Chapter 3 tackles a gendered interpretation of ‘modernisation’, which never became widespread but had a discernible influence on both the left’s intellectual scene and Labour’s development. In the 1970s, while feminism was making a mark on the labour movement, its proponents did not claim that their demands would ‘modernise’ the party. Over the 1980s and 1990s, this began to change. Prominent and closely networked feminists in the socialist media and think tank scene suggested that the ‘modern economy’ was increasingly reliant on paid female labour and that family models were pluralising in ‘modern society’. These arguments were taken up by influential Labour politicians, especially Patricia Hewitt and Harriet Harman. They used them to argue that a crucial aspect of Labour’s ‘modernisation’ must be policies for gender equality. Their arguments never became central to New Labour. However, they did shape the New Labour project as it emerged in the 1990s, and thus some of its policies. Perhaps more importantly, the ‘modernisation’ element of these arguments may have unintentionally diluted the case for a more disruptive gender politics.

Chapter 2 recovers a distinct interpretation of ‘modern socialism’ that focused on diffusing power to producers, consumers, and communities. Over the 1970s and 1980s, several left-wing thinkers and politicians championed redistributing economic and social power through industrial democracy or consumer and community empowerment. These explorations were fuelled by critiques of the post-war state, trade union assertiveness, corporatist experiments, municipal socialism, and market socialism. In the 1980s, they were championed as ‘modern socialism’, mainly as a response to Margaret Thatcher’s flagship policies like popular share ownership and the ‘right to buy’ a council house. Drawing on maverick academics and Eurocommunist journalists, ambitious Labour MPs argued that a ‘modern socialism’ needed to diffuse power through schemes like employee share ownerships. They embraced socioeconomic democracy as ‘modernisation’. However, while some decentralist ideas remained influential, the popularity of diffusing economic power peaked in the late 1980s. This helped scotch subsequent attempts to make the ‘stakeholding economy’ a foundation of New Labour’s ‘modernisation’.