Post-citizenship, the New Left and the democratic commons

This article investigates the possibilities for the emergence of more participatory forms of citizenship in the context of austerity Europe. Especially significant in this regard is the history of the post-war New Left who were critical of both social democracy and authoritarian Marxism. In this context I reconsider the radical ‘humanistic’ writing of E.P. Thompson and Raymond Williams. Not only does their work offer a critical understanding of the commons, but equally connects to the revival of humanism evident within the alter globalisation movement. Further I look at the development of different ideas for a revived Left including nostalgia for the social democratic period and the idea of cosmopolitanism. While all of this work has something to offer I seek to argue that it fails to adequately address the need to develop more ecologically sensitive and more participatory forms of citizenship. In the final section, I outline the importance of the struggle for a more democratic and autonomous society and the increasing importance of issues related to traditions of self-management and the idea of the commoner. The idea of the commoner could yet become one of the major ideological struggles of the twenty-first century, but this will depend upon its ability to excite the imaginations of Europe's increasingly frustrated citizens in the age of neoliberalism.

The age of austerity, the war on terror and the broader ecological crisisa re enough to suggestthat existing ideasofcitizenship need to be radicallyrevised in the early twentyfirst century. Within recent debates there has been an increased recognitionofthe extent to which more critical understandings of capitalism need to be developed moving away from the exclusive focus on identity politics.Here Iaim to return to the critique of citizenship offered by the British' humanist' New Left focusing upon the contributions of E.P. Thompson and Raymond Williams. By examining their 'humanistic' ideaso fs ocialism and the commons, Ia im to demonstrate that their perspectives have mucht oo ffer the present.T heir work offers ac ritique of more established understandings of social democratic citizenship and suggests av ision of the democratic commons that has been revived by the alter globalisation movement. In the age of the global1%the workofthe 'humanist' New Left should be revisitedasithelpfully offers acritique of the limitations of morem ainstream models of citizenship as well as some versions of Marxisma nd anarchism that have recently gained attention. Further while If ocus on the British 'humanist' New Left Ialso look at how this strand of thinking has been reinvented in the context of morerecent writing on the need to struggle for ademocratic commons. Indeed, despite the growing interest in protest movements in the age of austerity there is aconcern that our current age is characterised by af orm of post-citizenship. Moreover, that social democracy (upon which manyc laims in respect of citizenship have been historically based)i si nd ecline, increasingly dominated by neoliberal practices and ideas. These claims are of course not without substance, butasweshall see tend towards asociological pessimism that assumes more authentic periods of social democracy are behind us and fails to engage with some of the new more criticalm ovements and possibilities of the present.T he revival of what Is hallc all the democratic commonsi se vident in the reemergence of emancipatory social movements who are criticalo fp olitical passivity and the limiting of ideas of 'democracy' to representative democracy. This is not to argue that the twenty-first century is going to be any less violent, unjust or exploitative than the preceding period, butiti st oa rgue that current timescontain radical possibilities.

New Left, citizenship and the commons
Our collective ability to address these questions may partially depend on the revival and reinvention of the New Left of the late 1950s and 1960s. TheN ew Left was an attempt to recover aradical politics that was both criticalofauthoritarian Marxism and liberalor democratic socialism (Stevenson 1995;Kenny 1995). Thea im of the New Left was to establish ar adically democraticised society that had both socialised capital and placed powerinthe hands of ordinary citizens. Howeverwith the rise of the New Right in the 1980s and the arrivalo fs oc alled' third way' socialism, the New Left has been progressively erased from memory. Thethird way period that ushered in anumber of politicalr egimes that sought to combine public sector reform with ap ositive attitude towards market-driven globalisation now looks to have ended (Giddens1998). While the 'third way' was preferable and distinct from neoliberalisminthat it is acontribution to the historyofsocial democracy, it has been widely criticised as being unable to offer acritique of the dominantlogic and rationalityofcapitalism (Mouffe 2000). If the idea of the 'third way' was always problematic, there are now urgent calls being issued to rethinks ocial democratic politics and the emergence of new modes of politicala ctivism.C urrently within Left-orientated politicalcircles and activist communities more generally there is a search for new ideas to give expression to the citizenship yet to come. This is urgently needednot only to challenge the common sense of austerityand neoliberalism, but also the rise of right wing anti-immigration partieswho have more broadly speaking been the real winnersoft he financial crashof2 008.
