Rethinking Revisionist Social Democracy: The Case of the Manifesto Group and Labour's 1970s 'Third Way'

Abstract

The article examines the emergence of the revisionist social democratic Manifesto Group in the Labour Party after 1974 as a counterwieght to the rise of assertive left-wing factional activity in the period of Labour government between 1974-79. It argues that some of the wider economic themes and ideas pursued by the Manifesto Group provide a neglected link to later expressions of revisionist social democracy and a social democratic route map to 'New' Labour itself. In the latter respect, it challenges conventional interpretations of the Blairite project as either an exercise in Thatcherite neo-liberal consolidation or as the unmediated revival of historic 1950s Labour revisionism.