debating progressive politics in Europe and beyond
How To produce socially just, sustainable and green dynamic growth for a Good Society. The near meltdown of the world economy in 2008 took most academics and decision-makers by surprise. Much of the early analyses concentrated on the “greed is good” incentive structures and “jenga leverage towers” of casino capitalism. However, the crisis was by [...]
The Good Society Debate, that was launched five years ago by the SPD Secretary General Andrea Nahles and the Head of the Labour Party Policy Review, Jon Cruddas MP, has certainly made a splash in Europe. According to a study by the Institute of Democracy Research of Göttingen University the debate, which has been driven by the [...]
Every time we analyse European social democracy the challenge is both more daunting and more exciting. From the publication of Building the Good Society by Andrea Nahles and Jon Cruddas to Europe & the Good Society: After the Crash by Thorben Albrecht and myself everything has changed. But things have now changed again. Events in Cyprus and the struggles [...]
In 2009 Jon Cruddas and Andrea Nahles published a short pamphlet, Building the Good Society and with the support of Compass and the Friedrich Ebert Foundation it has been debated across Europe. A study by Goettingen University cites this Good Society debate as the most influential current in European Social Democracy. Three years later we [...]
Yong June, the creator and editor-in-chief of Indigo, one of the most ambitious, iconoclastic and lively periodicals dedicated to the critical scrutiny of the present-day realities and in particular to the issue of regaining the lost control over human condition, pressed me to sum up my view of the reasons for which such control has [...]
Thanks very much for inviting me here this evening; not least because it allows me to talk about philosophy, society and socialism. Believe me as a Labour MP this does not happen very often. I have been a MP for ten years. I went with Tony Blair into Downing St in 1997 and spent three [...]
I write as someone who is on the British left – someone who sees the destructive capacity of capitalism before I see its dynamism. Someone who sees the separation of power from politics and politics from power being the over-riding feature of the last 30 years. Someone who believes in the fabulous potential of people [...]
The state occupies a central place in social democratic thinking. It is the vehicle through which policies are delivered. Indeed, it is no coincidence that the growth of the modern state was a forerunner of the social democratic movement. Today, it is impossible to think about social democracy without considering the role of the state. But the relationship is not without [...]
The former General Secretary of the Fabian Society and former adviser to Gordon Brown, Michael Jacobs, dealt with this question in his talk at the “Sustainability in a Good Society” conference that took place in London in December 2011. The conference was organised by the London office of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, Compass and Social Europe Journal. [...]
The economic crisis has meant harsh austerity in a number of EU states. But even those that retain relatively sound macroeconomic fundamentals have engaged in belt-tightening wary of market reactions and rising spreads. The political economy of the EU is displaying worrying signs of decay, as Europe’s socio-economic model is undermined through strategies of fiscal [...]
In crisis times like the one we are living through at the moment, there are typically two aspects that have to be thought through thoroughly. The first is how to stop the progressing rot from the unfolding crisis and the second is how to reconstruct society in a more sustainable fashion so the same crisis [...]
Yet again banks have to be rescued because financial markets have gone wild. And because still no effective rules and regulations have been introduced to make banks pay for the high risks they are taking. It feels like “Groundhog Day”: Everything starts all over again, nobody seems to remember anything. Has anybody learned anything? After [...]
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