The Millenium Ecosystem Assessment (2005), the most thorough investigation yet of the state of the planet, found that most ecosystems are in serious deterioration. This has been backed up by numerous other scientific studies. This is not only about climate change, the problem is much more wide-ranging than that. Nor is it simply a matter of predictions about the future – the ecological crisis is already here.

And now we have the spread of Western-style consumer society in countries like China and India. If the planet cannot cope with the pressures it already has, there is zero chance that it can cope with those pressures if they come not just from North America and Europe but from across large parts of Asia and elsewhere in the developing world.

All this requires a rethink of many aspects of how we live, what sorts of technologies we have, how cities are organised, what energy sources we use, what our food supply and transport systems look like, and so on.

Is the EU up to playing its part in this task? It has driven much of the environmental legislation now in operation in member states, for example on energy efficiency, waste, and habitat protection. It tried to play a leading role in the Copenhagen talks, not entirely successfully but apparently sincerely. So there is some drive there to take the necessary action. However, as usual, ‘environment’ gets separated from ‘economy’, and when we look at economic strategy, the picture is depressingly ‘business as usual’.

The EU is now debating what to put in the next 10-year strategy, ‘Agenda 2020’, which will replace the failed Lisbon Agenda. This new strategy is due to be signed and sealed by heads of government a year from now. Some of the early documents have included words which imply some improvement on the Lisbon Agenda, but the dominant view amongst governments appears to be not that the objectives of economic policy need to be changed, but that they must simply try harder.

Some are seeing (I base this on an article in the London Financial Times 4th March) what needs to be done as getting ‘a more forceful strategy to ensure … implementation’ to press ahead with the Lisbon Agenda approach of prioritising economic growth and the single market.

How this would be achieved is not clear. However, more importantly, this would be to miss the opportunity which the drawing up of ‘Agenda 2020’ presents. Would it be possible to develop a green/social democratic alternative to the existing documents, to move the EU on to a different path for economic policy, in line with its best instincts on environmental issues?

The bureaucratic nature of the EU as it stands is largely the result of citizens not making use of the mechanisms of democratic accountability which already exist for EU institutions (though of course these should be developed further). We should be contacting MEPs, members of parliament, and government representatives, pressing them in the course of this year to ensure that the new strategy for Europe becomes one which matches up to the scale of the crisis the world’s ecosystems are now in.

Second, as soon as the alliance with the liberals fulfilled the goal of equality in political representation for the working class, they set their sights to more and better forms of democracy. The welfare state was a major achievement on the way to social democracy, and discontent with Fordist practices and societal change brought about more radical calls for economic democracy in the workplace.

The failure of the latter project was profoundly important as it shattered the hopes entertained by the radical segments of the left. While the above pictures includes the standard bearers of the social democratic family (leaving outside the ‘socialist south’ and Eastern Europe) it presents a macro-picture of the left’s relationship to democracy that is ingrained in its self-image.

If that is the (shortened and simplified) past, what about the future? How do progressives understand democracy today, and how useful can it be in pursuit of their political objectives? The observation that social democracy is in crisis is not particularly new. However, the recognition that its latest variant with a pan-European appeal, the third way that is, was premised on an inadequate concept of democracy is a potentially good guide for future practice.

The third way is a formerly successful electoral strategy that left its imprint on social democrats throughout Europe. The cost of its creation proved steep. More so than in any other sphere, its stifling of inner-party democracy in pursuit of ballot box glory first ignored and then isolated dissenting voices within the progressive movement. The strategy soon reached its limits because the inter-class alliance on which it was built broke down when the working class part of the alliance proved unwilling to continue supporting the project. This was a first in the history of social democracy and its consequences are strongly felt in countries like the UK or Germany.

What the third way chose to ignore was that such support remains a precondition for centre-left success because it links the party machinery, heavy and bureaucratised as it often is, to party constituents and the public at large. Democratic participation through a new and inclusive organisational structure promotes the social democratic alliance in a sustainable way. No top-down driven project can achieve this any longer in our contemporary society, no matter how significant it may have been in the past.

