Convenor: Dr Robin Archer|, Director of the Postgraduate Program in Political Sociology
The Ralph Miliband| Programme was set up in 1996 through a generous anonymous benefaction to LSE from a former PhD student, who had been inspired by 'Ralph Miliband's contribution to social thought'. He specified that the funding be used in memory of his friend and mentor 'to advance his spirit of free social inquiry' and the diversity of thought that has always been the hallmark of LSE.
The donor's wishes to continue Ralph Miliband's intellectual tradition are being carried out through a combination of public lecture series and the appointment of visiting teaching fellows. These fellows also give public lectures at LSE.
Additionally, Ralph Miliband's biography by Michael Newman, Ralph Miliband and the Politics of the New Left (Merlin Press, 2002), was launched as part of the Ralph Miliband Programme in October 2002 at LSE.
The current theme of the Programme's series of public lectures and events is The Future of the Left.
Upcoming Events
14th May 2012
Public Lecture: The Future of the Left: The Case of the United States
Speaker: Professor Eli Zaretsky
Monday 14th May 2012, 6.30-8pm
Old Theatre, Old Building, LSE
'It has often been said that the idea of a left originated in the French Revolution and is distinctively European in that it is connected to socialist parties and social democratic labor unions. In ³The Future of the Left: the Case of the United States² Eli Zaretsky rethinks the idea of a left, by including the case of the United States, with its two party, Presidential system. The US, he argues, not only needs, but has always had a vibrant and powerful left, not so much in every day politics, nor in states of exception but in crises, long-term changes of direction. Zaretsky discusses three such crises: slavery, capitalist industrialization and the present. It needs a left because liberal reforms are inherently ambiguous in their meaning, and the left bends reform toward the telos of equality. The left¹s core relationship, therefore, is toward the liberal tradition, not to the right.'
Eli Zaretsky is Professor of History at the New School for Social Research. His has written on twentieth century cultural history, the theory and history of capitalism (especially its social and cultural dimensions), and the history of the family. His most recent book is Why America Needs a Left: A Historical Argument.
This lecture is free and open to all on a first come first served basis.
22nd May 2012
Public Lecture: Envisioning Real Utopias: Alternatives Within and Beyond Capitalism
David Glass Memorial Lecture
Speaker: Professor Erik Olin Wright
Tuesday 22nd May 2012, 6.30-8pm
Old Theatre, Old Building, LSE
'Fifty years ago, in 1962, a group of students drafted what came to be known as the Port Huron Statement, the core manifesto of the Students for a Democratic Society, one of the leading organizations of the student movement in the 1960s in the United States. In the introductory paragraphs they wrote:
“In this is perhaps the outstanding paradox: we ourselves are imbued with urgency, yet the message of our society is that there is no viable alternative to the present…. Beneath the stagnation of those who have closed their minds to the future, is the pervading feeling that there simply are no alternatives, that our times have witnessed the exhaustion not only of Utopias, but of any new departures as well….. The decline of utopia and hope is in fact one of the defining features of social life today.”
The idea of “Real Utopias” is animated by much the same feeling today as expressed by the crafters of the Port Huron statement in 1962: We need a way of thinking about social transformation that simultaneously holds on to our deepest utopian aspirations for a just and humane world and embraces the practical tasks and dilemmas of real-world institution-building and thus makes possible new departures. We need projects for social transformation within capitalism that point us in an emancipatory direction beyond capitalism.'
Erik Olin Wright is Vilas Distinguished Professor of Sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and the current President of the American Sociological Association. He is the author of many books, including Classes, Interrogating Inequality, Class Counts, Deepening Democracy (with Archon Fung), and Envisioning Real Utopias (2010).
This lecture is free and open to all on a first come first served basis.
28th May 2012
Public Lecture: The Emerging Left in the “Emerging” World
Speaker: Professor Jayati Ghosh
Monday 28th May 2012, 6.30-8pm
Old Theatre, Old Building, LSE
'Even as resistance to global capitalism builds up, it tends to be accompanied by gloomy perceptions that grand socialist visions of the future are no longer possible. But there is much more dynamism within the global Left than is often perceived, and there are variegated moves away from tired ideas of all kinds. Various Left movements in different parts of the world increasingly transcend the traditional socialist paradigm, with its emphasis on centralised government control over an undifferentiated mass of workers, to incorporate more explicit emphasis on the rights and concerns of women, ethnic minorities, tribal communities and other marginalised groups, as well as recognition of ecological constraints and the social necessity to respect nature.'
Jayati Ghosh is professor of economics at Jawaharlal Nehru university, New Delhi, and the executive secretary of International Development Economics Associates (Ideas). She is a regular columnist for several Indian journals and newspapers, and a member of the National Knowledge Commission advising the prime minister of India. She is the author of many books including The Market That Failed: A Decade of Neoliberal Economic Reforms in India (2002), Work and Well-Being in the Age of Finance (2004), and Never Done and Poorly Paid: Women's Work in Globalising India (2009).
This lecture is free and open to all on a first come first served basis.
12th June 2012
Public Lecture: The Past and Future of Social Democracy and the Consequences for Europe
Speaker: Professor Sheri Berman
Tuesday 12th June 2012, 6.30-8pm
Old Theatre, Old Building, LSE
'Ralph Miliband believed that socialism should be both revolutionary and practical. This talk will argue that at least one variant of it--social democracy--was and might still be by looking back at the role it played in creating the Europe that is in transition today.
During the 19th and first half of the 20th century Europe was the most turbulent region on earth, convulsed by war, economic crises and social and political conflict. Yet during the second half of the 20th century it was among the most stable, a study in democracy and prosperity. How can we understand this remarkable transformation? The answer lies in the changes that occurred after 1945, among the most important of which was a dramatic shift in the understanding of what it would take to ensure democratic consolidaton in Europe. Across the political spectrum a new understanding of democracy developed in Western Europe one that went beyond what think of today as “electoral” or even “liberal” democracy to what is best understood as “social democracy”—a regime type which entails not merely dramatic changes in political arrangements, but in social and economic ones as well. This talk will explain the background and logic of this "regime type" as well as consider its continuing relevance today.'
Sheri Berman is Professor of Political Science at Columbia University. Her research interests include political development, European politics, the history of the left, and comparative political economy. She is the author of The Social Democratic Moment: Ideas and Politics in the Making of Interwar Europe (1998) and The Primacy of Politics. Social Democracy and the Ideological Dynamics of the Twentieth Century (2006).
This lecture is free and open to all on a first come first served basis.