The contemporary left fights its political battles on various fronts: protesting the crippling structural inequalities that sustain neoliberal economic policy; developing sustainable, community-based alternatives to the consumerism and short-termism that exacerbate the environmental crisis; and advocating for the cultural recognition, emancipation and celebration of the diversity and pluralism of human identity. But despite this versatility the left appears to be in worldwide retreat whilst an aggressive new ‘Alt-Right’ is taking to the streets and internet, regurgitating a regressive and patriarchal vision of society that has already won startling political victories in the US and Europe.

Amid the vertiginous tension of such a crisis Michael Brie argues for an urgent theoretical and practical reorganisation of the left. Developing the work of philosopher and social theorist Karl Polanyi, Brie advocates an alliance of socialist liberals and libertarian ‘commonists’ that unites contemporary campaigns for recognition, difference and human dignity with more traditional struggles for social welfare and economic democracy. Starting from Nancy Fraser’s critical reappraisal of Polanyi in her article “A Triple Movement? Parsing the Politics of Crisis after Polanyi” (included), Brie powerfully reinterprets Polanyi’s thought for present times, developing concrete proposals for a Polanyian political response to neoliberalism, an ascendant authoritarian right and the ongoing threat of global ecological disaster. Also included are two articles by Polanyi translated into English for the first time and Kari Polanyi-Levitt’s Rosa Luxemburg lecture “From the Great Transformation to the Great Financialisation”.

Michael Brie is a philosopher and political scientist and senior fellow of the Institute for Critical Social Analysis at the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation in Berlin. His research interests include the history and theory of socialism and state socialism, perspectives on ‘solidarity’ in community and society, and the socio-ecological transformation of society under capitalism. He is chief editor of the series Contributions to Critical Transformation Research and co-editor with Claus Thomasberger of Karl Polanyi’s Vision of a Socialist Transformation (Black Rose Books, 2017).

Nancy Fraser is the Henry and Louise A. Loeb Professor of Philosophy and Politics at the New School for Social Research in New York. Her research interests include social and political theory, feminist theory and contemporary French and German thought. Her most recent publications are Fortunes of Feminism: From State-Managed Capitalism to Neoliberal Crisis (Verso, 2013) and Scales of Justice: Reimagining Political Space in a Globalizing World (Polity, 2008).