Social democracy will remain a mass movement only if it continues to represent the large segments of society hard done by turbo-capitalism and environmental degradation. To do so successfully, it needs to connect with them beyond the rhetorical level and demonstrate its willingness to take on board their concerns by offering them a say in policy formulation. Parties such as the Greek social democrats (PASOK) have taken steps into such a direction and the results have so far proven positive beyond expectation. It is time to enlarge the sphere of progressive democratic politics beyond the third way.

1. Democratising Society

The current economic crisis is accompanied by a deep social crisis, whose foundations were laid by rising inequality and growing social polarisation as a result of neoliberal restructuring during the last two decades. Further increasing unemployment and extending precarious (particularly female) employment in the course of the economic downturn foster social hierarchies, marginalisation and exclusion, thereby intensifying societal disintegration and thus undermining democratic foundations.

This social crisis renders employment as the key mode of integration into society questionable and hints to the crucial importance of a new regulation of work and social security decoupled from gainful employment. A general and radical reduction of work hours and equal distribution of gainful employment as well as unpaid care work might serve as starting points in this context.

This also involves extensive gender equality measures regarding gainful employment, orientation towards gender parity in all occupations, a basic revision of wage-structures by re-valuing work on the basis of its societal necessity and establishing minimum as well as maximum income levels.

In this context, a concept of a good life not focused primarily on consumption-oriented economic criteria, but rather on the wealth of the plurality of human experience as well as the human need for manifold social interactions and stable social relations is crucial. Furthermore, discoursive strategies should focus on the deconstruction of the myth of the merit principle and question self-reliance and competition as organisational modes of society. Alongside opposing the growing naturalisation of social differences, social democracy should revitalise the idea of socio-economic equality as the only way to social inclusion and hence as the key prerequisite for a democratic society.

2. Democratising Politics

Referring to the erosion of democratic institutions and procedures, political science recently established the term “post-democratic” in order to describe the current state of politics. Post-democracy does not mean a simple reduction of democracy, but a historic development combining pre-democratic elements with formal representation resulting in increasingly authoritarian tendencies.

Post-democratic developments involve the growing exercise of political power by private enterprises without democratic legitimisation in particular based on the influence of economic lobbies on political decision-making. Processes of parliamentary decision-making are increasingly replaced by intransparent and uncontrollable systems of public-private bargaining.The shift of decision-making to supra- and international levels promotes de-democratisation.

Furthermore, post-democracy refers to a reduction in the opportunities to democratic participation by an output-related understanding of democracy. This means that state activities are not legitimised by a participatory process of decision-making (its input), but by the quality of their output, the assessment of which is primarily made by experts, leading to expertocratic forms of governance. Finally, post-democratic also refers to the extension of profit rationality to the public sector, the measurement of state activities according to economic criteria and the substitution of ideals of political leadership by ideals of public management.

As a consequence of this diagnosis re-building democracy implies the de-economisation of politics, the renewal of the “idea” of the “public” and the development of new forms of political participation. A profound strengthening of parliaments on regional, national and supranational levels and the building of democratic global institutions are certainly starting points, but far beyond, democratising politics needs a process of political emancipation overcoming the logic of inherent economic necessity.

Since everything is politically acceptable if there seems to be no alternative, research on new economic and societal models is required. The production of knowledge plays a crucial role for rebuilding democracy and must not be left to private interests. Resources therefore should be devoted to science and research on democratic social innovations. – What would societies look like, if we paid as much attention to them as we do to technological innovation?

This may sound eerily familiar. In 1981, in an interview in the Sunday Times, Mrs Thatcher came out with her classic and most important statement when she said ‘economics are the method, but the objective is to change the soul’. This is social engineering at it crudest, rivalled only by Lenin and Mao in its ambition. By privatising the economy she would privatise the people. The good society would be what you personally could afford and choose. Monet and the other architects of the EU may not have wanted to change the soul, but their method was a similar slight of hand. Under the cover of economic reform a new political settlement would be forged. By giving primacy to the development of new markets, the creation of governing and regulating political forces would inevitably follow. The economic would give birth to the political and therefore the democratic.