My claim, however, is that by seeking to resurrect some of the ideas associated with the New Left we will be able to better appreciate the more innovative and critical developments in the context of the present. Here my argumentisnot that the New Left can be unproblematically returned to as aq uite different set of historical and cultural coordinates now dominate. Rather Iemphasise the 'humanism'ofthe New Left giventhe stress that was placed upon different understandingso fh uman potential, capacities and sociality all of which were restricted by capitalism. The anti-humanist critique usually suggests that theseviews are misleading as they depend upon an 'essential' human nature (Stevenson 1995). This view is misleading as both Thompson and Williams were keen to explore different humanp ossibilities and resist an atomistic understanding of human existence. Here Iw ould agree with Taylor (1989) who arguest hat any social movement based upon ideas of emancipation and freedom will need to emphasise am oral critique that addressesthe possibility of different ways of being human.
Many of the original writers associated with the New Left fully recogniset hat democratic politics couldn ot be handed down by intellectuals,b ut rather was produced outside the closed circles of elites. Thompson (2014a) commenting on the New Left carefully arguedthat while it was rooted in the labour movement it was arebellion against N. Stevenson 2 592 the hierarchically organised affluent society of the 1950s and 1960s. Especially significant was the rejection of the 'economism' of the mainstream politicalp arties and of certain versions of Marxism. The New Left sought to explore more' cultural' questions and develop grass roots politics that was locatedi nadiversity of arenas and struggles like feminism, youth culture, workplace trade unionism and anti-militarism. Most crucially perhaps was the argumentthat the New Left was aplace of ideasand cultural discussion rather than an organised attempt to gain state power. This opened up many avenueso f critique beyond questions related to the usual contours of citizenship of social,p olitical and civil rights.T here was as ense among many writers of this period that an umber of counter-cultural movements from feminism to the beats and from anti-nuclear activiststo trade unionswere beginningtoask questions about 'the drive for "normality" and security' within post-war society' (Thompson 2014a, 121). These dimensions, as we shall see, decisively open up anumber of issues related to the strugglefor amore autonomous and democratic society. Thompson (2014b) argues that capitalistic domination was primarily grounded within asociety based on the private ownership of the means of production and the profit motive, which gives the class structure ac entrality that could never be fully tamed by social democracy or more conventional accounts of citizenship. This did not of course meant hat important and historical advances had not been won, but that more substantial ideaso fe quality couldn ot be satisfiedw ithin ac ompetitive and unequal capitalist-dominated society. There were, however, otherimportant voices on the fringes of the New Left more influenced by anarchism. Bookchin( 2004) and Gorz( 1982) were important criticalv oices that suggested the workingc lass movement had become integrated intoc apitalism and that the defeat of capitalism depended upon the desire for less hierarchical and centralised life-styles and an ecological politics critical of consumerism. Theidea of an autonomous and democratic society was less concerned with work-placep olitics than the exploration of less ordered life-styles and morec onvivial patterns of living. However neither Thompson nor Williams found these arguments acceptable. While similarly attracted to the need to develop more ecological accounts of socialism neither believedt hat the labour movement (despite the constant threat of incorporation) coulde ver be fully integrated into the structureso fc apitalism. In this respect both Thompson (2014bThompson ( ,2014cThompson ( , 2014d and Williams (1983) issued warnings that the critical ambitions of the labourm ovement were beingb lunted by being too accommodating to the structuresand logic of capitalism. Thompson's (1976) humanistic Marxism owedm oret ot he influence of William Morris than whathesaw as beingmore'scientific' or 'postivistic' currents. Morris was a significant figure within the Marxistt radition due to his ability to link ac ritiqueo f utilitarianism with the importanceo ft he class struggle. Thompson's (1976Thompson's ( -1995 early work identified Morris as a' utopianc ommunist'. This is especially apparent within Morris's (2003) utopian novel 'News From Nowhere'.Morris offers autopian vision of a future communist societyw here the population lived in small communities in harmony with nature. This is avision of an 'uncorrupted' societythat returns the citizens to alife similar to that before the rise of capitalism.Itwas however the 'open,speculative, quality' of Morris's writing that attracted Thompson's(1976Thompson's( -1997 attention. Morris (1973Morris ( , 1994 was drawn upon by Thompson as he recognised the importanceofutilising poetic visions so that we might begin the process of desiring to live in ways that are quite different from the present. This was ap ost-capitalist societyw here workingh ours hadb een radically reduced, workers were involved in artisan production and factories were places of sociability, music and play. Revolutionaries need to encourage citizens to dream beyond the confines of the present.AsRose(2014) recognises the unsettlingofdesire is as central

