Home | Business News | Browse by Publication | A | Arena Magazine

Shane Hopkinson on the struggle between commodification and collaboration.

Article Excerpt
Andy Blunden, For Ethical Politics Heidelberg Press, 2003

Ethics' has been (re)entering the Left's political vocabulary as it tries to grapple with the historic crisis in which it finds itself. In that sense, Andy Blunden's book is timely and, in my view, a great deal more valuable than other recent offerings in this area. His work eschews presenting a new program or straightforward answers but it succeeds in raising questions that shed light on the possibilities of a new political practice. It accepts the reality of the crisis of the Left and the hegemony of the Right and seeks to spell out the conditions of possibility for the resurgence of the former. There is a huge constituency for social justice brought about by the relentless commodification of all aspects of life. The Left needs to re-win the moral and intellectual leadership, but the present landscape does not allow the formation of a popular emancipatory discourse--the point of For Ethical Politics is to change that.

The first aim of the book is to ground the emergence of a new popular moral 'common sense' with which to combat the Right's populist racism. It is part of constructing a political ground on which the right way to live is subject to contest....

View this article FREE - Now for a Limited Time, try Goliath Business News
Free for 3 Days!