and their governments, Giddens argues that the political concepts of left and right are now breaking down as a result of many factors, most centrally the absence of a clear alternative to capitalism and the eclipse of political opportunities based on the social class in favour of those based on lifestyle choices. Giddens moves away from explaining how things are to the more demanding attempt of advocacy about how they ought to be. In Beyond Left and Right (1994), Giddens criticises market socialism and constructs a six-point framework for a reconstituted radical politics: Repair damaged solidarities. Recognise the centrality of life politics. Accept that active trust implies generative politics. Embrace dialogic democracy. Rethink the welfare state. Confront violence. The Third Way: The Renewal of Social Democracy (1998) provides the framework within which the Third Way, also termed by Giddens as the radical centre, is justified. In addition, The Third Way supplies a broad range of policy proposals aimed at what Giddens calls the "progressive centre-left" in British politics. According to Giddens: " overall aim of third way politics should be to help citizens pilot their way through the major revolutions of our time: globalisation, transformations in personal life and our relationship to nature." Giddens remains fairly optimistic about the future of humanity: "There is no single agent, group or movement that, as Marx's proletariat was supposed to do, can carry the hopes of humanity, but there are many points of political engagement which offer good cause for optimism." Giddens discards the possibility of a single, comprehensive, all-connecting ideology or political programme without a duality of structure. Instead, he advocates going after the small pictures, ones people can directly affect at their home, workplace or local community. To Giddens, this is a difference between pointless utopianism and useful utopian realism which he defines as envisaging "alternative futures whose very propagation might help them be realised" (The Consequences of Modernity). By utopian, he means that this is something new and extraordinary, and by realistic he stresses that this idea is rooted in the existing social processes and can be viewed as their simple extrapolation. Such a future has at its centre a more socialised, demilitarised and planetary-caring global world order variously articulated within green, women's and peace movements and within the wider democratic movement. The Third Way was not just a work of abstract theory as it influenced a range of centre-left