The Third Way is a moderate-left political ideology that usually stands for deregulation, decentralisation and lower taxes. It is embodied by such figures as US President Bill Clinton, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, and Spain's José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero.

The "Third Way" of the US Senate centrists, following Bill Clinton's lead, emphasizes governmental fiscal conservatism, governmental action to cut and/or eliminate welfare and other social assistance programs, and a preference to allow free markets to determine outcomes when possible.

The general idea is included within Radical centrist politics.

Origins

Originally, there was the view that a "middle way" exists between communism and the free-market capitalism associated with Anglo-American societies. This view was developed in the 1950s by German ordoliberal economists such as Wilhelm Röpke, resulting in the social market economy.

The term was appropriated by politicians in the 1990s who wished to incorporate Thatcher and Reagan's projects of economic deregulation, privatization, and globalization into the mainstream left wing and centre left political parties so that currently the Third Way is usually understood as a nickname for neoliberal social-economic policy. As such, it has become an important ideology in modern European democracies, especially by some Social-Democratic parties, as well as for some members of the United States Democratic Party. It gets its name from its alleged role as an alternative to both pure, free market capitalism and the kind of economic order represented by strong welfare states such as the Scandinavian countries and Germany, which are held to be too regulated and taxed at rates that are too high to compete with economies run on free-market principles.

Criticism

Third way is sometimes described as an idea of former social-democrats which replaces socialism with capitalism with a minimum of socialism, and a strategy to bring the social-democratic parties back to power where they have lost elections. Critics argue that third way politicians are in favour of ideas and policies that ultimately serve the intrests of corporate power and the wealthy at the expense of the working class and the poor. The Third Way has been promoted heavily by Tony Blair, Gerhard Schröder and many other world leaders.

Alternate meanings

Alternate meanings of "third way" include political terms applied to a variety of "third choice" options that some offer as an alternative to dichotomous situations which may otherwise appear polarized.

Examples of "third ways" include:

• The "Third Way" of ordoliberal economics between Soviet-style communism and the free-market economic order of the Anglo-American type, leading to the social market economy.

• A "third way" approach to Cold War-era foreign policy, siding with neither the US nor the Soviet Union (this in turn spawned the phrase third world). See in that regard the Non-Aligned Movement.

• A "third way" approach to the concept of separation of church and state, neither theocratic nor atheist.

• A "third way" between the stultifying debates had by the left and right wherein arguments are so structural as to be static. One magazine offering an alternative voice -- that of the Christian worldview -- takes Third Way as its title.

• Benito Mussolini often described fascism as the third way between capitalism and socialism. In that vein, there is a modern neo-fascist movement known as the International Third Position or Third Positionists.

• Another group is Britain is known as the Third Way (UK) (unrelated to Tony Blair's concept of the Third Way). This group was formed in 1990 and contained several former leading members of the British National Front. It claims to have disavowed racist politics and any form of fascism, and promotes economic decentralization (similar to distributism), Direct Democracy along Swiss lines, combined with support for ecological protection and libertarian views on some social issues such as abortion, gay rights, and marijuana. Critics of the group are divided some still regard this group with suspicion because of past ties to the National Front in the 1980s, and dispute their claims to have disavowed racism and fascism. Others accept that the group has changed over the years and point to its attempts to recruit from all ethnic and religious communities.

• In the late 1990s, several groups independently began using the term radical centre to refer to certain kinds of third way thinking.

• The Third Way is also used to describe the philosophy of Libyan leader, Muammar al-Qaddafi set out in his Green Book. It mixes Nationalism, Social-Democracy, Islam and a supposedly direct form of referendum democracy. It was also used by former Argentine President, Juan Peron to describe his philosophy which was basically a more democratic and liberal version of Mussolini's fascism.

• The Third Way is also used to describe a contemporary application of Hegel's Dialectics to modern politics. Thus, a "third way" is simply a synthesis of a thesis and its contradictory antithesis, such as Social-Democracy being a synthesis of Capitalism and its antithesis Communism. In this sense, Aldo Moro's historical compromise can be thought of as a "third way" between Christian Democracy and Communism.

External links

• Time Magazine called Apple's iTunes Music Store a "third way'" alternative to the free downloads of Napster and the litigation of the RIAA

• Third Way Magazine Current affairs magazine, written from a Christian perspective.

• Why Tony is not a guitar-wielding facist dictator; The Guardian, July 1, 2003—about Mussolini and Blair.

Funded by The Lynde & Harry Bradley Foundation

• Third Way Foundation
• Progressive Foundation

• Democratic Leadership Council (affiliate)