>OK, this is more encouraging. He hasn't "renounced" socialism. He says he
>hasn't an "identifiable political alliegence." The left tradition he grew up
>in has run aground. Bear in mind he's a Brit, and his center of gravity was
>around the Labour Party, which has renounced socialism. I feel the same way
>about Marxism that Hitch does about socialism. There is no there there
>anymore. I will be happy to defend the legacy of liberalism; I have always
>been a liberal small-d-democrat.
The world is living the legacy of liberalism, Justin! It seems to have been a capital-legitimating sop, and what substance attended its formalisms are rapidly disappearing into the sunset of civilisation. It makes sense, I think, to defend it against the extension and permeation of capitalist relations into polity and life-world (it's the only discourse that still resonates, after all), but so far, the only legacy of liberalism seems to be empirical proof that it can't be relied upon unless something is done about the concentration of economic, political and cultural power in the hands of the few who control the means of production (the sorta power that now has you so regularly assuring the LBO archives of your acceptable political hue?) - with which liberalism would have a problem, owing to the rights to property immanent in yer formal liberal individual ...
Cheers, Rob.