How far does the present government's social policy represent the practical politics of the radical right? While some aspects of policy can be interpreted as the expression of the doctrines of new right political economists, other aspects display strong continuities with the practice of previous govern ments. The distinctive nature of the new right is most clearly displayed in political rhetoric and in qualitative aspects of policy. Electoral success sets the seal on a shift in political debate that has taken place through the seventies.
The phenomenon of the growth of right-wing politics has been analysed at two levels: the structural level of the functional imperatives of the developing crisis of capitalism and the superstructural level of the capacity of ruling groups to construct the appropriate mass ideology — authoritarian populism. It is argued that any materialist account must attempt to link these two levels. The genesis of currents in popular con sciousness is of crucial importance to political shifts in democratic societies. It is suggested that the ideological basis to the trend to the right is both a lack of apprehension of solidaristic class interest and a growing conscious ness that available collective forms, like the welfare state, fail to serve perceived individual interests. The lived experience of state welfare has tended to make the individualism expressed in the new right plausible to many people.
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