The Tragedy of Social Democracy

"This book is on the rise, fall and the future of social democracy as a politico-ideological force which had committed itself to democratically transform capitalism into socialism but instead of social democratizing capitalism itself was liberalized. Why has social democracy been gravitated into the magnetic field of neoliberalism? Who can be blamed for such tragedy? Can social democracy reverse its political and ideological eclipse? These are crucial questions that have baffled socialists and social democrats. Numerous books and articles have been written on social democracy, and its political viability has continued to be the subject of debate among left wing intellectuals. In contrast to the existing literature which does not provide an adequate theorization of the historical metamorphosis of social democracy, this book attempts to shed light on the innate structural vulnerability of social democracy to progressive degeneration that it has gone through. More specifically, this book demonstrates how the seeds for liberalization of social democracy and gradual stripping its social vision from socialist principles were in fact contained within the womb of social democracy itself. It is the main thrust of this book to theorize the social democratic transformation and establish a structural linkage between its rise, ascendancy and subsequent decline since the theoretical raid of neoliberalism on Keynesianism in the 1980s. This book also strives to highlight certain public policy measures which are indispensable to the social democratic renewal that is being debated among socialists and social democrats."--