Politics and Markets

Beginning of article

The market is constantly encroaching on our lives, and it increasingly pervades our politics too. The contributors to Soundings 36 explore this issue in a number of different ways.

Ken Livingstone is one of the most interesting and creative politicians in Britain today. In his discussion with Doreen Massey he acknowledges the many ways in which business interests constrain his choices, but he argues that you can always find spaces within which you can make a difference. For example he has worked with business on a number of environmental initiatives. This kind of principled pragmatism raises the question of where you draw the line. Is promoting the flourishing of the City and its institutions an acceptable price to pay for keeping your place at the table of the powerful? Is the market so strong that we have to look to business for some of our partnerships for change?

While Ken Livingstone is guided by robust pragmatism, Erik Olin Wright puts forward an equally robust theoretical guide to transformative politics. His clarity about goals and practices is …