New Left

For other uses, see New Left (disambiguation).

The New Left was a broad political movement that emerged from the counterculture of the 1960s and continued through the 1970s. It consisted of activists in the Western world who, in reaction to the era's liberal establishment, campaigned for freer lifestyles on a broad range of social issues such as feminism, gay rights, drug policy reforms, and gender relations.[1] The New Left differs from the traditional left in that it tended to acknowledge the struggle for various forms of social justice, whereas previous movements prioritized explicitly economic goals. However, many have used the term "New Left" to describe an evolution, continuation, and revitalization of traditional leftist goals.[2][3][4]

Some who self-identified as "New Left"[5] rejected involvement with the labor movement and Marxism's historical theory of class struggle,[6] although others gravitated to their own takes on established forms of Marxism, such as the New Communist movement (which drew from Maoism) in the United States or the K-Gruppen[a] in the German-speaking world. In the United States, the movement was associated with the anti-war college-campus protest movements, including the Free Speech Movement.

  1. ^ Carmines, Edward G.; Layman, Geoffrey C. (1997). "Issue Evolution in Postwar American Politics". In Shafer, Byron (ed.). Present Discontents. NJ: Chatham House Publishers. pp. 92–93. ISBN 978-1-56643-050-0.
  2. ^ Kaufman, Cynthia (2003). Ideas for Action: Relevant Theory for Radical Change. South End Press. ISBN 978-0-89608-693-7 – via Google Books.
  3. ^ Gitlin, Todd (2001). "The Left's Lost Universalism". In Melzer, Arthur M.; Weinberger, Jerry; Zinman, M. Richard (eds.). Politics at the Turn of the Century. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. pp. 3–26.
  4. ^ Farred, Grant (2000). "Endgame Identity? Mapping the New Left Roots of Identity Politics". New Literary History. 31 (4): 627–48. doi:10.1353/nlh.2000.0045. JSTOR 20057628. S2CID 144650061.
  5. ^ Thompson, Willie (1996). The Left in History: Revolution and Reform in Twentieth-Century Politics. Pluto Press. ISBN 978-0-74530891-3.
  6. ^ Coker, Jeffrey W. (2002). Confronting American Labor: The New Left Dilemma. University of Missouri Press.


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