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3 593 to psychoanalysisa si ti st om orer evolutionary forms of politics.I ft he psychict rouble caused by the giving up of certain versions of the world is underestimated by more rationalist currentsonthe Left, Thompson grasped that the need for apoetic imagination was poorly understood. If Thompson (1994a, 66) valued Morris as 'a great moral teacher', it was because of his ability to provide av ision beyond Fabianism and the equality of opportunity. Thefuture humanistic community would need to break with 'the innate moral baseness of the acquisitive ethic, and the exploitative rather than cooperative social relationships' (Thompson 1994a, 75-76). Within this struggle for ademocratic commons beyond the rule of capital, the poets found common cause with the labour movement as they sought to resist the instrumentality and hierarchical nature of capitalism (Thompson 1994b, 357). Thompson's (1980 historical works ought to defend the revolutionary traditions of the English commoner against fellow historian's both Left and Right who argued that the workingc lass had mostly failedt op roducet ransformative political ideologies.The neglect of thesetraditions and the presumption that the working-class was dependent upon the scientific insights of Marxist theory partially explains Thompson's (1981) bitterdispute with Althusser.Despite the appearance of more conciliatory voices, Thompson (1981, 402) was critical of the Left turn to theory at at ime when' libertarian values' were under threat within capitalist and socialist societies. Thompson's history from below and concern for the principlesembodiedwithin the law meant that his defence of the commons was both poetic and principled. If, as fellow historian Linebaugh (2014) argues, the commonsi su nderstood as all that we sharet hen under capitalism this is continually threatened by the politics of enclosureand privatisation from above. Similarly Shiva (2013) argues that the commons is whatw ed epend upon both culturally and ecologically, which is essential to our well-being.
Thecommons was alsoevident in the preindustrial collective customs of the people. Thompson (1991, 9) claims that the English commoner exhibits 'a rebellioust raditional culture'. In otherw ords, it is custom more often than not that provides the break on the imposition of enclosure, privatisation and the disciplinary workr egimes of capitalism. Thompson (1991, 9) arguest hat the English have access to a' plebian culture' that is 'rebellious, but rebelliousindefence of custom'. The common morality of the peoplecould, under certain circumstances,put abrake on attemptstoimpose the logic of capitalism upon the people from above. Similarly the anarchist Kropotkin (2002) argues the common sentimentso fs olidarity, mutuality and cooperation and not commandments from above make up an ordinary everyday morality. There is then amorality of the commonsthat is already beingp ractised and does not depend upon abstracta rguments about human goodness. Instead, as Thompson well recognised, the preindustrial commonst hat was a source of livelihood,play and pleasurewas maintained through aspirit of cooperation and mutuality. Illich (1992) similarly identifies the preindustrial commons as ap lace of sustenance which, after the practice of enclosure, createdpoverty and dispossession. This helped push the commoners into alife of wage slavery giventhat they had lost any means to provide for themselves other than through the market.Equally the commonsisasmucha matter of law as it is of custom. Thompson (1980) was dismissive of anarchist currents that did not recognisethe way that law was built upon ideas of equality and that it can be used to restrain the actions of the powerful. Thepoint in any complex society was not to abolish the law but to democratise its practice. As Linebaugh (2008) points out, the idea that law can curtail the powerofthe sovereign or state goes back to Magna Carta. For Thompson (1983, 2) the defence of freedom and liberty is mostly done from below by 'law and pamphlet and sermon and the formationofdemocratic organisation'.

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Williams' (1989a) view of the commonsw as similar to that of Thompson but was more explicitly focused upon the relationshipsbetween the country and the city. Williams (1958) recognised the importanceo ft he Romantic tradition for raising questions around the quality of life in relation to ideas of culture. HoweverW illiams (1989a) remained criticalo ft he legacy bequeathed by the worko fW illiam Morris as it offered an overly simplifiedview of the socialist future. In this respect, once the rule of capitalist hierarchy became brokend ifferent forms of ownership and models of control would begin to emerge.T his meant that the post-capitalist commonsw ould be considerably more complext han the present and quite sharply different to the simplistic images of rural tranquillity provided by Morris. Indeed Williams (1989b, 289) noted the historical irony in the situationwhereby socialism had become identified with hierarchy and central control given that to the contrary, its aim was to distribute power, control and resourcesinto the hands of ordinary people. Williams arguedthat such asituationcould only be challenged through the revival of the self-management tradition that wouldconfront the ruleofcapital and authority. Williams (1989c, 282) warns about the prospect of giving into a' dark language' suggesting adystopian future of ecological break-downand technological war. More hopeful versions of the future need to have at their centre not only ad iversity of ownership patterns, but the value of sharing (Williams 1989c, 284). If this was the central socialist principle, it is also the central value of the idea of the commons. If the commons is continually threatened by the practices of enclosureand privatisation then expressions of solidarity can found within ordinary practices like sharing resources, knowledge or food. In Williams' (1962) novel Border Country, he explores the ways in which the common life of the village and family -a nd notjust more formal politicalmovements -p rovides the basis for resistingt