A positive future for social democracy depends upon a genuine political commitment to social and environmental justice.

In the first half of the twentieth century, social democracy fundamentally transformed the European social and political landscape. Recognising the need to temper the injustices inherent in the capitalist economic system, the proponents of social democratic ideology strove for fairness and stability through policies to nationalise industries and increase public spending on crucial services like health care and education.

This approach did much to bring about relative prosperity and peace following the Second World War. Yet it has been under constant siege for over two decades. Since a resurgent right rode into the 1980s on the wave of neoliberalism, and set about rolling back the state, political commitment to the founding principles of social democracy has steadily declined.

And even as EU citizens face many of the consequences of this trajectory – increasing inequality, environmental crisis and financial meltdown – the European left has so far failed to seize the opportunity to mount a united challenge. The left across EU member states is failing to achieve widespread electoral triumph, with many believing that social democracy has lost its way. The fact that levels of inequality have risen since the start of the New Labour government in 1997 is a damning indictment of its failure to stand strong against the forces of economic globalisation and political conservatism.

What we can learn from this is that a new social democracy must rise to the challenge of addressing the realities of our times – and chief among them is the reality that conventional economic growth in the developed world is bringing neither increased levels of equality nor greater well-being. Social democrats must recognise that if we are to improve our well-being and that of the planet, we need to radically reform our deeply unsustainable economic system based on constant growth – and thus the ever-increasing consumption and waste of natural resources.

While the vast majority of Europe’s citizens have become vastly more wealthy in the past four decades, our levels of well-being and happiness have not increased. At the same time, environmental problems, above all the climate crisis, suggest that our current lifestyles have potentially catastrophic consequences.

Urgent change is needed; yet our addiction to consumerism leads many to believe that we have already lost the battle. As well as leading most of us into an ostrich-like denial of its implications, the strength of the consumerist ethos has reduced governments to a state of paralysis – too nervous of public opinion to implement any policy capable of making a real difference on urgent issues like climate change.

However, according to the groundbreaking work by British authors Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett, the key to reducing the cultural pressure to consume is greater equality. In their book The Spirit Level they set out how greater equality makes growth much less necessary, revealing research which shows that many people would rather trade as much as half their real income if they could live in a society in which they would be better-off than others – showing the extent to which we value relative status over actual material wealth. A great deal of what drives consumption is status competition, and it is the inequality between people that increases the pressure to consume. By tackling inequality, then, we can reduce runaway consumerism and environmental degradation, as well as making life fairer for the majority.

As an increasing number of reports underline, the fact that happiness and well-being do not depend on endless economic growth and material wealth, but rather on contented families, strong communities, meaningful work and personal freedom, so it becomes clearer that the policies we need to live good lives are precisely the policies we need to tackle the environmental and social challenges we face today.

In order to reassert the values of social democracy and unite the left to protect the well-being of people and planet, we therefore need explicit policies designed to reduce inequality and reduce climate emissions. We must pull lower incomes up – in the short term through a living wage, in the longer term via Citizens Income – and, crucially, levy proportionate taxation on the highest incomes. Research by Compass has found considerable public support for a fairer tax system to redistribute wealth, with 78 per cent in a recent poll saying they would support a tax system whereby the richest 10 per cent pay at least the same percentage of their income in tax as the poorest 10 per cent. Fair policies to cut emissions through a system of individual carbon rationing will also play a key role in this new social democracy.

What’s clear is that right-of-centre political ideology, with its fondness for free market deregulation, privatisation and public spending cuts, does not hold the solutions to the challenges that we face. It is the responsibility of social democracy to combat the continued rise of the right by staying true to the values of its socialist roots and placing fairness at the heart of the political economy. We need a social democracy founded on ecological sustainability, wealth redistribution, cultural innovation and human well-being. The progressive left must provide a positive and hopeful vision for a greener, fairer future – anything less will amount to a political and a moral failure that Europe simply cannot afford.