, The need to erode these positions and in his own right and initiates, his political when the very term was clearly a coded habits on the Left is what is meant by instincts are totally opposite to those of the way of launching an attack on the political 'rethinking'. Re-grouping the old forms 'hard Left'. He listens - where they don't. relevance of feminist experience and strug­ and forces into a new historic bloc of forces He engages, where they tend to retreat to gle. Realignment has had the unexpected linked with that process of rethinking is the bunker of left orthodoxy. He contests outcome of forcing to the surface some of the key task of 'realignment'. Seen in this opposing positions whereas the tendency these bizarre convergences. way, realignment really touches the fun­ of the 'hard Left' is simply to swear at damental structures of left politics in Bri­ them. Livingstone could never have tain and is only the first step along a fought the miners' strike as Scargill did. the leapfrog game of lengthy, hazardous and painful road. It He would never have regarded the ques­ involves remaking the very language of tion of the ballot as unimportant, especial­ 'lefter-than-thou' socialism itself. It means opening up the ly when entering so strategic a battle. And structures of the Left to a deep process of yet, the way the 'hard Left' has distanced What is wrong with the habits and democratisation. It means remaking the itself from him since rate-capping, far positions - or model - which the 'hard politics of the labour movement in the light from freeing him for transposing the les­ Left', as I have been defining it, have of the struggle for feminism - the 'femi- sons of his GLC strategy on to a wider, shaped the Left? Basically, that model has nisation' of the Left, which is so far only national canvas, appears to have immobil­ committed us over the years to an analysis nodding opportunistically in feminism's ised him, rendering him virtually silent. which no longer has at its centre an direction. At the same time it involves It needs to be clearly said, then, that the accurate description of contemporary so­ drawing the feminist movement directly ritual expurgation of the 'hard Left' is not cial, economic or cultural realities. on to the terrain of the struggle for general what realignment is about. It is the 'hard Second, it has attached us to a definition social, economic and cultural change - the Left' as a blockage to a long, difficult but and a model of how change occurs in 'socialisation' of feminism. It implies the necessary process, which concerns us. society which in no way adequately reflects recognition of the irreversible way in Gradually, the renewal of the socialist the actual social composition of the class which British politics and society has be­ project and the generation of new strategic forces and social movements necessary to come imprinted by the ethnic factor. It perspectives for the Left has come to have, produce it or democratic realities of our involves the construction of new kinds of as one of its necessary pre-conditions, the society. Third, it is no longer able to political linkages between representatives erosion of many of the political positions politicise and develop the majority experi­ and habits of the 'hard Left'. It is this ences and dispositions of the popular political fact which has forged the link forces which the Left must enlist. Fourth, 'realism' is often simply a between 're-thinking' and 'realignment'. it is wedded to an automatic conception of class, whereby the economic conditions code name for giving in Out of time can be transposed directly on to the politic­ The 'hard Left' in this sense is to be found al and ideological stage. . . Marx's formid­ and their constituencies, between old and as much in the economism of Labourism - able distinction between a class 'in itself new class forces, between the skilled and the belief that, being economically of the and one which has developed sufficient the unemployed, between the older dis­ working class guarantees you a certain political, cultural and strategic unity to possessed and the new social movements: political and ideological position automati­ become an active force in history - 'for in short, between the Grand Old Cause and cally - as in the unquestioning support for itself - is wholly foreign to it - though the brand new times. . . the Soviet model of socialism to be found 'Marxism' as a sort of magic invocation is in the more vocal sections of the Morning constantly on its lips. The dislocation of socialism Star. The 'hard Left' is present in that These problems must be seen in a wider tendency not to analyse the new configura­ Grand old cause, brand new times. . . context. They represent a fundamental tions of class forces but to affirm, ritualisti- It is deeply linked to a politics of gesture, dislocation of both socialism and the Left cally, a belief in 'class polities', whatever whereby it is better to lose heroically than from contemporary society. Though this that means, which you can find in some of to win. It blackmails everyone into the dislocation may appear far advanced in Labour's most fiercely loyal constituency leapfrog game of 