he moreh ierarchical and capitalist ethos. Indeed the idea of as hared commonsisendangered by capitalist modernisation,that through images of progress and backwardness (associated with ideas of the country and city), seek to impress their logic into everyday life. The rapid urbanisation of the globe by capitalism ensures that specific sets of social relationships and patterns of development are pressed to exclude othermore humane alternatives. This logico fc apitalist modernisation not only distorts relations betweent he county and the city with associated understandings of progress and backwardness, but has also historically distorted Marxism. Williams (1985a, 303) describes this as 'a major distortion in the history of communism'. Ther ecovery of the commonswould need to break with the 'insane overconfidence in the specialised powers of metropolitanindustrialism' that threatens 'human survival' (Williams1989a, 84). Here Williams predicted afuture politics around food and ecological security was unlikely to be adequately solved by the dominance of capitalism. The cultural revolution that Williams (1980a, 269) wished to see would need to challenge the priorities of the capitalist order. This would inevitablym eant hat socialists would devise alternative plans that not only sought to redistribute wealth, but also decentralised power and control. Withinthis process what became pressingw as developing an increasingly 'materialist' analysis of the ecological and human cost of capitalism. This would mean addressingthe central logic of consumerism that sought to suggestthat products have 'magic' qualities. Instead agenuine democracy of the commons 'is not as ystem of government butofself-government' that was 'rooted in the satisfaction of humanneeds and the development of humancapacities' (Williams 1980b, 185). The 'humanistic' New Left as represented by Thompson  tradition came under assault during the structuralist and post-structuralist turn, it continues to offer many ethical and politicalresources (Stevenson 1995). In addition, many of these 'humanist' features were also shared by other New Left authors such as Fromm (1965) and C. Wright Mills who commentedthat he shared a'marxism of the heart' with figures like Thompson (1985, 273). Heremyargumentisnot for asimplereturn to the perspectives of Thompson and Williams but to probe some of their insights for ar adical culture of the commons.

Post-citizenship,social democracy and neoliberalism
If the New Left lookedbeyond social democracy to amore participatory future then much contemporary work hasb egun to point to the defeat of social democratic citizenship by neoliberalism. Can the liberals ocial democratic moment that informed the work of Marshalland Bottomore (1992) and others now be saidtobeover (Turner 2001;Crouch 2011)? Crouch (2004 has argued in this respect that democracies across the world are beginning to resemble post-democracies in as far as policy is now dictated by ruling elites. As Supiot (2012) arguest he rise of neoliberalismt hat began in the 1980s has progressively sought to delegitimise the historical advances of the post-war era. The development of social citizenship, the signing of the 1948 declaration of human rights and the ending of armed conflict all promised the development of European societies that were peaceful and prosperous. Further the development of the European Union sought to bind states together through shared agreementsonhumanrights,the use of forceand trade. The idea of apeaceful and prosperousEurope was to be built through both nationaland postnationalcitizenship as ameansofholding in check the totalitarian nightmare of the past (Habermas 2001).
As aliberal Marshallunderstood questions of freedom through ideasofrights.Interms of the New Left and other critics, this was limited by their dependence upon abureaucratic state and the presumption that these rights were historically secure once they had gained a footholdi nt he present (Roche 1992;Marstona nd Mitchell 2004;Stevenson 2002). Howeveri ti sn ow widely recognised that liberalv iews of freedom,o fc itizens as rights holders, is now beingthreatened by neoliberalism. If the doctrine of neoliberalism places a permanent pressure on social welfare, is hostile to tradeunions, seeks to privatise public institutions, lower taxes, actively promote entrepreneurialism and demonise the poor it can not be assimilated to more social understandings of freedom (Harvey2 000). This view however suggests that neoliberalism is simply an attack on the social state by the market. As Wacquant (2010, 198) argues thisfails to recognise the extent to which the neoliberal state focuses not only upon the development of morepositive attitudes towards the market but also the increasing moral regulationo ft he poor. By this Wacquant means that the growth of the prison population, the use of workfare and other punitive mechanisms have grown as am eans of regulating humana gencyu nder the economicc onditions of neoliberalism. The hyper-masculinised state seeks to distanceitself from the role of caring for the bodies of the vulnerable into am uch more punitive and penalising legal system. The aim is to push poor citizens into low paid and insecure jobs by threatening to terminate benefits, while using prison as the ultimatesocial sanction for those who do not conform to these new requirements. The morea ggressive state is partially masked by consumer freedomsf or the majority, talk of upwards mobility (or 'aspiration')a nd the so-called individualisation of responsibility. Thee mergence of am uchh arsher state regime represents aw ar against more liberal versions of citizenship evident in the social democratic era. Similarly Bauman(2006) claims the state in the neoliberal era is able to N. Stevenson 6 596 legitimateitself lessthrough its social role and more through its ability to provide security in the face of crime, disorder,terrorism and unwanted migrants.
