Corporate control of public sphere

The agenda has not been based on a long-term political plan, but constructed on the basis of surveys and opinion polls, leaving the door wide open to the articulation of private interests, as may be observed in Italy’s Democratic Party (Partito Democratico, PD); which no longer refers to itself explicitly as social democratic.

While common platforms spring to mind, it is probably possible to go a step further were these alliances to come up with a vision that is not limited to the next election, and a common agenda for research and ongoing activities.

social democracy must also mobilize civil society’s associationist elements, even if the latter are not automatically virtuous or effective. Citizen participation is increasingly manifested through associations proposing objectives that are a matter of collective interest or public interest. Therefore, a social democratic party cannot rely solely on labour unions; it must also embrace associative circles generally.

To be sure, the left is often stifled without its utopias and, as Ricoeur demonstrated in his reflection on the complementarity between ideology and utopia, the latter can provide society with a certain context or perspective.

Negotiation will no longer involve only capital and labour but all citizens and associations concerned about a good life for themselves and for future generations. If a new model for growth is still possible in principle, such a model would now engage in minimizing what is toxic, replacing it instead with goods and services with high quality social content and high quality energy.

This approach is all the more relevant since the crisis of European social democracy is largely the result of the crisis in the political construction of Europe, which includes the difficulty in creating a “social” Europe, a Europe with greater social solidarity. Isolated states may find it increasingly difficult to find solutions to the crisis in social democracy. Once again, we notice certain paradoxes: first, over the last two decades the construction of liberal Europe has been one of the main sources of disappointment in European social democracy; second, a social democracy oriented towards building a more “social” Europe might seem to provide a measure of salvation in a sea of globalization, and this precisely at a time when the social democratic parties in power form only a minority of EU members, and when further development of the EU seems increasingly difficult.

all of its constituent elements must be reviewed, including its social base of activists, members and electors. Its traditional values must be updated and brought into line with new values, including the social compromises and alliances required to this end.

If, as seems to be the case, there is still no economic theory that could play a role comparable to that provided by Keynesian theory beginning in the 1940s, might not social democracy find in the experiments and achievements we have observed not only the rudiments of new economic policy but also a redefining of its main components? Lastly, there are many heterodox economists whose views might be brought to bear on these issues (Stiglitz. Ostrom, Sen Gadrey, etc.).