Anthony Giddens Flashcards
What new strain of socialism is Giddens associated with creating and developing?
Third Way Economics
What is Giddens key work?
‘Beyond Left And Right’ (1994)
What were the negative parts of capitalism and individualism according to Giddens?
The ‘corrosive’ effects it has upon community and fraternity
What did Giddens stress was irreversible?
Capitalism and individualism
What book did Giddens realise in 1997?
The Third Way: The Renewal of Social Democracy
What did Giddens argue that the survival of social democracy required recognition of?
Free-market capitalism had unmatched capacity to empower individuals economically
When did Giddens argue capitalism worked best?
When there was a strong sense of social cohesion, which Neo-liberalism seemed to overlook
What did Giddens argue was required to make a centre-left politics relevant in the 21st century?
A triangulation, reconciling Neo-liberal views of economics with social democracy’s view of society
What society had emerged and made triangulation important according to Giddens?
‘Post-Fordist’
According to Giddens, what had happened to the people of post-Fordist societies?
‘Atomised’ the modern workforce and left individuals feeling alienated
Though what did Giddens accept that post-Fordist (or neo-liberal) capitalism had done for individuals?
They were freer than ever to ‘self-actualise’ and carve out individual identities, yet those individuals would also find it harder to declog precisely because society was becoming increasingly amorphous and ill defined
What did neo-liberalism do to individualism in their communities according to Giddens?
Stripped them of their confidence in their communities, with humans being likely to be less sure-footed and more lily to be influenced by both economic and cultural elites
What was the irony in the ‘individualisation’ of society in Giddens view?
It resulted in less individualism
What did Giddens argue the role of the state was to do for human nature to flourish?
While retreating from economic management, investing heavily in infrastructure and a modernised system of education, designed to prepare citizens for the economy
What ddi Giddens recognises about conventional Keynesian economics?
That it was obsolete and that socialism needed to recoil itself to a more free-market brand of capitalism, however accepting that greater equality of opportunity might be accompanied by greater inequality of outcome if the free market were to generate the sort of wealth needed to fund modern public services