There have been anumber of proposalsbythose on the politicalLeft seeking to address the current crisis. Most of these proposals have something to offer and yet fall someway short of seeking to press for the kinds of democratic and participatory practice through a politics of the commonsdiscussedbythe 'humanist' New Left.Here Iaim to -albeit briefly -i nvestigate anumber of critics and intellectuals who have sought to revive ameaningful Left project in the face of neoliberalism and austerityi nt he broader European context. These might be broadly understood as workingwithin aLeft paradigm that seeks to address the current crisisafter the financial collapseof2011. Their different perspectives point to the continuation of the 'Left hemisphere', resistingthe claim that there are no alternatives to neoliberalism in acontext of post-citizenship (Keucheyan 2013).
Thefirst is the argumentthat European societies shouldseek to historically recover the previous social democratic era. This would be achieved by focusing upon national forms of citizenship. For historian Judt (2010a) the European social democracy of the post-war period was built upon the idea that the state and citizens had aresponsibility for each other and that this could be demonstrated through access to common services, public provision and inclusive notions of community. The welfare state required relatively high rates of taxation, but became legitimate the extent to which it delivered amore equal societyand bound members of societyt ogetheri nacommon community. However, since the 1980s the idea of there being acommon good has come under pressure as notions of the public became devalued. The rise of gated communities, the privatisation of space, consumerism and the down grading of welfare have all pushed society in am ore market-driven direction.For Judt,the Left needs to reject radicalism for aprogressive conservatism that becomes focused on questions of security, prudence and stability. Elsewhere Judt (2010b) goes as far as to argue that the dominance of market-driven solutions currently grips the common sense of elites and intellectuals in as imilar way that Marxism dominated the minds of manyi ntellectuals of the 1930s. Doctrinaire Marxismo ffered an anti-Enlightenment culturea si tw as driven by ad esire to regulatea nd control thought. The contemporary market, like authoritarianM arxism, has ac ircle of true believers, is dogmatic and produces acertainblindness to its short comings.
Much of Judt's (2006) conservativism can be located in his dismissalo fN ew Left experimentsw ith broader forms of democracy beyond the ballot box in the 1960s. Especially evident is Judt's rejection of attemptst od evelop ad ifferent relationship to Marxisma nd other radical traditions in ways that would have been criticalo fs o-called 'actuallye xisted socialism'.T he politicalc onservatism of Judt's analysis is alsoe vident within some sections of the social democratically orientated Left.R utherford (2012) argues along similar lines that the 'third way' abandoned citizens to the market and failed to recognise that most Europeans are culturally conservative and value the local, the nationala nd family life. Thep roblem is that neoliberal economics is at odds with the stability necessarytoraise afamily and feel aconnection to the locality. Social democratic politics during the 'third way' era was overly positive about the effectso fm arkets and tended to ignoretheir more destructive features, which has led to the increased popularity of cultural movements on the Right.ItisRight wing nationalism rather than the political Left that is articulating the values of security and patriotism. However what is not clear if we follow thesea rguments is how ap urely nationalist-orientated politics dealsw ith the challenge of living within an increasingly pluralistic and globally interconnected world. The retreat back into aconservative social democracy has too little to say about the need to readdressquestions of powerand democracy within an ew global context.

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Ad ifferent sourceo fc riticism concerning the current European crisis has emerged through the desire to develop more cosmopolitan forms of identity and citizenship. Unlike the social democratic conservativism outlined above the cosmopolitan critique seeks to address someofthe challenges in living within amore genuinely globally interconnected age. In this respect, Beck (2006) describes cosmopolitanism as being different from globalism.Ifglobalism describes the dominantneoliberal order and the power of capitalism then cosmopolitanism is more concerned with the world of multiplec itizenships and intersecting loyalties. One of the reasons it is not possible to simplygoback to the social democratic order of the past is the erasure of nationalborders and increasingly intermixed cultural identities. In the European setting this means ap oliticalp roject that stands in opposition to violent nationalist rhetoric for aE urope that is morer eceptive to cultural difference and human rights. Of course Beck realises that such aview is currently opposed by manyn ationalists of the Right as well of the Left who seek to return to whatt hey perceivet ob eamore securee ra beyond the uncertainties of the present. More recently Beck (2014, 5) has revisited the idea of cosmopolitan Europe where the key challenge is to revive European citizenship in the context of the economic crisis without falling into the politics of fear and racism of the past. This can only be achieved through atransnational social democratic European project. Such aproject will need to guard against amisplaced nostalgia for exclusively nationalwelfare states and more neoliberal solutions.
