‘Co-operation is a skill, it’s a craft, which I often compare with that of musicians. It isn’t so different. Whether you’re rehearsing a piece of music or doing a project in business – if you don’t listen attentively to other people, you mess up. The book has two big themes: the first is that by the end of the 19th century – in a highly industrialized Europe – a divide opens up between the political and the social Left about how to organize. For the political Left the model is top-down, oriented to government and so on. The social Left is bottom-up, oriented to local action: you were trying to do something for where you lived and where you worked.
The second big point is about co-operation rather than solidarity. In my view, modern society is too diverse; it’s too complicated. Solidarity is not a very good model. We need to find ways of holding people together who are very different, who don’t understand each other, don’t know each other, and maybe don’t even like each other. so that’s where the skill part of this book comes in – dealing with people you don’t know or don’t understand requires more skill than dealing with somebody who’s just like you.