It hasn’t quite worked out like this. The political and democratic legitimacy of the EU has never felt weaker. The crisis of the European Constitution simply revealed what was already there: a hole in the democratic heart of Europe. The financial crash of 2008, which continues today, has exacerbated the crisis. The doubts about what Europe is for are compounded by the complete lack of clarity over who decides. As the planet burns, the poor get poorer, and austerity measures kick in, the gap between what is and what could be has never felt greater. In Europe more than anywhere else the dual crisis of inequality and sustainability combine to create a third crisis – that of politics itself. If political structures cannot deal with the pressing and real anxieties of the people, then what is Europe for?

But of course the scale of the challenge is double edged. On one side, the weaknesses of the EU are horribly exposed, but on the other, fresh opportunities open up to make the EU more accountable, more responsive and more democratic. But for those opportunities to be realised, a different strategy from the one advocated by those who founded modern Europe is needed. Instead of believing that democracy can and will simply play catch up with the market, democracy must start taking the lead. Rooted in an analysis of the very real insecurities faced by the people of Europe – jobs, debt, public service cuts and climate change – the institutions and politicians of Europe must now take a bold lead.

It is time to do two things: First we must set out a range of policies that address these concerns. They should include policies which underpin minimum employment and welfare standards across Europe, a European minimum wage, the standardisation of benefits, the harmonisation of tax rates and avoidance regimes, common rules on bankers pay, and coordination of anti-recessionary measures. But action from the top is not enough. Such levels of boldness have to be extended to democratic structures. If the EU is to take on these new essential responsibilities, then it has to open itself up to new levels of accountability. The elitism of recent years has to go. Real democracy has to sweep through the corridors of Brussels and Strasbourg. Either the President or the Council needs to be directly elected, and the necessary shift in power from the nation-state to a European social-state, which is both inevitable and necessary, must take place. A society that is secure and maximises the freedom of its people cannot be achieved solely at the level of the nation. The economy went global and democracy failed to play catch up. Only when politics decides it can and must make markets work for the people and not the other way around, will democracy mean anything.

Like Mrs Thatcher the left knows that people have the capacity to be good or bad, compassionate and caring, or greedy and selfish. She used the economy to bring out all that was individual and possessive. The left need to encourage the equally natural propensities of being cooperative and generous. The method is democracy; the goal is to enable us to take control of our lives and our world. As the crisis of a world created in the image of Mrs Thatcher continues, it is hard to ignore that if the democratisation of Europe doesn’t happen now, it never will.

First of all, it is apparent that designing policies based on the question “what makes people happy” is a grassroots notion that is very much in line with the social democratic tradition of Basisdemokratie. Letting the people define what is a good society using this evidence based approach to policymaking is the antidote to what used to be called Spaceship Bonn, i.e. a bunch of politicians designing policy detached from the interests of the ones they govern. Moreover, comparing the programmes of all parties currently, for example, in the German parliament, the Social Democratic Party is the one movement that seems closest to intuitively understanding the implications from modern well-being research. So overall, the SPD at this point in time seems to have the best chances of incorporating the new paradigm of well-being into public policy. Its 2009 election manifesto states that:

“Economic growth is not an end in itself. This conviction is gaining more supporters. We agree with many, with unions, churches, and many entrepreneurs. Economic success has to benefit the people. Robert Kennedy once said: GDP measures everything except that which makes life worthwhile.”