Then ew social contractf or Europeans envisagedb yB eck is similar to someo f the more recent proposalsb yf ellow 'third way's ociologist Anthony Giddens. Giddens (2013, 8) argues that duet ot he scale of the economic crisis, the European Union has emergeda sa'community of fate'. That is the interdependent nature of Europe's economies has become increasingly apparent, meaningthe radical politicalproject of the present is the enhancement of transnational European solidarity. Both Beck and Giddens in this respect seek to defend at ransnational Keynesianism whereby Europe is reindustrialised (but not at the cost of the environment) and as ocial investment state is charged with the difficultp rocess of welfare reform and reskilling while introducingt he prospect of meaningful life-long education. These proposalsa re clearly preferable to a neoliberal Europe based on tax havens,l ow wages and racist forms of exclusion against 'foreigners'. The key questionl eft mostly unaddressed in the accounts of Beck and Giddens is the structural power of capitalism to remake society in amore market-friendly way. Indeed 'thirdway' style attemptstorevive social democracy depend on elite versions of citizenship whereby powerisheld by professional politicians and think tanks, and often leave unquestioned the dominant society that promotes consumer identities and erodes more civic form of involvement (Finlayson 2003;Faucher-King and Le Gale 2010). In otherwords, after the decline of the working-class movement during the first phase of neoliberalism in the 1980s, power has increasingly been shiftedo ut of the hands of ordinarycitizens. If part of the cosmopolitan project is to offer anew vision to Europe's citizens, it needs to become ad emocratising vision. It is not currently clear howt he cosmopolitan vision reimagined by Beck and Giddens wouldc onnectt oavision for a people's Europe that would challenge the ruleo fn eoliberalismf rom below ( Bourdieu 2000). However, the main failing of both of these attemptstorevive the Left is that neither take seriously enough the problemst hat can be associated with the capitalist model of economicg rowth. Any alternative politics is going to need to place the ecological commonsatthe heartofany concern for afuture society. The main problem with existing debates on the Left is that they either fail to recognisethe extent to which old style social democracy was built upon capitalistic expansion or that 'thirdway'cosmopolitanism fails to adequately address the failure of the existing economics ystem.H ere my argumenti s N. Stevenson 8 that more recent writing on the commonslinks back to the humanistic New Left writing by Williams and Thompson and offers am ore hopeful and democratic vision of the future.

The radical democratic project and the commons
As we have seen, the New Left were concerned to debate the possibleemergence of aselfmanaged societyr ooted in the commons. Notablyt hese ideas have more recently been taken up and developed by the alter globalisation movement (Pleyers 2010). Thestruggle for alternative forms of globalisation has found expression at protests at an umber of global summits and within activism that has developed acritique of neoliberalism beyond the state. The alter globalisation movement seeks to resist the world of 'endless enclosure' as the basic elements of the ecological and cultural commons have been convertedi nto privateo wnership (Boal et al. 2005, 193). Hardt and Negri (2005) have arguedt hat the global society has witnessedt he emergence of the 'multitide'. The multitude are 'those who work under the rule of capital and thus potentially as the class of those who refuse capital' (Hardt and Negri 2005, 106). The multitude are those who could be mobilised within aglobalanti-capitalist struggleagainst unemployment, zero hours contracts and job insecurity across geographical and national boundaries. Rather like Thompson's( 2014d;2014e) definition of class in the New Left 'the multitude' becomes formed through the process of struggleagainst global capitalism.The globalspread of the Occupy movement, protests against war and militarism, austerity and ecological degradation point to more interconnected and less space specific campaigns. These movements are alson otable through their organisational forms that are often leaderlessa nd relatively horizontal in practice (Graeber 2014). Not surprisingly this has led to arevival of interest in anarchistic movements that have historically been more criticalofthe state than the New Left (Ward 1973;Sheehan 2003). There is then atension within the alter globalisation Left who reject state politics altogether and those who think it is necessarytosometimes work within its contours. Holloway (2002; argues in this respect that the goal of am orea utonomous and self-managed societyc an no longer emerge through the state. Alter globalisation, 'the multitude',orasHolloway(2002,18) calls it 'anti-power', aims to create adignified societyf or everyone while rejectingt he call to capture the repressive apparatus of the state. This struggle rejects both the power of capitaltocommodify our lives and that of the state to instrumentalise our identities. Crucially the struggle of the alter-globalisation movement is