Good books on social democracy

[King of Kensington]

Here's some written since 1990:

Stephen Padgett and William Paterson, Social Democracy in Postwar Europe (1991)
Frances Fox Piven (ed.), Labor Parties in Postindustrial Societies (1992)
Donald Sassoon, One Hundred Years of Socialism: The West European Left in the Twentieth Century (1996)
Leo Panitch and Colin Leys, The End of Parliamentary Socialism: From New Left to New Labour (1997)
Gerassimos Moschonas, In the Name of Social Democracy: The Great Transoformation  (2002)
Tony Judt, Ill Fares the Land (2010)
Bryan Evans and Ingo Schmidt (eds.), Social Democracy After the Cold War (2011)

On my "to read" list:

Jonas Pontusson, Inequality and Prosperity: Social Europe vs. Liberal America (2005)
Sheri Berman, The Primacy of Politics: Social Democracy and the Making of Europe's Twentieth Century (2006)

[Antonio the Sixth]

As a self-identifying social democrat, I found the most astute and enlightening analysis on the nature and impact of this political and ideological movement in Gösta Esping-Andersen's Politics against Markets: The Social Democratic Road to Power (Princeton University Press, 1985). It's a bit old, but that's also what makes it interesting - because we can see how much the realm of possibility for left-wing policies has narrowed over the course of a decade.

Other excellent books I've read on the topic include:
- Berman, S. (1998) The Social Democratic Moment: Ideas and Politics in the Making of Interwar Europe. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
- Berman, S. (2006) The Primacy of Politics: Social Democracy and the Making of Europe’s Twentieth Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Castles, F. (1978) The Social Democratic Image of Society. London: Routledge.
- Hicks, A. (1999) Social Democracy and Welfare Capitalism: A Century of Income Security Politics. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
- Tilton, T. (1990) The Political Theory of Swedish Social Democracy. New York: Oxford Univerisy Press.

[politicus]

As a self-identifying social democrat, I found the most astute and enlightening analysis on the nature and impact of this political and ideological movement in Gösta Esping-Andersen's Politics against Markets: The Social Democratic Road to Power (Princeton University Press, 1985). It's a bit old, but that's also what makes it interesting - because we can see how much the realm of possibility for left-wing policies has narrowed over the course of a decade.

You mean three decades?

There is also the interesting question how many of those limits are self imposed and how many dictated by changes in the global economy and general globalization.

[Antonio the Sixth]

As a self-identifying social democrat, I found the most astute and enlightening analysis on the nature and impact of this political and ideological movement in Gösta Esping-Andersen's Politics against Markets: The Social Democratic Road to Power (Princeton University Press, 1985). It's a bit old, but that's also what makes it interesting - because we can see how much the realm of possibility for left-wing policies has narrowed over the course of a decade.

You mean three decades?

There is also the interesting question how many of those limits are self imposed and how many dictated by changes in the global economy and general globalization.

Even as early 1995, I believe the policies that Esping-Andersen advocated would have sounded utterly outlandish to the entire political class. The Third Way was already in the making at that point.

And I think Esping-Andersen would argue that this ideological shift is the result of the Social Democratic parties' inability to seize the last occasions they had to implement an agenda for economic democracy. Once these occasions were gone, Social Democratic decomposition among the working class and the hegemony of neoliberal thought among the middle classes became too pronounced for such agenda to be politically viable.

[politicus]

As a self-identifying social democrat, I found the most astute and enlightening analysis on the nature and impact of this political and ideological movement in Gösta Esping-Andersen's Politics against Markets: The Social Democratic Road to Power (Princeton University Press, 1985). It's a bit old, but that's also what makes it interesting - because we can see how much the realm of possibility for left-wing policies has narrowed over the course of a decade.

You mean three decades?

There is also the interesting question how many of those limits are self imposed and how many dictated by changes in the global economy and general globalization.

Even as early 1995, I believe the policies that Esping-Andersen advocated would have sounded utterly outlandish to the entire political class. The Third Way was already in the making at that point.

And I think Esping-Andersen would argue that this ideological shift is the result of the Social Democratic parties' inability to seize the last occasions they had to implement an agenda for economic democracy. Once these occasions were gone, Social Democratic decomposition among the working class and the hegemony of neoliberal thought among the middle classes became too pronounced for such agenda to be politically viable.

ED wasn't really on the agenda for SDs in most countries. To my knowledge it was only in Sweden and Denmark that there were concrete proposals for ED - and only in Sweden that they actually tried elements of it and then only after it had been watered down. The PCI discussed it in Italy, but dropped it as too "statist" (kinda ironic).

In Sweden and Denmark economic democracy was met by resistance not only just by business interests threatening (and executing) capital flight (in Sweden you had Ikea, Tetrapak and H&M etc. leaving the country after a very moderate version of ED was implemented) and bourgeois politicians, but also from left wingers that felt it blocked real Socialism and SD right wingers, especially among union leaders.

I am not sure in what countries SDs actually had the power to implement ED. There is Sweden and I suppose Labour could have done it in Britain if the really wanted to (but then they would be guaranteed to lose the next election, after which a Tory government would undo it). Not sure about France in 1981-83. In most countries SDs depended on support from centrist or true leftist parties that would have opposed ED or were too weak to maintain power after implementing ED. You need a solid majority to accomplish something like that.

