Where Now for European Social Democracy? - Policy Network

18WHERE NOW FOR EUROPEAN SOCIAL DEMOCRACY?civil servants already in post. It would be unfair if the reform wereretroactive on citizens, who in other circumstances would havemade different career choices. This is why reforms must recogniserights acquired in the past: this should be taken into considerationby an indemnity to protect existing rights. It is under this conditionthat reforms of our Welfare State, unpleasant although necessary,will respect the objective of social justice.To regulate modern capitalism and forbid the proliferation ofinequalities, we have to develop a ‘socialism of production’We can no longer watch passively as the market creates inequalitiesand correct them afterwards. Inequalities grow, and in certain cases,they can become psychologically unacceptable and cause resentment.That is why we can no longer allow the market to generate theseinequalities: we must attack them at the root, and intervene in thesystem of production. We, as socialists, have too long hesitated to dothis: in the name of maximising ideology we have forbidden ourselvesfrom reforming the capitalist machine from the inside. This has beenthe case in several European countries, particularly in Latin countries,where any attempt at reform has been seen as a betrayal of theworking class. In such circumstances the Left remains inert. “Theyhave clean hands, but they don’t have hands”, as Péguy remarked. Toorganise the ‘socialism of production’, is to accept getting ourhands dirty.This ‘socialism of production’ has a fecundity of directions:corporate governance, regulation of financial markets, and thesupervision of delocalisation ... I wish quite simply to insist on onepoint: to secure the worker over the course of their life, also known asprofessional social security.Since capital has become ultra-mobile, because industrial sites candelocalise more easily, because companies rise and fall more quickly,linear careers in one organisation have disappeared. Everyone nowchanges not only company several times in their life, but also theircareer. However, workers are in a fundamentally inegalitarian positionas a result of these changes. The highly skilled part of the workforce