ABSTRACT
This chapter draws on a range of Douglas Jay's speeches and writings in order to test the powerful argument that during these years Labour failed to come to terms with working-class affluence. According to Lawrence Black, the consumerist values of the 'affluent society' were seen as overwhelmingly negative by socialists, whom, he argues, 'can be seen to have to a large extent brought upon themselves their alienation from popular affluence'. Jay's explicit attempts to evolve a socialist response to the phenomenon of affluence marked him out as a key figure in Labour revisionism, albeit one whose contributions during the 'thirteen years of Tory misrule' have largely been forgotten. Before he began to write Socialism in the New Society book, and even before the 1959 election defeat, Jay attempted to devise new policies appropriate for the post-Attlee era. Doubts about 'The Stagnant Society', by contrast, only caught the popular mood in Britain after the 1959 election.