'lefter-than-thou' which Britain, it is by no means confined to it. It sectors. It is the commitment to the prog­ is so often the main if not the only business has a clear international dimension. One ramme, demands and forms of organisa­ actually conducted at meetings of the Left. has only to observe how, slowly across the December 1985 Marxism Today 15 globe, the policy and thinking of the new issues around which we should initiate a chance that the marxist conception of Right has undergone a steady revival, wide-ranging debate on the Left. Debates, socialism was grounded in an earlier grasp destroying an older Keynesian and welfar- in this sense, are not a polite way of of the historic tendencies of capitalist ist consensus: how the global market referring to 'policy documents'. development, which is why the key work forces have come once again to be acknow­ They are more - as Peter Glotz, general was called, not socialism but Capital. It ledged - by left governments, who took secretary of the West Germany SDP, could never be said that Marx elaborated a power on quite different terms - as setting wrote recently, initiating a very similar conception of socialism which simply the parameters of manoeuvre. discussion in Germany - 'collective learn­ amounted to accepting and working within In part, this is a question of the renewed ing processes'. One pre-condition of this the parameters of industrial capitalism at political vitality and self-confidence of the learning process is that we clearly under­ the stage which it had reached when he new Right and its success in actually stand that such strategic topics do not undertook his labours. But there is no way shifting the balance of forces in different necessarily 'belong' to the Left. They are in which a socialism for our own times can societies. But it is also something else - not 'our' property. For example, one such evade the terms of reference of the forms of something more indefinable. For the time strategic topic is 'democracy'. Far from social and economic organisation which being, the new Right looks like the historic 'belonging' exclusively to the Left, we currently dominate the centres of adv­ force which is capable of harnessing the have mercilessly neglected its force as a anced production in the modern world. contradictory new currents abroad in the revolutionary idea over the years. The Left The failure of the Left to be able to world. It is the Right which has the and the Right do not live in sealed uni­ refract these new realities within its own verses. They have to contest ideas and perspective on the future is the result of a engage realities which are simply the com­ series of interlocking developments. There mon determinations of our lives today. Of are the new technologies, which are rapid­ course, the Left ought to have something ly reshaping skills and social identities, fundamental to say about these ideas, a regrouping the workforce into new divi­ fundamentally different strategic perspec­ sions and destroying the older patterns of tive, from that of the Right. But we don't work. On these old forms of material live in a totally different world from which labour the social and political disciplines of the Left can somehow insulate itself. the working class and the labour move­ Our critics are sometimes correct when ment in the past fundamentally depended. they observe that 'realism' is often simply a Then, there are the new forms of capitalist code name for giving in, settling for what­ production. These occur both at the level ever already exists - because There Is No of the multinationals, coordinating proces­ Alternative. On the other hand, the Left ses across the globe, between fragmented has rarely been in such need as it is now of a labour forces, through the integrating healthy, solid dose of 'realism' - in the mechanisms of the information revolution, sense proper to any marxist perspective, of rapidly advancing the new international understanding the determining limits, the division of labour; and at the level of inescapable lines of tendency and direc­ national production, where the large-scale, tion, established by the real world. No on line factory processes, characteristic of amount of prayer will make the British that era of development in which the confidence ruthlessly to clear the way for a economy - capitalist or socialist - prosper­ classic models of a socialist future were re-energised world capitalist market, ous overnight. No government - left or devised, are being rapidly eroded through which 'naturally' speaks the language of right - can dramatically lower Britain's what Robin Murray recently called the the new computer-men, the marketing structural rate of unemployment over­ new impetus towards 'flexible specialisa­ whiz-kids, the hard-selling merchants in night. What sets these necessary limits to tion'. The whole imagery of socialist pro­ the fast lane. Historically, for the moment, political and economic strategies is not duction was dominated by the modern the initiative is not with us. The Left is simply political 'will', important as that is. flow-process of the Fordist factory, the being daily shaped by those forces, rather It is what Marx, in his old-fashioned way, object