The third way is commonly held to mean a compromise between 'old' Labour and the New Right: social justice via free market mechanisms and practices. However, before this use of the term, now Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, was using the term to describe a compromise between different factions of the Left. This article explores this interpretation of the third way by examining the context - an analysis of the Independent Labour Party's living wage proposal of the 1920s - in which Brown used the term and the implications that it has for understanding New Labour's approach to making work pay