astrugglefor common space without capturing or seizing the powerofthe state. If neoliberalism seeks to progressively enclose areas of social and cultural life and subject it to the law of profit and loss then anti-power seeks to resist the logic of exploitation and control from above. Heret he aim is nott or eplace one system with another but to develop 'the anti-politics of dignity' (Holloway 2002,39). Rather than the pursuit of hierarchy and efficiency the aim is to producemultiple spaces of participation and more direct forms of control and self-management. Harvey (2012) links these questions as to who has the right to the city in terms of whetheru rban space is mostly ap lace of accumulation for capitalism (the packaging of cities for tourismorincreasing amounts of space used by shopping malls) or whether it can become subject to more democratic formso fc ontrol. Thesep erspectivesa re interconnected by ar adical humanism. Harvey (2014) arguest hat such av iew is both criticalo fh ow humanistic ideash ave historically been perverted by domination and hierarchy while offering av ision of am oreh opeful future beyond the violenceo f capitalism. Hardt and Negri (2009, 191) similarly argue that the questioni sl essw hat CitizenshipS tudies 9 599 human beings are but what they have the potential to become. This inevitably leads us into more complexissues to do with humancapabilitieslike cooperation, love and sharing that are often denied public expression by neoliberal capitalism.
TheO ccupy protests werei ndeed examples of attempts to win back public space outside the control of capital and the state. The protestsd emonstrated the capacity of ordinarycitizens without formal hierarchies to manage public space without the control of capitalorthe state. Hardt and Negri (2012, 106) argue that withinthis space is emerging an ew kind of democratic citizen they call 'the commoner'. Commoners aim to produce networked identities, thereby creating alliances with others, exchanging ideas and symbols,resisting processes of privatisation and defending common resources. As Bollier (2014) pointso ut the emergence of 'the commoner' points to the transformation of the practice of citizenship. Rejectingthe neoliberal assumptions of competitive individualism, the commoner seeks to create spacesf or sharing, cooperation and of building 'positive' alternatives in aworld governed by markets and often cruel states. If the alter-globalisation has abig idea it can be found in notions of the commons that can be closelyassociated with ideas of non-violence and cooperation without hierarchy (Scott 2012).
However while Williams and Thompson would have been excitedbythe appearance of the alter globalisation movement they would have cautioned against astrategy that simply withdrew from electoral politics. Williams (1983) continued to stress the importance of Left governments in the long transition to more autonomous and self-managed societies and while Thompson (2014f, 98) disliked the social democratic practice of 'patching up capitalist society' he was practical enough to offer criticals upportt op rogressive governments. Indeed alter globalisation activist Klein's (2014) recent intervention intothe climatec hange debaten ot only identifies the main enemya sc apitalism threatening to destroy the planet in pursuit of profit,but that in order to construct aliberation movement from belowitisnecessarytobuild globalsocial movements of resistance and use public planning to developasustainable future. The idea of the commons defended by Klein not only dependso nt he locald evelopment of renewable energy and the long transition to a more sustainable future, but also it cannot afford the luxuryo fb einga nti-statist. The politics of the commons emergesout of aglobalsocial movement built from belownot only to resist capital, but also provide the basic services and security through the state necessary for a'dignifiedlife' (Klein 2014, 258). Similarly Schor (2011) arguesthat the market crash of 2008 offers the possibility for manyonthe Left to rethink questions related to quality of life. An ew politics where time at work, consumption and our carbon footprintsa re all reduced becomes possibleaslong as asocial state is able to meet the basicneeds of citizens. The new politics of the commoner then would need to disconnectfrom hyper-consumption life-styles built upon unsustainable levels of growth for mores mall scale and diverse entrepreneurial activitybuilt on sustainable goods. Indeed theseperspectivescan also be linked to more radical views on the commonst hat have emerged through eco-feminist arguments around the subsistence perspective(Bennholat-Thomsen and Mies 1999). Such views aim to produce aradical alternative to capitalist forms of development through more ecologically sensitive forms of production that are local and cooperative and break the strangleholdo f' more is never enough'.S uch views challenge the moreg ender neutral versions of the commons as they explicitly seek to empowerwomen as economicactors who are often excluded from waged work. Our needs for belonging and recognition would need to be met less by consumerism and work, and moreb ym orec urrently 'feminine' preoccupations such as care and community.