of a revolutionary iconography as than harnessing and shaping them. used to call 'the real movement of history', well as an industrial sociology which underpinned the aesthetic of socialism at What, then, has triggered off such a which is an exceedingly hard taskmaster. the time of the Russian Revolution. This profound historical transition? Why do aesthetic may appeal to our revolutionary people on the Left feel, not that they have The new industrial revolution sensibilities, but fewer and fewer of those lost the tactical initiative for a time, but The first major cause of this historic dis­ who actually work in any kind of industrial that their very language is collapsing on location is the failure of the latter to move production in the future - in any case, a them? Everyone on the Left will probably on to the ground of the new industrial decreasing proportion of the whole work­ have his or her favourite reason. But it may revolution and to locate the arguments for force - will work in places like that, under be worthwhile taking the risk of setting socialism on the terrain of a new phase of that sort of labour regime. Hence, the them out, not only as a way of stimulating Western economic development. Of economic programmes and demands debate, but also because, since we do not course, there is no planned or rational formulated with this type of industrial know yet precisely what we think, we shape to this epochal development but we economic organisation at its heart, are might begin to make some headway to­ should not lose sight for a moment of the becoming unevenly obsolete. With them, wards that by identifying what we ought to fact that it is, in the usual uneven and what we might call the older socialist be thinking about. We badly need just now contradictory way, in process, transform­ imagery is collapsing. to identify a limited number of strategic ing everything in its wake. It isn't by 16 December 1985 Marxism Today

At the same time, the character of the against the classic predictions, this class women and blacks constituting a growing world market is being refashioned by a failed to realise its historically appointed proportion of those at work, with work in new dynamic. It enters now directly into role. That, in itself, was no mere conting­ the service sectors rapidly overtaking those the production and distribution cycles of ency. It arose from many factors, one of in so-called 'productive industry', with the national economies, disorganising their which was certainly a too automatic con­ preponderance of women in the deskilled rhythms, undermining the classic Keyne- ception of class, which failed to recognise echelons of modern technology and with sian strategies of control and making the how the capitalist labour process divided, such a large preponderance of the work­ whole idea of 'socialism in one country', to force in some local or national state-related which the mainstream thinking of the activity, the whole masculine imagery of British Left is instinctively committed, the proletariat - the 'vanguard class of increasingly out of date. What hope is production' - simply doesn't make any there for a 'socialist Britain' escaping the sense, except as a historic recall. What we consequences of this global revolution of are referring to here is therefore more than production, perched as it is on the outer the collapse of the traditional historic edge of Western Europe and held at the agencies of change. It is the erosion of the centre of a worldwide financial network, cultures of work, economic organisation, when the much more autarchic structures social and sexual identities in which the of the East European economies have not Left, in an earlier era unreflectively was been sufficiently 'closed' to protect them rooted. It is therefore necessary to ask, on against the wind of change? what new, actual forms of social life is Of course, the new industrial revolution socialism's conception of the future rooted is occurring in fundamentally lopsided and or grounded today? The answer is by no distorted ways. The 'globalisation' of capi­ I have yet to see a convincing means obvious. talist production has produced mainly re­ cession, de-industrialisation and unem­ argument in favour of Actual existing socialism ployment at home. But a politics of redis­ inefficiency and waste 'for The third factor in this historic dislocation tributing wealth within the limits of the socialism's sake' is that aspect of the crisis of the Left which existing economic cake cannot any longer arises from the dissolution of the models do the trick. Some regions of production, based on forms of 'actual existing social­ central to the whole history of the labour fragmented and segmented the labour ism' in the world today. Little needs to be movement, have gone forever. The new force at the same time as it provided the said in detail at this point about the radical international division of labour is here to potential conditions of its political unifica­ failure of the Soviet model of socialism to stay. The smaller, more dispersed scale of tion. But what we face now is not merely constitute a real alternative for the Left capitalist production - decentralising com­ the