Soundings

Editorial 

The market is constantly encroaching on our lives, and it increasingly pervades our politics. The contributors to Soundings 36 explore this issue in a number of different ways.

Ken Livingstone discusses his creative and pragmatic approach to politics and business with Doreen Massey. Erik Olin Wright puts forward a guide to transformative politics. Jonathan Rutherford explores the intellectual and institutional links between leading insurance companies, the academy and new government policies on welfare reform. Janet Newman and Nick Mahony discuss the language and practice of democracy under New Labour. Michael Rustin argues that it is the prioritisation of economic growth over other values that is making people unhappy amidst their increasing affluence. Richard Jones analyses the science and politics of nanotechnology. Valerie Bryson looks at the way time is colonised by neoliberalism. And Faisal Devji explores the spread of private and civilian practices among the US military, which he argues is a logical result of the practices of the war on terror.

Elsewhere Nira Yuval-Davis discusses Israel as a settler state; Iranian intellectual Ramin Jahanbegloo offers an Iranian take on the liberal tradition, in an interview which brings out some of the complexities of democratic universalism; and Cynthia Cockburn, in words and photographs, explores our discomfort and anxiety about death and the lifeless body.

Contents

The World We're In: Interview with Ken Livingstone Doreen Massey
Guidelines for Envisioning Real Utopias Erik Olin Wright
New Labour, the Market State, and the End of Welfare Jonathan Rutherford
Democracy and the Public Realm: Towards a Progressive Agenda? Janet Newman and Nick Mahony
What's Wrong with Happiness Michael Rustin
Nanotechnology and Visions of the Future Richard Jones
The Politics of Time Valerie Bryson
A Demilitarised War Faisal Devji
Zionism, Antisemitism and the Struggle against Racism Nira Yuval-Davis
Reviews Lin Chun
Liberalism in Iran Danny Postel/ Ramin Jahanbegloo
Three Poems Gagan Gill, Toeti Heraty, Saadi Youssef
Death as Everyday Life Cynthia Cockburn