Where Now for European Social Democracy? - Policy Network
Where Now for European Social Democracy? - Policy Network
Where Now for European Social Democracy? - Policy Network
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PATRICK DIAMOND 331950s and 1960s and what Donald Sassoon terms the ‘neo-revisionism’of today 4 . The two movements have occurred after a lengthy period ofright-wing hegemony. In both eras sociologists were predicting ‘the endof ideology’ as Kirchheimer heralded the embourgeoisement of theworking-class. There is another parallel. In both eras, a period ofpessimism about capitalism’s survival was followed by its remarkablerecovery. Since the beginning of the 1990s capitalism has provedglobally resilient despite the comparatively weak per<strong>for</strong>mance of the<strong>European</strong> economy during those years.There are of course major contrasts with the 1950s and 1960s, notleast the Left’s recent embrace of constitutional re<strong>for</strong>m – as opposedto a defence of the ‘bourgeois state’ which had first legitimised socialdemocracy in the late nineteenth century. The internal process ofrevisionism is nonetheless ceaseless.The SPD recently published a new ‘framework <strong>for</strong> the just renewalof Germany’ as part of its Agenda 2010 re<strong>for</strong>ms, embracing ‘a cultureof innovation’ in public policy 5 . By calling <strong>for</strong> the establishment ofnational ‘elite universities’ <strong>for</strong> example, Chancellor Schröder hasbroken a post-war taboo of German social democracy, as he seeks toaddress the skills gap while tapping more effectively into scientificinnovation.The leading French politician Dominique Strauss-Kahn has setout the case <strong>for</strong> a ‘radical re<strong>for</strong>mism’ in the Parti <strong>Social</strong>iste as thefoundation stone <strong>for</strong> the modernisation of French society. He has called<strong>for</strong> greater investment in education and human capital, housing andthe health sector, drawing on experience from Britain and Scandinavia,alongside fiscal and regulatory re<strong>for</strong>ms – widening access to decent andsecure jobs 6 .The British Prime Minister Tony Blair has argued recently in apamphlet published by the Fabian Society 7 : “It is time to acknowledgethe 1945 settlement was a product of its time and we must not be aprisoner of it. We must recognise that what was absolutely right <strong>for</strong> atime of real austerity no longer meets the needs and challenges in anage of growing prosperity and consumer demand”.