Anthony Giddens

Question 1

Book?

Answer 1

• ‘Beyond left and right’
• Established hhimself as a socialist sympathiser

Question 2

Human nature

Answer 2

• Human nature has been shaped by changing socio-economic conditions. The pro-fairness instinct is still present, but it now competes with a sharpened sense of individual aspiration
• Arfued that if HN were to flourish in the 21st century, the state would have to ve more proactive, investing in heavy infastructure and a modernised system of education

Question 3

The state

Answer 3

• The existing liberal state should be improved, redistributed and decentralising central power while encouraging greater politcal participation
• Revitalised case for further state action in an era of globalised capitalism, socialism needed to reconcile itself to a more free market strand of capitalism

Question 4

Society

Answer 4

• Socirty has undergone embourgeoisement - egalitarians must harness, rather than deny, these forces
• Triangulation was important due to the emergence of post-fordist capitalist societies
• Fordist capitalism = spawned tight knit urban communities, post fordist capitalism = had fragmented such communities

Question 5

The economy

Answer 5

• Survival of social democracy required recognition that free market capitalism had an unmatched capacity to empower individuals economically
• Argued capitalism worked best when there was a strong sense of social cohesion
• He was accepting that greater equality of opportunity might have to be accompained by greater inequality of outcome if the free market were to generate the sort of wealth needed to fund modern public services