Parliamentary Socialism: A Study in the Politics of Labour

Reflecting on the Labour government of Harold Wilson between 1964 and 1970, this concise analysis chronicles the Labour Party from its early days up to the early 1960s, including a 1972 postscript. Demonstrating how empirical and flexible the Labour Party has been about certain issues, this reference also touches on how it is one of the most dogmatic political parties in regards to the parliamentary system. Commenting on why its leaders have always made devotion to this system their fixed point of reference, this political overview proves that this has always been the conditioning factor of their political behavior, as they consistently reject any kind of political action which has fallen outside the framework and conventions of Parliament. Stating that there is no distinction to be made between Labour’s political and industrial leaders, this study illustrates the party as it is now and has always been one of modest social reform in a capitalist system within whose confines it is ever more firmly and by now irrevocably rooted. Ralph Miliband (1924-1994) was one of the key intellectual figures of the British New Left. He was the founder of the Socialist Register and wrote Parliamentary Socialism, Marxism and Politics and Socialism for a Sceptical Age. He taught for many years at the London School of Economics before taking up the Chair of Politics at The University of Leeds. He subsequently taught at Brandeis in Boston, York University in Toronto and the Graduate Centre of the City University of New York.