Return Of Social Democracy?

In the rubble of the financial crisis, pro-socialist political formations on both sides of the Atlantic attract the dispossessed.

- Vijay Prashad

On both sides of the Atlantic, the sirens of social democracy have sounded. In the United Kingdom, it has reappeared in the body of left-leaning politician Jeremy Corbyn’s challenge to the Labour Party leadership. In the United States, it has emerged as democratic socialist Bernie Sanders makes his appearance as a strong contender for the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate. In Canada, the New Democratic Party’s (NDP) Thomas Mulcair holds the lead in the federal elections due on October 19. It is likely that the NDP, which already swept the provincial elections in Alberta, could defeat the Conservatives. Buried languages against income inequality and social fragmentation can be heard once more in the mainstream press. These are traditions that had been cremated in the 1980s. In the rubble of the financial crisis, social democracy has begun to smoulder.

In the U.K., the emergence of Corbyn in the Labour Party leadership contest has set off alarms. Corbyn is an old-style socialist—uncomfortable in the boardroom and glad to be on the streets. He is not forged in the smithy of New Labour, the “third way” of Tony Blair. Indeed, Blair has frontally attacked Corbyn as a throwback to the 1980s. “Jeremy Corbyn doesn’t offer anything new,” Blair wrote. “Those of us who lived through the turmoil of the 80s know every line of this script.”

Corbyn’s script is written in large part by the social democratic tradition—government intervention to deliver public services, an end to muscular military intervention, and higher taxes on the wealthy. Little here sets Corbyn apart from Michael Foot and Tony Benn, both standard-bearers of social democracy in Labour’s past. Corbyn’s rise threatens the Third Way. He wants to recommit Labour to socialism, which is anathema to Blair.