failure of a certain revolutionary sce­ and there is no need to fall into a simple- ponent stages into independent specalised nario to unfold but the actual recomposi­ minded anti-communism to carry the units - is the rational core underlying the tion of class itself. Recent contributors to argument. Nevertheless, it is not at all drive towards privatisation, with which this debate have mischievously tried to clear that the Left has squared up to this any socialist conception of modern pro­ resolve this problem by posing it in terms historical fact and rigorously re-thought its duction will need to come to terms. It of who does and who does not 'believe' in own conceptions of a more democratic provides the basis for more refined con­ the class struggle. This is wilful distortion. model in the right of that experience. The trols over demand and supply in keeping The question is not whether we 'believe' in Left, after all, has no cause to feel easily with modern markets and greater flexibil­ class politics but what, in the here and superior. There is a world of difference ity of choice, which are not only 'capitalist' now, it concretely is. between the regimes of Eastern Europe virtues. Certainly, at the moment, these Again, the process of recomposition and and the Fabian models of social democracy elements, like those of the new technolo­ restructuring of the working class is neith­ for which the Left in the West has largely gies, are being imposed piecemeal, and in er even or uniform. But gradually changes settled. But, despite these differences, ways deliberately designed to weaken col­ are overtaking the way labour is organised, which have to be openly and plainly stated, lective rights and labour organisation, the expansion in the types of activities there are also some surprising similarities fragment the workforce, deskill jobs and which now constitute 'work', the new to contend with. impose new market criteria of value and social divisions which flow from it, the new In both these systems, socialism has worth. Socialist thinking will need to places in the society where the exploitation assumed 'statist' forms. In both, things transform these in the light of a quite takes place. The old distinctions between have been imposed on or given to the different scale of social priorities. But, like 'productive' and 'unproductive' labour, or masses - but the latter have not been it or not, this is the world in which between production and reproduction, empowered or politicised by the process. socialism must now survive or disappear. which imprinted the sexual division of One knows the terrible costs for socialism labour so deeply and powerfully into the by which in the Soviet Union the party has The recomposition of class very centre of socialism itself are breaking become a substitute for the people. But let The second, closely related, factor in this down. These factors are reshaping the very us not forget that, in the Fabian concep­ historic dislocation of socialism and the agendas of socialism, redefining the cul­ tion of social engineering, the people are Left is the recomposition of the working ture of those who might one day make also the objects not the subjects of political classes of modern industrial societies - the socialism. Its whole material basis is being practice. Humane as may have been the historic agents of change in the socialist slowly but inexorably transformed. In the impulse behind the welfare state (and that scenario. It was difficult enough when, era of flexi-time and part-time work, with was not the only motive behind its appear- December 1985 Marxism Today 17 ance as a feature of all postwar advanced starvation does not 'owe' Britain a welfare is the culture of patriarchalism so deeply capitalist societies), there is little doubt state. It is true that the language of tech­ embedded as within the Left itself. The that the establishment of beneficient wel­ nocratic efficiency and 'value-for-money' Left has always tended to maintain a very fare bureaucracies have effectively de­ which is sweeping through the managing narrow definition of 'the political'. When mobilised popular power. committee rooms of all large-scale institu­ one says that the British Left can be strong Both systems, in their radically different tions in Britain is explicitly aimed at in corporate defence but is not 'hegemo­ circumstances, have neglected the connec­ extolling the free-market and privatised nic', one is drawing attention to precisely tion between socialism and the expansion greed. But I have yet to see a convincing this failure to understand that the struggle of social freedom - tending, mistakenly, to argument in favour of inefficiency and to 'remake society' has to be fought as a regard that concept as exclusively 'liberal' waste 'for socialism's sake'. Many people, war of position, conducted on many diffe­ in its reference. We are only just beginning however, are still in the age of 'Before rent fronts at once. It is a struggle to realise to come to terms with the degree to which Planet Earth' - ie, before the ecological the inter-connectedness of things which in statism - a system in which the state consciousness dawned of the finite charac­ our prevailing