| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立成功大學 === 歷史學系碩博士班 === 97 === In the period of 1979 to 1997, the British Labour Party had lost three general elections consecutively. In this period, the British Left not only attempted to examine the socio-political, economic, and cultural crises in Britain, but also investigated the theory, organization structure, and policies of the Labor Party. Due to the swindling support for labour movement, a decrease of members in the trade unions and an outdated image of the Party, all these became the challenges to the British Left who had to face up in their developments of theories.
This paper is aimed to examine the developments of British Left’s theories in the period of 1970s-1980s, from the perspective of Stuart Hall (1932-). Hall elaborates and reconstructs the Left’s theory and practice, on a basis of Marx’s and Marxists’ theories, such as those of Gramsci, Althusser, Laclau and Mouffe, which are then integrated with his own writings in cultural studies. In Hall’s view, the orthodox Marxism with its lop-sided emphasis on economic factor and class struggle has lost its touch with reality. This is because economy has no longer been “the” factor that determines the development of society and history; instead one has to take into account a wide range of factors that involved politics, society, culture and ideology. Neither can class now play any key role in causing any revolution. People, in a broad sense, should be put into consideration instead.
It is based on a more comprehensive base that Hall develops his Leftist thought, giving an impetus to a new direction for socialism by his offer of “Marxism without Guarantees”, that is to say, Marxism would neither guarantee a revolution for the working class, nor any direction for its development, nor for its history a predetermined future. The prospects of the Left theories lie in their efforts to commit itself to pluralism and democracy and to the practices in a widely expanded domain of social movements. Hall‘s theory not only enhances in the Left awareness of social change and of a new direction for innovation and practice, it also provides Labour Party with a theoretical basis for its transformation.
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