Good Society Debate
A MoveOn.org for Europe?
Whilst a lot of hyperbole is spoken with regards to online campaigning we shouldn’t underestimate its importance. Online campaigning is useful because it can facilitate a more bottom up and consultative process than traditional campaigning. It can also join geographically distant groups relatively cheaply. For that reason a well organised online campaign movement for the [...]
Towards a Co-operative Europe
Human flourishing requires conditions of relative equality. Progressives have always realised this and have traditionally looked to the state to deliver. This has led to many successes, particularly in the 1945-75 period when robust profitability (rooted in the re-stocking of manufacturing capacity destroyed in World War II) and the communist threat obtained many social concessions [...]
Markets, Sustainability and the End of Politics
Within a capitalist economy there is always a settlement between the interests of capital and the interests of labour. As Shelley reminded English workers nearly 200 years ago in his poem ‘The Mask of Anarchy’, the greatest power always rests in the hands of labour since ‘Ye are many – they are few’. Under a [...]
Angles, Saxons, Inequality, and Educational Mobility in England and Germany
Good politics has always seen well-funded, public provision of education as a vital pathway to delivering the Good Society. This article draws on recent evidence from Germany and the UK to show that even in more equal societies, such as Germany, attention still needs to be paid by progressive politicians to education – in particular, [...]
Reforming the Common Fisheries Policy
The laudable theory behind Europe’s Common Fisheries Policy was to manage a shared natural resource for the benefit of all, but in application the policy has proven an unmitigated disaster. Under the EU’s own figures, around ninety per cent of European fish stocks are outside of safe biological limits and only a negligible proportion of [...]
Social Democracy has the Potential to produce effective Policies for Sustainability
The prevailing patterns of production, consumption and economic activity in general have given rise to serious sustainability problems in several areas. These accelerated further in the last decades as the world economy grew considerably bigger. Overwhelming scientific evidence shows that unless drastic action is taken, global warming will lead to catastrophic consequences throughout the earth. [...]
Sustainable Europe?
I am glad this week’s theme is called ‘sustainability’ and not ‘the environment’. The ‘environment’ always sounds like something you look at out of the window, or visit at the weekend. However what is on the agenda now is much more than that, it is about whether we can sustain the capacity of the planet [...]
Democratic Politics beyond the Third Way
Social democrats have a strong claim on democracy, and for good reason. First, their opposition to Soviet-style communism and their commitment to parliamentary democracy marked the beginning of their journey towards power. Second, as soon as the alliance with the liberals fulfilled the goal of equality in political representation for the working class, they set [...]
Rebuilding Democracy
Increasing social disintegration, the domination of private economic interests and the erosion of democratic politics show the necessity for a profound democratic renewal of European societies. Democratisation refers not only to the political sphere, but involves all sectors of society, the economy as well as the production of knowledge. In the following I will focus [...]
Europe at the Crossroads: It’s Now or Never!
The European Union is one of the grandest projects in human history – the creation of a new economic, and eventually social, super-state out of the ashes of post-war despair. The founders had a cunning plan: They would create an economic imperative around the production of essentials such as coal and steel, convinced that a [...]
Social Democracy and Happiness
Many have argued that the current crisis of social democracy is due to the lack of a vision – so where can one look for inspiration? A new academic discipline has emerged over the last years at the intersection of economics, psychology, political science and sociology: the science of happiness. Responding to criticism of Gross [...]
A Deafening Silence
Social democracy has nothing distinctive to say about many of the problems we currently face. 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 [...]
