Ruth Levitas

The concept of social exclusion and the new Durkheimian hegemony

This article argues that the concept of social exclusion, which was orig inally developed to describe the manifold consequences of poverty and inequality, has become embedded as a crucial element within a new hegemonic discourse. Within this discourse, terms such as social co hesion and solidarity abound, and social exclusion is contrasted not with inclusion but with integration, construed as integration into the labour market. The paper analyses the operation of this discourse in recent pol icy documents from the European Union and the Borrie Report, as well as in the work of Will Hutton. The discourse is described as fundamen tally Durkheimian because it treats social divisions which are endemic to capitalism as resulting from an abnormal breakdown in the social co hesion which should be maintained by the division of labour. The article argues that, within this discourse, the concept of social exclusion oper ates both to devalue unpaid work and to obscure the inequalities between paid workers, as well as to obscure the fundamental social division be tween the property-owning class and the rest of society.

The Just’s Umbrella: Austerity and the Big Society in Coalition policy and beyond

The formation of the Coalition government in 2010 has resulted in unprecedented spending cuts presented as necessary austerity, together with the promotion of the ‘Big Society’ as the panacea for social ills. This article argues that the cuts continue a thirty-year process of redistribution to the rich. Rather than being a necessary response to the economic crisis, they constitute a neo-liberal shock doctrine, forcing through punitive policies which undermine the collective provision against risk that constitutes the ‘just’s umbrella’. However, arguments for reduced consumption and self-organization in civil society have purchase partly because of real needs for sustainable development and human well-being. Reading austerity and the Big Society through a ‘hermeneutics of faith’ rather than a ‘hermeneutics of suspicion’ opens up the utopian possibility of thinking holistically about an alternative, equitable, sustainable future radically different from that offered by conventional politics.

Against work: a utopian incursion into social policy

This paper argues in favour of using a utopian method of thinking about the future, rather than simply extrapolating from present conditions. This opens up the possibility of thinking in terms of the kind of society we want to achieve, rather than what seems immediately probable. It criticises the Blair Governments focus on the economic and moral centrality of paid work, and argues, following Gorz, that the link between ‘work’ and income needs to be broken to ensure an adequate livelihood for all. This will entail a re-valuing of forms of human activity, as argued by Herbert Marcuse, and more recently by Fiona Williams. This ultimately calls in question the structures of capitalism itself, since what is entailed is, at the very least, a step change downwards in the proportion of the social product accruing to capital. The paper concludes by contending that any genuinely critical social policy must have this utopian dimension.

Looking for the blue: The necessity of utopia

This article argues that utopia is both prevalent and necessary. It begins by looking at the presence in contemporary culture of an existential quest for utopia, figured as ‘looking for the blue’. It then moves to the place of utopia in political thought and political discourse, figured as ‘looking for the green’. These approaches reveal different formulations of the concept of utopia itself. The shift requires that Utopia is understood as a method rather than a goal, and accompanied by a recognition of provisionality, responsibility and necessary failure.

Introduction: The Elusive Idea of Utopia

This introductory article discusses the contributions to this number in the light of some general issues arising out of recent writing on utopia. It notes the wide variety of views on the question of definition of utopia, ranging from the anti-utopian dismissal of it as totalitarianism to a broad and flexible vehicle of desire. It traces the shifting accents of utopia consequent on the move beyond modernity - a shift from time to space and from content to process. Only a flexible approach reflected in the variety of articles in this collection can offer glimpses of the most elusive utopia, the transcendence of loss and longing.

Discourses of Risk and Utopia

In the essay reprinted here (originally published as an article in The Risk Society and Beyond: Critical Issues for Social Theory, ed. B. Adam, U. Beck, & J. Van Loons, Sage Publications, 2000), Levitas examines the, concept of utopia in relation to the Risk Society as defined by Beck and, Giddens. Although this essay does not deal directly with architecture, it offers an important attempt to redefine utopia in the post-industrial, context and provides a strong framework for analyzing recent architectural, production, articulating some of the complex (and often pernicious), implications of the new pragmatism and the neo-environmental trends, dominant today.

Back to the future: Wells, sociology, utopia and method

This article explores the involvement of H.G. Wells in the early institutional development of sociology in Britain. It addresses Wellss aspiration to a Chair of Sociology as the context for his claim that that ‘the creation of utopias – and their exhaustive criticism – is the proper and distinctive method of sociology’, and the implications of a hundred years of suppression of utopianism and normativity within the discipline. It argues that Wells was substantially right, and that if sociology embraced the more utopian method of the Imaginary Reconstitution of Society, it would inform a greater range of social alternatives for confronting ecological and economic crises.

We: problems in identity, solidarity and difference

’We’ is a small word, common in everyday speech. It is even more common in utopian discourse, and satirized in its dystopian counterpart. Postmodern theory, following Derrida, suggests that ’we’ is repressive of difference and thus dangerous, since difference is presumed good, and ignoring or repressing it bad. Yet ’we’ embodies not just a sense of common identity, but the possibility of collective agency. Moreover, its use is gendered: Giddens (1992: 53) notes that ’men normally speak in terms of &dquo;I&dquo;, whereas female narratives of self tend to be couched in terms of &dquo;we&dquo; ’.

New labour, new discourse

The new discourse consolidated in 1995 and 1996 drew on the rhetoric of both stakeholding and communitarianism. It defined the politics of New Labour as a third way between the New Right and the ‘old left’ or ‘old Labour’, committed to economic efficiency and social justice. The new Clause IV, ratified at a special conference in April 1995 after intense conflict in the Party, removed the phrase ‘common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange’. It encapsulated a different set of political priorities, and a different underpinning model of society, cast in a different language. Gone were questions of equity of distribution; of political, social and economic emancipation; a higher standard of social and economic life; and improvement in conditions of work. Gone too was the primary commitment to work with the trade union movement. In their place were some of the phrases which echoed like mantras through the 1997 election campaign: ‘the many not the few’; ‘the rights we enjoy reflect the duties that we owe’; and the words enterprise, partnership, opportunity, community, security, and trust. (See Appendix).

From Social Justice to Social Cohesion

One of the less remarked privatizations of the 1980s was the privatization of policy-making. The Thatcher era was marked by an increasing reliance on think-tanks ostensibly independent of the Conservative Party, notably the Adam Smith Institute (founded in 1979), the Centre for Policy Studies (1974), the Social Affairs Unit (1980) as well as the longer-established Institute of Economic Affairs (1957). The growth of these nominally independent organizations, at least some of which had charitable status, was accompanied by the abolition of the government’s own think-tank, the Central Policy Review Staffs (CPRS). The role of outside organizations was reinforced by cuts to the statistical and research base. The Royal Commission on the Distribution of Income and Wealth was abolished in 1979, and the Rayner Review of the Government Statistical Services in 1980 led to substantial staff losses. Much statistical work which might previously have been carried out by government statisticians was undertaken by policy-oriented research institutes inside and outside academia and by specialist pressure groups, aided by the spread of computer technology.