This is an excellent book that clearly and cogently sets out the assumptions that would ultimately evolve into the Blue Labour position. Maurice Glasman provides not only a withering critique of neo-liberal hubris and arrogance but also a strong critique of centralising social democracy.
By referencing the stakeholder approach of the German political economy alongside the communitarian traditions of the traditional British labour movement, Glasman constructs a compelling case for a better, more humanistic society, primarily in the British context but with clear implications that extend far beyond the UK.
This is an excellent meditation on what has gone wrong with the way we organise our lives in society in the current period and a powerful call to embrace something better. I would strongly recommend this book to students of social democracy, British politics, political economy, comparative politics, political theory, the ideas of Karl Polanyi, the British Labour Party, critical analyses of neo-liberalism, or indeed, anyone interested in exploring the idea of a "good society". Highly recommended.
Unnecessary Suffering: Management, Markets and the Liquidation of Solidarity Hardcover – 17 November 1996
by
Maurice Glasman
(Author)
They have a dream-a dream of a world where everything and everybody can be bought and sold, a world run efficiently by managers, a world where "freedom" means the free market. Maurice Glasman argues that this dream is an unrealizable utopia-or a nightmare if put into practice. He takes the tired old clichés of management-speak of the New Right and New Left alike and turns them on their heads: managers are not efficient, they are barriers to work and production. "Liberal democracy"-which now means the free market and the strong state-should be turned upside down, with democracy at the level of the economy and liberalism at the level of the state.
Drawing on the work of Karl Polanyi, Glasman argues that there is no need to surrender solidarity and human rights to the march of the managers and the market. There is another tradition, represented by the labour movement and Catholic Church in postwar West Germany, and Solidarity in Poland before 1989, when statist communitarianism and the New Right took over. Unnecessary Suffering examines this tradition and issues a call that human beings and the environment cannot, should not, and will not be treated like commodities.
For all workers drowning in a sea of dogma and management.memos, Unnecesary Suffering is necessary reading.
Drawing on the work of Karl Polanyi, Glasman argues that there is no need to surrender solidarity and human rights to the march of the managers and the market. There is another tradition, represented by the labour movement and Catholic Church in postwar West Germany, and Solidarity in Poland before 1989, when statist communitarianism and the New Right took over. Unnecessary Suffering examines this tradition and issues a call that human beings and the environment cannot, should not, and will not be treated like commodities.
For all workers drowning in a sea of dogma and management.memos, Unnecesary Suffering is necessary reading.
- Print length184 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- Publication date17 November 1996
- ISBN-101859849768
- ISBN-13978-1859849767
Product description
About the Author
Maurice Glasman has been a visiting professor at the Johns Hopkins University and the University of Bologna and is currently a lecturer in political theory at London Guildhall University.
Product details
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 184 pages
- ISBN-10 : 1859849768
- ISBN-13 : 978-1859849767
- Customer reviews:
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Judith Connor
5.0 out of 5 stars
Got this because it mentioned Bishop Wilhelm Emmanual von Ketteler ...
Reviewed in the United States on 14 September 2018Verified Purchase
Got this because it mentioned Bishop Wilhelm Emmanual von Ketteler. I was doing a presentation on him. I didn't read the rest of the book in its entirety, but I did appreciate what I did read.