New political positions

Duncan writes about the four political positions that Stuart White identifies .

He talks of two types of republicanism - centre and left-republicanism. They both focus on the need to build up a public sphere and more public interest in politics. They point out that everything can not just be left to the market. Politics and public affairs has a key role. Left-republicanism is more interested than the other form in also democratising the economic arena - by reducing inequalities and by, perhaps, trying to give workers stakes in the firms they work for.

He also talks of two types of communitarianism - left-communitarianism and right-communitarianism. Both aim to tackle the sense of a moral vacuum that they feel exists in a situation where there is a neo-liberal economic and social order. The right-communitarians are also opposed to the social liberalism of the 1960s and want to see churches and religious groups playing a bigger role in society and a bigger role in welfare functions. The left-communitarians, instead, want to re-energise mutuality and forms of working-class collective action. They too aim to end the atomisation of society that neo-liberalism creates with a sense of purpose and common identity.

These ideas sound quite interesting and I definitely think I myself lean towards the left-republican position.