But yeah you are right, it is crazy how far social discourse in Europe has moved. Even our later Liberal PM Anders Fogh Rasmussen supported some decentralised form of ED as a young man and plenty of Social Liberals did.

There is a rather famous (well, only in DK) Danish debate book from the late 70s called "Rebellion from the Center" written by a Social Liberal politician, a well-known author and philosopher and a physicist and social debater. Back when I taught high school my students considered it's proposals of economic democracy, steady state economy, basic income  and direct democracy pure "socialism" (and I think most adult Danes would agree with them). Whereas back then it was an attempt to reconcile elements from Liberalism and Socialism and find a progressive Third Way.

[Antonio the Sixth]

I'm sorry, I should have clarified that earlier, bu Politics Against Markets only deals with Denmark, Norway and Sweden. These countries are taken as the quintessential "Social Democracies" and thus as the countries where it made more sense to explore the economic and social record of social democratic parties. It's obviously very difficult to translate these conclusions into countries where the left has barely if ever held power, like Italy pre-1994 or France pre-1981.

[politicus]

I'm sorry, I should have clarified that earlier, bu Politics Against Markets only deals with Denmark, Norway and Sweden. These countries are taken as the quintessential "Social Democracies" and thus as the countries where it made more sense to explore the economic and social record of social democratic parties. It's obviously very difficult to translate these conclusions into countries where the left has barely if ever held power, like Italy pre-1994 or France pre-1981.

Yeah I know, but that limits the power of his argument. SDs should have done X to achieve Y only matters if SDs could realistically have done X. Even in Scandinavia ED was a bit of a pipe dream. My reply also dealt with the faith of ED in Sweden and Denmark, where it proved impossible to implement it in Denmark and sustain even the watered down version of it in Sweden.

Regarding ED today there would at least not be opposition from the True Leftists since the modern far left do not generally have more radical plans for the economy (apart from small sects). Not sure if future (and present) left populist movements would take up the idea, but the troubles with avoiding capital flight would be even worse today than in the heyday of Social Democracy.

[Lurker]

Does ED here refer to "löntagarfonder"? What was the Danish version called?

[politicus]

Does ED here refer to "löntagarfonder"? What was the Danish version called?

Yes. ØD, using "lønmodtagerfonde" (employee funds).

[Antonio the Sixth]

I'm sorry, I should have clarified that earlier, bu Politics Against Markets only deals with Denmark, Norway and Sweden. These countries are taken as the quintessential "Social Democracies" and thus as the countries where it made more sense to explore the economic and social record of social democratic parties. It's obviously very difficult to translate these conclusions into countries where the left has barely if ever held power, like Italy pre-1994 or France pre-1981.

Yeah I know, but that limits the power of his argument. SDs should have done X to achieve Y only matters if SDs could realistically have done X. Even in Scandinavia ED was a bit of a pipe dream. My reply also dealt with the faith of ED in Sweden and Denmark, where it proved impossible to implement it in Denmark and sustain even the watered down version of it in Sweden.

Do you mean impossible to sustain economically or politically? If the former, that's not an area I know enough about to be able to dispute it. In the latter case however, I can't help but believe that if the SAP really wanted it, they could have achieved it. They won the battle over pension reform in 1957-59 at a time where their political position was far less strong.

And Esping-Andersen would agree that there was no condition in Denmark for the implementation of ED. He argues that the Danish Social-Democrats jeopardized their future much earlier, in the 1950s and 60s, by enacting market-based housing policies that divided their base between renters and homeowners.

[Oak Hills]

Can someone please explain what exactly lønmodtagerfonde are?  Thanks in advance.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Everyone is always wiser after the event. It's commonly argued here that isn't it terrible that the Left and the labourist Right blocked In Place of Strife (which would have introduced a significant corporatist element into labour relations and would have required ballots for strike action) back in 1969, because this would have meant no Winter of Discontent and no Thatcher. Leaving aside the fact that this interpretation is almost certainly wrong,* it ignores the fact that no one is possessed with the power of hindsight and that those parts of the Labour Party who opposed In Place of Strife had very good reasons to do so.

_{*I.e. militant trade unionism in the 1970s was a response to the strange economic circumstances unleashed by the Arab Oil Embargo and was primarily led by shop stewards rather than General Secretaries. Grassroots militancy was driven by an understandable desire to protect living standards and wildcat strikes became the order of the day in some industries. Much of the industrial action during the Winter of Discontent was unofficial in nature; had formal industrial relations been incorporated even further into a corporatist framework, then that percentage would simply have increased further.}

[afleitch]

The Future of Socialism by Tony Crosland is probably one of the most influential for both the SDP and later 'New Labour' embryonic thinking.

[Lurker]

Can someone please explain what exactly lønmodtagerfonde are?  Thanks in advance.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Employee_funds

(A very simple explanation of what it was all about. The Swedish Wiki naturally contains loads of information, but I doubt whether there's any point in linking to that )

[King of Kensington]

Wow, didn't realize this had become an active topic.  Re: Sweden - here's a piece written on the limits of Swedish social democracy written by Rudolf Meidner:

http://socialistregister.com/index.php/srv/article/view/5630/2528#.VOGAMMZ4FRk