So what do the data on people’s life satisfaction tell us? Findings for instance suggest that there is a decreasing marginal utility of income, which can be seen at both the individual level, as well as between nations. This has important implications. At the individual level, people seem to gain less happiness from income the richer they are. Simply put, an extra Euro in the pocket of a poor person is worth more in terms of happiness derived from it compared to a rich person. This is a strong argument in favour of progressive taxation and of directing returns from future growth to the poorest members of our society. Such findings complement the argument that more equal countries do better in a range of dimensions from alcohol abuse to teenage pregnancy and metal illness rates (see Wilkinson & Pickett’s 2009 book The Spirit Level). In the light of such results, directing public funds towards the empowerment of underprivileged citizens and ‘supertaxing’ excessive bonuses makes (some would say: even) more sense.

At the macro-level, research has shown that the average reported happiness of nations increases as their economies develop. However, once they reach a threshold of ca. 10,000 Euros GDP per capita, further growth does not buy them more happiness. A similar dilemma is also exemplified by the ‘Easterlin paradox’. The American economist found out that material growth in Western democracies since World War II has not led to significant increases in happiness. The primary lesson learned here is that while we may acknowledge the importance of growth, we need to stop treating it as the cure-all for our miseries. Instead, we must broaden our focus to other factors.

In fact, policymakers should start to think about how we can additionally foster another kind of economy: It is what some have called the Economy of Regard (Avner Offer), the Hidden Wealth of Nations (David Halpern), or the Core Economy (New Economics Foundation). These terms have their distinct emphasis, but more or less all refer to the huge benefits of social and personal interaction and reciprocity. Indeed, we need a Wachstumsbeschleunigungsgesetz (i.e. the ‘law for increasing growth’ recently passed by the new German conservative coalition) also for the Economy of Regard. All indications from modern quality of life research suggest that this kind of economy, which operates wherever incentives are affected by personal relations, is at least as important to our subjective well-being as the ‘real economy’. Further implications from quality of life studies include a need for welfare-to-work programmes, and strengthening our societies’ social capital.

In Britain, 81% of people say that government’s primary goal should be the “greatest happiness” of the electorate, not the “greatest wealth” (according to a BBC poll). If social democrats across Europe came to realise such priorities, then their currently poor election ratings would certainly improve. In summary, the science of happiness can be a new tool for public policy. If applied correctly, it can also facilitate a true renewal and revitalisation of social democracy

An ominous paradox hangs over the battered ranks of European social democracy. By rights, this should be a social-democratic moment. The economic crisis of the last two years has shown beyond doubt that the neoliberal economic paradigm which has dominated academic theory and political practice for nearly thirty years is – quite simply – wrong. Markets don’t behave in the way that neoliberals say they do. They can’t safely be allowed to regulate themselves. It is not the case that government failure is more common than market failure. The rising tide of market-induced growth does not float all boats. Fiscal deficits are not always bad. State management of the economy is necessary – in good times as well as in bad. The unhindered pursuit of individual self interest does not hold the key to prosperity and growth; the assumption that it does has helped to procure the most devastating fall in output and employment for eighty years.

Above all, we have learned anew that the rational economic actor whom neoliberal economists put at the centre of their mental universe is a chimera. Allegedly rational economic actors procured a swelling orgy of risk-taking that culminated in the near collapse of the world’s financial system when the bubble burst. The financial services sector was driven by the wild stampedes of what George Soros, the uncrowned king of hedge-fund managers, called ‘the electronic herd’, not by reason. Keynes’s mordant warning against allowing capital investment to become ‘the by-product of a casino’ has turned out to be as pertinent in the 2000s as it was in the 1930s. And it has become clear that state intervention on a scale unprecedented in peace time has offered the only hope of rescuing the market economy from itself.

All this should have been music to social-democratic ears. During the long ascendancy of the neoliberal paradigm, social democrats were trapped. If they echoed the neoliberal mantras of individualism, deregulation, privatisation and marketisation – as the New Democrats did in the United States and New Labour did in Britain – they risked losing their souls. If they rejected them, they lost all hope of influencing events. Now the crash has sprung the trap. Market fundamentalism is no longer the monarch of all it surveys. A space for social-democratic discourse – perhaps even for a social-democratic paradigm – should surely have opened up.

