physical needs
Prof David Marquand’s curriculum vitae is discouraging – Labour MP for 11 years under Harold Wilson, and later an adviser to the European Commission. Later still he became a founder member of the Social Democratic Party. He started his academic career as a politics lecturer at Sussex University.
Yet Marquand has overcome these disadvantages and become one of the most original political thinkers of his generation. He has a gift for bringing political arguments to life and – unique among Left-wing political writers – he is capable of being fair to opponents.
A powerful moral framework drives Marquand’s ideas, perhaps most clearly set out in his masterpiece, Decline of the Public (2004). Here he described the “public domain”, an arena occupied by neither the state nor by the marketplace, but rather a common sphere where all of us can engage freely and as equals. Local football teams, church choirs, the criminal bar, political parties, private charities, the National Trust and the BBC are all part of this public domain.
READ: Mervyn King's response to Thomas Piketty (and why capitalism isn't going to die)
When David Cameron became Conservative Party leader, Marquand wrote a generous essay hailing his emergence. Cameron’s so-called Big Society was a Conservative vision of Marquand’s public domain. His new book, however, is a work of despair. He argues that Britain’s public arena is being lost to money and greed.
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Review: Britain Since 1918 by David Marquand 20 Sep 2008
Belle: a success story about overcoming prejudice Fox
Marquand suggests that British history over the past 100 years forms a parabola. Before the First World War, naked capitalism reigned. It was tamed throughout the half century that followed; Marquand views the Attlee government, and the 20 years that followed, with special and perhaps nostalgic fondness.
In his version of history everything went wrong once again in the Eighties, since when unconstrained capitalism has
Yet Marquand has overcome these disadvantages and become one of the most original political thinkers of his generation. He has a gift for bringing political arguments to life and – unique among Left-wing political writers – he is capable of being fair to opponents.
A powerful moral framework drives Marquand’s ideas, perhaps most clearly set out in his masterpiece, Decline of the Public (2004). Here he described the “public domain”, an arena occupied by neither the state nor by the marketplace, but rather a common sphere where all of us can engage freely and as equals. Local football teams, church choirs, the criminal bar, political parties, private charities, the National Trust and the BBC are all part of this public domain.
READ: Mervyn King's response to Thomas Piketty (and why capitalism isn't going to die)
When David Cameron became Conservative Party leader, Marquand wrote a generous essay hailing his emergence. Cameron’s so-called Big Society was a Conservative vision of Marquand’s public domain. His new book, however, is a work of despair. He argues that Britain’s public arena is being lost to money and greed.
Related Articles
Review: Britain Since 1918 by David Marquand 20 Sep 2008
Belle: a success story about overcoming prejudice Fox
Marquand suggests that British history over the past 100 years forms a parabola. Before the First World War, naked capitalism reigned. It was tamed throughout the half century that followed; Marquand views the Attlee government, and the 20 years that followed, with special and perhaps nostalgic fondness.
In his version of history everything went wrong once again in the Eighties, since when unconstrained capitalism has