Thei dea of 'thec ommoner' also points back to someo ft he debates within the New Left. Historically, the commoner hadinthis respect facedthe first wave of enclosure when N. Stevenson 10 they were forcibly removed from the land through the imposition of private property to become enclosed in factories imposing the discipline of work from above. The rebelliousness of the commoner sought to defend traditional rights to leisure, bread, religious festivals and the like, all of which had been threatened by capitalistic control from above and the imposition of the logicofthe market (Thompson 1991). Arguably the alter globalisation movement's occupation of parks, town squares and other campaigns to save public health, school systemsa nd librarieso ffer similar forms of resistance against the enclosing logic of capitalism. While many of thoseinvolved in the alter globalisation movement are criticalofso-called mainstream electoral politics the idea of the commoner can also be utilised to defend public goodso ften defended by social democrats,s uch as access to public libraries, education and health systems. However, the radical side of the argumentinrespect of the commonswould ask moresearching questions about howthese domains are organiseda nd controlled criticising bureaucratic structures that limit the expression of more democratic forms of citizenship. In this respect, 'the commoner' can be said to have links to the New Left, social democracy and the politics of alter-globalisation. This is less the conservativesocial democracy of security, but amore experimental social democracy that would defend the commonsw hile offering citizens the possibility of experimenting with new ownership patterns. ReturningtoRaymond Williams, if the selfmanaged socialism he sought to defend was likelytoherald amore complexsociety than the past then thisw ould alsob et rue for how we understand the relationship between revolutionary and reformist perspectives. Williams (1980b) arguedthat our analysis needs to move beyond simplyopposingthese different traditions, implying they might all have a role to play in shaping acommon future.
This offers avision of the future where social democracy and more libertarian traditions, while still in tension, might learn to work alongside one another. If in the past anarchists and libertarian socialists have sought to abolish, the state and social democrats have sought to safeguardl iberty through rights then perhaps in the twenty-first century the idea of the commonsoffers the possibility of amore blurred relationship between these perspectives. The activist Bollier (2014, 171) has arguedthat the idea of the commonsneeds to become part of our shared culture. If the vision of the commonsisabottom -upmovement seeking to preserve and reinvent whatweshare through more democratic ownership patterns then it is likely that this process will require laws to enable this process. It will also require amuch more imaginative politics beyond visions of catastrophe or what Williams (1985b, 267) called'militant empiricism', which simply presumes that problemssuch as climate change and war be solved through quick fixes. Instead ap olitics of the commons would need to insist upon the imagination of the community rather than afew specialised professionals and suggestt hat aw orld of sharing, cooperation and mutuality is possible. This process would also seem to require poetic and utopian visions of the future. Notably both Thompson and Williams were fascinated by science fiction. Thompson (1988) produced alittle read if impressive novel in this genre,whereasWilliams (1980c) wrote an important essay on the subject.There was no future more emancipated societyofthe commons without acritical role beingplayed by the imagination, resisting defeatist or accommodating voices. Morris's utopia (whatever Williams' misgivings in otherrespects) was vital as it had demonstrated the possibility of amorecooperative and creative world (Williams 1980c, 211;Thompson 1994a).However more contemporary utopias are required not simply within fiction or to be found withinthe past,but within the here and now, demonstrating that the present is alive with alternatives to capitalist hierarchy and rationality.
Thedemocratic commonsisthreated by neoliberalism and authoritarian states across the world (Williams 1989d). These are indeed dark times where neoliberals, the far right,

CitizenshipS tudies
communitarians and statists of different kinds are all seeking to argue that the age of democratic expression and experimentation is over. If the war on terror, austerity economics and the development of the security state are considerable threatst oo ur freedom,t he strugglef or more emancipatory versions of citizenship are far from over. European historyfrom Ancient Greece to the Enlightenment and from the 1960s to the fall of the Berlin Wall is full of tales of hope and humanr esilience where the democratic imagination becomes reinvented in new times and places. Thep artial demise of social democracy and the rise of neoliberalism have raised questions of post-citizenshipw here politicalp artiesa re increasingly in control of elites as they privatise public space and empty out the social state. The idea of 'thecommons' and the commoner couldyet find a diversity of expression from social democratic to more anarchistic ideas. Howeverwewill need to see the continuation of social movements from belowt hat seek to articulate the 'right to the commons'. The 'commons' within this perspective has less to do with statederived 'communism' that has now run its course, but remains related to the more participatory ideaso fc itizenship discussed by the 'humanist'N ew Left. We should remember,alongwith Thompson (1991, 15), that if the historyofsocial movements from below is often one of defeat they continue to be required to remind us of the limitations of the privatised lives of modern citizens and the possibility of moree thicall ives lived in common.

Disclosures tatement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.