Yet, so far, the only response has been a deafening silence. The Obama administration in the United States and the Brown government in Britain have signally failed to offer a new social-democratic approach to the new, post-crash world. Both seem bent on returning, as fast as they prudently can, to a cleaned-up version of business as usual; and, in Brown’s case, electoral defeat at some point in the next few months seems virtually inevitable. On the Continental side of the English Channel and the North Sea, the landscape is equally bleak. In the heartland nations of the European Union, the right, not the left, are the chief beneficiaries of the crash. Merkel, Sarkozy and (astonishingly) even the increasingly battered and ludicrous Berlusconi dominate their respective political communities.

The implications are more profound – and a lot more painful – than most social democrats appear to realise. It is an illusion to think that, somewhere at the end of a rainbow, lies a shiny new political vision which would re-vitalise social democracy if only social democrats were clever enough, or eloquent enough – or possibly courageous enough – to discover and articulate it. The social-democratic malaise goes far deeper than that. There are plenty of evils for social democrats to combat. The ancient enemies of mankind – poverty, indignity, cruelty, injustice – have not disappeared, and probably never will. Lately they have been joined by a new enemy: the looming threat of an environmental catastrophe which may yet destroy civilised life on this planet. The problem is that social democracy – at least in any of the senses in which the term has been used up to now – has nothing distinctive to say about them.

Sometimes the central state will have to play a role in combating them; often, supranational institutions will have to play a part as well. But it is one thing to use state power to combat particular, known and visible evils, in a wary and cautious spirit, quite another to imagine that enlightened social engineers, guided by the pure light of reason, can re-make society from the top down.

This is not a call for political quietism: far from it. We, as a species, will need every ounce of intelligence, skill, courage, determination, forethought and generosity of spirit we possess to avert the catastrophe that looms ahead. But social democrats have no special lien on these. Other traditions – in particular, the conservative tradition of Burkean prudence and the republican tradition of civic duty and public reasoning – have as much to say to the tormented twenty-first century as ours. We should stop asking whether social democracy has a future, and ask instead whether the human race has a future. To put it at its lowest, the answer, at the moment, is by no means clear.

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.

The crisis of the SPD in Germany is matched by a crisis of European social democracy as a whole. Only a third of the member states of the European Union are currently governed by social-democratic parties. Instead of benefiting politically from the current economic and financial crisis, social democracy has been seen as an accomplice in bringing about the very conditions that made this crisis possible.

The fundamental changes that took place after the fall of the Berlin wall and the end of the cold war, especially the speeded-up and intensified forms of globalisation, have posed serious challenges to all social-democratic parties in Europe. The increase in cross-border and transnational investment and financial transactions, the internationalisation of capital, and the free movement of goods, services and capital across the globe have undermined traditional instruments for regulating our national economies and social security systems.

The aim of achieving an equilibrium between capital, labour and social policy in society has always been at the core of social-democratic politics. However in the last two decades even social-democratic governments have been advocating deregulation, privatisation and market-oriented policies. Small government, self-responsibility and free markets were the credo of the day. This led to a muddled political identity and lack of credibility, a massive loss of support from traditional voter groups, and, consequently, to a loss of political power.

However, the need for social-democratic ideas and policies is still there. The current crisis has shown the need for a regulative role of the state in the market, and the stabilising effect of our social welfare systems. We need a strong European social democracy for a strong and social Europe that can be an example to the world. We have to improve co-operation between the social-democratic parties of Europe, and work together to find answers to the social questions of the twenty-first century. Social democrats have to once more tell a story that people can believe in – a story of hope, opportunity, and a future that can be shaped for the better. Defending the status quo is not enough.

Climate change, the emergence of new global and regional powers, and the future of our energy supply in the face of diminishing resources and rising costs, are only some of the challenges we face. We have to re-think the way we work, and how we organise our economy and society. We have to lead the way into a third industrial revolution, based on renewable energies, sustainable development and social progress.

