It’s in different registers at different tempos, but it started to decline really by the mid- to late 1970s. This is when you’re seeing real dilemmas, real problems across the board, including in the Nordic countries, where it was the strongest. But of course, we know about England and the United States with Thatcherism and Reaganism, respectively. Germany follows suit, really, about ten years later. It happens everywhere.
Before we get into why it happened, let me say this: it went into decline, but it has not died. This is really important. If social democracy had been completely dismantled, you would really have to ask, what’s the point here? Because it takes incredible work to build it. If it can be easily dismantled within a span of a decade or two, then the Left appears to be undertaking a Sisyphean task of pushing a boulder up a mountain, having it roll all the way back down, and then starting again. That would be very dispiriting.
It’s important to register that, while it has been pushed back, thinned out, and contracted in its generosity, the welfare state still exists. In many parts of Europe, it still does quite a lot of good compared to the pre-welfare-state era. That’s important, because it means if we can get the Left going again and get labor moving again, it isn’t starting from zero. It’s going to be able to build on what’s left and what is still quite significant from its past achievements.
That said, why was it pushed back? Largely because all of those things we talked about as its enabling conditions had dramatically changed by the 1970s.
First of all, what you called the golden age of capitalism, the period of extraordinary growth lasting from 1945 to about 1975, came to a close. This means that after the mid-1970s, the rate of economic growth and productivity growth began to slow down. Of course, as that’s slowing down, the economic pie isn’t expanding as fast. That means employers now stiffen up. They’re…
Auteur: Vivek Chibber
