The Third Way by Anthony Giddens

Résumé du document

Anthony Giddens, director of the London School of Economics and Political Science published The Third Way in 1998. What does "Third Way" mean? For The author, the goal is a renewal of the social-democracy. Through this phrase he refers to a framework of thinking and policy-making that seeks to adapt social democracy to a world which has changed fundamentally over the past two or three decades? It is a third way in the sense that it is an attempt to transcend both old style social democracy and neo-liberalism. This book seeks to show how a political idealism can be revived, because "a political life is nothing without ideals but this last years the ideals of the left have fallen, and it is necessary to rebuild a new doctrine and ideology". I am not going to judge the work of Giddens, but simply sum up his view on the contemporary society, the political life (particularly the one in Great Britain) and his proposals for a renew of the left. Then, it will shortly expose the impact of his work in England and the entire world.

Extraits

[...] Deciding to go to work and give up benefits, or taking a job in a particular industry are risk-infused-activities, but such risk taking is often beneficial both to the individual and to the wider society. When Beveridge wrote his Report on Social insurance and Allied Services, in 1942, he famously declared war on Want, Disease, Ignorance, Squalor and Idleness. In other words, his focus was almost entirely negative. We should speak today of a positive welfare state. Welfare institutions must be concerned with fostering psychological as well as economic benefits. [...]

[...] They think markets will deliver the greatest society. Giddens contests their opinion on what a family has to be, that is a traditional family with two heterosexual parents or the fact that they are indifferent to inequalities. Their argument for this last idea is that egalitarian policies create a society of drab uniformity and can only be implemented by the use of despotic power. For them, a society where the market has free play may create large economic inequalities, but these do not matter as long as people with determination and ability can rise to positions that fit their capacities. [...]

[...] But today there are many problems. It is essentially undemocratic, depending as it does upon a top-down distribution of benefits. Its motive force is protection and care, but it does not give enough space to personal liberty. Some forms of welfare institutions are bureaucratic, aliening and inefficient, and welfare benefits create perverse consequences that undermine what they are designed to achieve? However, third way politics sees these problems not as a signal to dismantle the welfare state like the right but as part if the reason to reconstruct it. [...]

[...] Moreover, a whole range of other problems and possibilities have come to the fores that are not within the reach of the left/right scheme. That is what the author calls the “life politics”; it is to say the politics concerning life decisions. How react to global warming? Should we accept nuclear energy or not? How far should work remain a central life value? Should we favour devolution? What should be the future of the European Union? None of this issue is a clear left/right issue. [...]

[...] Then, with the demise of socialism as a theory of economic management, one of the major division lines between left and right has disappeared, at least for the foreseeable future. The Marxist left wished to overthrow capitalism and to replace it with a different system. Many social democrats also believed that capitalism could and should be progressively modified so that it would lose most of its defining characteristics. That is why Giddens concludes one any longer has any alternatives to capitalism”. [...]