A Conversation With Daniel Chandler

Daniel Chandler is the author of a new book called Free and Equal.

He argues that mainstream center-left parties have lacked vision.

The ideas that we need are kind of hiding in plain sight, he says.

We should look to the liberal tradition associated with John Rawls in particular.

There was a moment in the 1980s when, both in America and in the U.K. , it was a serious project of trying to rethink what the left stood for.

That gave rise to the so-called Third Way , an attempt to achieve a synthesis of the liberal and the socialist traditions.

But political expediency got in the way. Third Way became more of a project of electoral triangulation for a time.

Julian Zelizer : How does the center-left regain any kind of credibility with the sort of voters who’ve deserted centers-left parties almost everywhere? He says the Democrats were unable to connect with the deep desire for change, particularly amongst working-class people who want change and are open to a variety of arguments about what direction that might take.

The social sector which provides the whole range of public goods has been weakened by the excessive power of the market sector, he says.