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Books

The Fourth Way by Donald Wilhelm

Robert Taylor ponders the politics of the information age with Donald Wilhelm.

Except as the name of a degree course at Oxford the words Philosophy, Politics and Economics don’t go together very often these days. A recent book by Professor Donald Wilhelm argues that this is a big mistake.

The book punningly takes its title from The Third Way by Tony Giddens, a work that has become the bible of modern political theory, venerated by both Tony Blair and President Clinton. Wilhelm points out that Giddens’ book does not contain a single reference to philosophy, yet his ideas dominate contemporary politics. The result in Wilhelm’s view is an incoherent and implausible alliance of opposites that produce now familiar policies such as free market socialism and ‘caring conservatism’.

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