Has the future a left?

Abstract

There are currently two dominant ways of arriving at the idea of 'the left', both of which lead to a definition that is as unsettled and transitory as the reference points from which it is drawn. (Indeed such approaches can be seen as typical of the 'nowist' vision the tyranny of the moment that is a feature of our times: ideas can be assigned a history, but rarely ascribed a steady, stable substance.)