“The social democracy we see today has now abandoned even that commitment to a mixed economy characterized by significant but not dominant public ownership and redistributive social and economic policies. What distinguishes the new social democracy is an embrace of its new “modern” role as a manager of neoliberal restructuring.
This transformation was noted by Michael Harrington (1986)…
As a result of the efforts of the “progressive modernizers,” for whom modernization “has too often meant deregulation and privatization,” social democracy is no longer what it used to be, argues Robert Taylor (2008 ). “Too many have sought to accomodate or embrace global capitalism,” he observes, “with varying degrees of enthusiasm. They continue to see the market as an overwhelming force for good.” Social democrats have, moreover, “too often argued that the only way forward is to abandon notions of equality and fraternity . . . and to weaken the state to the advantage of the forces of capital.”
to read the 340-page pdf book from AU Press, Athabasca University (2012), click on