commonsense are kept expands to become coterminous with the ter of the resources of Planet Earth. separate. Hence the view that moral, so­ whole of society - is a historic tendency cial, familial, sexual, cultural questions now shared by both 'actual-existing' The Left and patriarchalism have nothing to do with the 'struggle for socialist and capitalist class democracies: The fifth and final area I want to mention socialism' - a view which is inscribed and how, in both, it represents a deforma­ here concerns feminism and sexual poli­ through and through by a masculine con­ tion of the original emancipatory socialist tics. The demands of the women's move­ ception of the world. Somehow, it is impulse. ment on such issues as abortion and con­ imagined, the Left will bring into exist­ traception, legal rights, equal pay, work ence a freer, more emancipatory kind of The fiscal crisis organisation and protection against life - while the forms of familial and sexual The fourth potentially explosive, area of domestic violence are slowly but surely life, where our instincts for authority are debate, is around what is sometimes called beginning to unravel women's traditional first formed and regulated, remain un­ the 'fiscal crisis of the welfare state'. The role - and not only for those women active touched. Socialism will be introduced - by Thatcher government much exaggerates within the feminist movement. It is hard to revolution or the ballot box - while some­ its extent for its own purposes, but it did understand how a Left, whose explicit how society remains unchanged. not invent the problem. Of course, the purpose is to 'refashion society', could so The question of the possible forms of Left would like immediately to restore the persistently exclude itself from this new, social life under any conceivable socialist cuts and expand the welfare state. And the socially revolutionary force. The growing society is the real time bomb which femin­ more complex are the forms of social and self-consciousness of women is only just ism the gay movement and sexual politics industrial organisation, the older the aver­ beginning to transform the whole of our generally has delivered to the 'patriarchal­ age age of the population, the greater the social thinking. ism' of the traditional Left. The harsh range of social needs we ought to care for truth is that the political movement for and support, the greater the scale of expan­ socialism and the Left has often been sion envisaged. An expanded welfare state stabilised and disciplined by the very social commensurate with the range and depth of and cultural forms which help to preserve social problems in modern industrial life its subordination. Patriarchalism, the un­ may not be beyond our means. But equal­ critical forms of the modern family, the ly, it is inconceivable that it could be patterns of sexual dominance, the disci­ sustained, on exponential rates of popula­ plining of pleasure, the reinforcement of tion growth, without real and sustained the habits of social conformity are some of economic expansion. The problem is, in­ the key ways in which the political move­ cidentally, not restricted to Western capi­ ments of the Left have remained deeply talist welfare states. It is beginning to make conservative and traditionalist at their itself felt in the 'actual socialist' countries cultural core. The tiny 'family man' is still too, as slower rates of growth set in. hiding away in the heads of many of our Of course, what the Left must do is to most illustrious 'street-fighting' militants. find ways of prioritising social need over the tiny 'family man' is still It is not possible for the Left to reshape 'value-for-money'. But the days when its own culture overnight. What is, howev­ socialism was predicated on the idea of hiding away in the heads of er, inconceivable is that the Left could ever infinitely expanding social needs and in­ many of our most illustrious become again a hegemonic historical force finitely expanding resources are over, if 'street-fighting' militants without undergoing a cultural revolution they ever existed. If you are providing for of some kind. people's social wants and needs with their If realignment is about anything it must money, there is nothing 'essentially capi­ But the connection I am pointing to here be about confronting these strategic areas talist' about asking what comparative costs is of another kind. I mean the uncomprom­ of debate. Those outlined here do not are, the constraints on different types of ising assault, spearheaded by feminism exhaust the problem. Others can be added. expenditure at different times and how one and the revolution in sexual politics, on Together they represent a profound chal­ arrives in a more public or collective way at patriarchalism. The reason why this de­ lenge. No imminent policy document will the choices and priorities which will have velopment is not an unqualified gain in resolve them. Rethinking and renewal, to be made in the 'real world'. A world in strength for the Left but also an element in given the size of the problems we face, will which vast numbers of people die daily of the dislocation of the Left, is that nowhere take a long time. D