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Out of the Ghetto
A Path to Socialist Rewards

By Mike Prior & Dave Purdy
1979
Spokesman
ISBN: 0-85124-260-X
193 p.
$19.95 Paper

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During the decade of the 70's, the British left has been given a large number of opportunities for advance. Widespread disillusion with the right-wing policies of the Wilson and Callaghan governments; militant action by all sections of the trade unions, including many previously quiescent; new areas of social unrest, including women, students, community and environmental action. All this would have been expected to give British socialism a powerful impetus. Yet at the end of the decade, the left has emerged disunited and politically ineffectual barely stronger in numbers and influence than at the end of the 60's.

Out of the Ghetto is an attempt by two British socialists to come to terms with this failure, and to assess the basis for a new socialist challenge. Starting from some concepts of Marxist theory, they produce a radical alternative to the economism and tactical opportunism which they claim forms a large part of British socialism.

Some of their conclusions will appear startling, even shocking, to many on the left. But their work has to be regarded as a consistent and developed analysis of how to bring together Marxist theory and political practice in a way that will take British socialism out of its ghetto and into the world of effective political action.

Political Science
Sociology