Abstract

To ask about the nature of a concept of the Left is to recognize the radical crisis that the Left has been in for more than a century. During this time the labor movement has gone through crises and defeats, but only now we are beginning to realize that it is not so much a crisis or a defeat but a general process of dissolution of fundamental notions which constituted the Left's identity. It is no longer clear what it means to be on the Left, or what consequences it has for political economy, social policy and civil rights. The question is whether this crisis is a weakening of the ability to comprehend the present…