Social democracy needs to reassert its identity, and to become a marketplace for new and leftist ideas, inspired by the range of political parties on our side of the spectrum, and focusing on looking for ways in which government, society and economy can function under the framework of globalisation, while still adhering to the principles of solidarity, justice and prosperity for all.
We have to overcome narrow national thinking, and grasp the chance that a new and more democratic European Union offers us under the Treaty of Lisbon. We have to renew the vision for Europe. Cultural diversity, social integration, gender equality, economic development and political involvement should be the guiding principles for a Europe united by the will of its people. The citizens of Europe should not merely accept this political union as project of the ruling class of politicians and bureaucrats, but actively participate in it. We want a Europe that lives on the enthusiasm, the ideals and the energy of its people.

If the social-democratic parties of Europe can offer their people a convincing concept for a strong, prosperous and successful Europe that leads the way into a new era of economic growth, environmental consciousness and social advancement, we will be able to once more spearhead the progress of our continent.

Social democrats have lost ground in Europe during the last few years. The SPD fell to a historical low in the Germany federal election last year, French socialists have been in decline since the last presidential elections, and in Britain Labour is in a difficult position. But in reality, there was no noticeable electoral shift away from the left in the 2000s, in comparison with the 1990s. Rather, the left has split up more significantly than before, into a number of left parties: leftists, greens, social liberals and social democrats themselves. The electoral potential for social-democratic politics has not shrunk, but European social democrats remain unable to offer the kinds of credible alternative solutions that would give them the appeal of a capacity to fill the space created by the crisis. For thirty years the dominance of neoliberalism has undermined the norms of the social market economy. The neoliberal order has reduced these norms down to the single concept of the ‘free market’, and the state to its basic functions; it has banned equality and solidarity, the classic values of social democracy. After decades of neoliberal indoctrination, it is inevitable that social democrats are in difficulties.

The gap between high- and low-income groups has been widening since the 1970s. Social democrats should have made an effort to stop this process – to improve the situation of impoverished social groups, work for the social integration of those who have lost out, and transfer a share of the returns of productivity to those on low salaries. Instead, governing social democrats have persisted in their adoption of flexibility and deregulation, and this put further pressure on wages, employment and working conditions in a socio-economic environment n which worker organisations were totally powerless.

The fall of the Berlin Wall had a particular impact on these negative developments. For the creation of the welfare state would not have been possible without the strong support of a broad coalition of political and social groups after the Second World War: strong communist and socialist parties, organised labour, the backup of engaged Marxist intellectuals. Furthermore, the communist block had a limiting effect on the Western free market, preventing it from yielding to some of its worst impulses. After the 1980s, in the absence of these dissuasive factors, neoliberalism could operate at full throttle.

The industrial revolution created new social classes with conflicting interests. Socialism was a response to the increasing pauperism of the majority while a minority enjoyed the advantages of the ‘big change’. But socialism also represented the rejection of an immoral and irrational system. Its basic values of equality and solidarity were born in this context. And it also grew in reaction to the 1929 crash and the subsequent depression. Once again, it was weaker people were hard hit as the unstable market went into crisis. All this opened the way to the emergence of the welfare state after the Second World War.

There is no need to enumerate the similarities of present conditions with those of the time of the birth of the socialism, and the years before and after the Second World War. It may be that the prevailing circumstances will constitute the context for a new historical opportunity. But it would be unrealistic for social democrats to expect a resurgence of the golden era of the post-war period. Since that time many changes have taken place, modifying completely the nature of the challenges that Europe faces. These include the delocalisation and social rupture entailed in technological progress; social fragmentation and the accompanying atomisation of socio-political demands; an ageing population, which has led to an increasing disproportion between workers and non-workers; and massive immigration, which has given rise to a multi-cultural and heterogeneous society, leading to a weakening of social solidarity. Since these structural changes are irreversible, social democracy must shape its future politics in the light of these factors. At this stage, the most important thing is to rethink the role of the state, and ways to regulate the markets.

