[Marxism] Has Social Democracy Won?

[Ruthless Critic of All that Exists <ok.president+nbsy@xxxxxxxxx>]

Unheralded Battle: Capitalism, the Left, Social Democracy, and
Democratic Socialism
By Sheri Berman

Full: <http://dissentmagazine.org/article/?article=1332>

[...] JUST AS important, however, is that the left regain its old
optimism and historical vision. And here, interestingly, is where
Harrington still has something to teach. In his writings, he insisted
on the left’s need for some larger sense of where it wanted the world
to be heading. Without this, he argued, the left would be
directionless and uninspiring. Despite current disillusionment with
capitalism, this is precisely the situation the left finds itself in
today, given the loss of its vision of a postcapitalist society. Many
of its parties win elections, but few inspire much hope or offer more
than a kinder, gentler version of a generic centrist platform.

Given the left’s past, this is astonishing. The left has traditionally
been driven by the conviction that a better world was possible and
that its job was to bring this world into being. Somehow this
conviction has been lost. As Michael Jacobs has noted, “Up through the
1980s politics on the left was enchanted—not by spirits, but by
radical idealism; the belief that the world could be fundamentally
different. But cold, hard political realism has now done for radical
idealism what rationality did for pre-Enlightenment spirituality.
Politics has been disenchanted.” Many welcome this shift, believing
that transformative projects are passé or even dangerous. But this
loss of faith in transformation “has been profoundly damaging, not
just for the cause of progressive politics but for a wider sense of
public engagement with the political process.” [...]

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