Social democracy must keep globalisation and its consequences under control through regulation. Progressive politics should not be aimed at easing poverty, but rather at preventing its emergence. Some social democrats think that ‘not worsening’ would be a satisfactory outcome at present. But the left has to correct, to change, to create, to shape, to improve … If nothing noticeable has to be done, the right does it better. Shall we abandon all human activities to a market radicalism? Or shall we create a model that is adapted to our social and ecological needs? That is the crucial historical problem for social democracy today.

I offer here a number of points on the discussion.

Firstly, we need to focus on the future: ‘building the future’ needs to be considered as a main dimension of every part of our work. We need to underline constantly that we intend to build the future, just as we always keep in mind that we set out from human needs and freedoms. This is because society’s existing problems are numerous, and the consequences of people’s negative experiences need to be compensated for. This makes the approaches we adopt for addressing existing problems all the more critical. It requires particular care, sensitivity and foresight. Thus the ‘building’ component of the ‘Building the Good Society’ concept is very pertinent.

Secondly, this is a time for change, and this is our strength. Conservatives usually don’t like to assume the risks that new ideas and their implementation carry. Instead of confronting their tough consequences, they adopt and use the knowledge and experience produced once the risks have diminished, and the validity of the solutions found has been established – that is, when outcomes have emerged that do not require going beyond their profit and market priorities. This is due to their ideological constraint. Yet now is the time for innovative changes and taking such risks. There is a worldwide quest for innovations. If we fail to produce these, there will be a loss of confidence, and conservatism will gain further power.

Thirdly, the need for effective policies and measures against gender discrimination continues – although at varying degrees in different countries. This concern can be a distinguishing feature of social democracy, especially in a country such as Turkey. In Turkey women’s level of participation remains low, especially when considered alongside Turkey’s level of development. Except among academic staff, women are poorly represented in a whole range of areas, from education to the labour force, management and politics. This shows that gender discrimination does not disappear automatically with economic development, and that it is difficult to improve the situation without temporary special measures such as quotas, which conservative parties are usually reluctant to adopt.

Fourth, new instruments and measures are required to respond to the needs that stem from the changes and differentiations that have taken place in relation to labour markets, social aid and social insurance. Expanding flexible working systems – such as short-term contracts, agency work and subcontracting – tend to create large numbers of working poor. Some working systems are becoming identified with particular social groups, for example part-time work with women, home-based work with migrants and women. This has a restrictive effect on social inclusion. To overcome this effect, apart from life-long learning, which strengthens people, there is a need for reforms in labour market rules, social aid and social insurance systems. One of the main reasons for this is that generally, although the effects vary from country to country, existing systems do not provide sufficient protection to the working poor from different social groups.

Fifth, the ‘care economy’ needs to be considered as an area of social development, solidarity and participation. Apart from its labour market aspect, the care economy also constitutes an area of social responsibility that has the potential to enhance confidence into the future. There is a need to adopt an approach in this area that goes beyond the context of women, family responsibilities and enterprises, to regard it as a significant indicator of the level of a state’s social responsibility. The care economy also provides new opportunities for participation at the local level, enabling the further development of our social-democratic values, and causing them to be adopted more extensively in society.

Sixth, our social-democratic parties can enhance their functions, and people’s trust in politics, by becoming platforms for attaining knowledge and facilitating the encounter between different demands. Today there are an enormous number of social movements and demands. For NGOs, creating the right environment for turning single demands into joint ones is a struggle that brings additional difficulties. However, they need to increase their network of relationships in order to share their experiences, including at the local level. And the multi-level nature of existing channels for the development of politics and rights also increases their difficulties. Social-democratic parties can fulfil a significant role here, in terms of overcoming the constraints in this domain, thereby upgrading the function of, and trust in, politics, as well as enhancing the social streams feeding them.