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The Third Way is a predominantly centrist political position that attempts to reconcile centre-right and centre-left politics by synthesising a combination of economically liberal and social democratic economic policies. [1] [2]
The Third Way is a reconceptualization of social democracy. It supports workfare instead of welfare, work training programs, educational opportunities, and other government programs that give citizens a 'hand-up' instead of a 'hand-out'. The Third Way seeks a compromise between a less interventionist economic system as supported by neoliberals and Keynesian Social democratic spending policy supported by social democrats and progressives.
The Third Way was born from a reevaluation of political policies within various centre to centre-left progressive movements in the 1980s in response to doubt regarding the economic viability of the state and the perceived overuse of economic interventionist policies that had previously been popularised by Keynesianism, but which at that time contrasted with the rise of popularity for neoliberalism and the New Right starting in the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s. [3]
The Third Way has been promoted by social liberal [4] and social-democratic parties. [5] In the United States, a leading proponent of the Third Way was Bill Clinton, who served as the country's president from 1993 to 2001. [6] In the United Kingdom, Third Way social-democratic proponent Tony Blair claimed that the socialism he advocated was different from traditional conceptions of socialism and said: "My kind of socialism is a set of values based around notions of social justice. ... Socialism as a rigid form of economic determinism has ended, and rightly." [7] Blair referred to it as a "social-ism" involving politics that recognised individuals as socially interdependent and advocated social justice, social cohesion, equal worth of each citizen and equal opportunity. [8]
Third Way social-democratic interpreter Anthony Giddens has said that the Third Way rejects the state socialist conception of socialism and instead accepts the conception of socialism as conceived of by Anthony Crosland as an ethical doctrine that views social democratic governments as having achieved a viable ethical socialism by removing the unjust elements of capitalism by providing social welfare and other policies and that contemporary socialism has outgrown the Marxist claim for the need of the abolition of capitalism as a mode of production. [9] In 2009, Blair publicly declared support for a "new capitalism". [10]
Policies supported by self-described Third Way supporters vary by region, political circumstances, and ideological leanings. Third Way advocates generally support public-private partnerships, a commitment to fiscal conservatism, [11] combining equality of opportunity with personal responsibility, improving human and social capital, and protection of the environment. [12] But even in pursuit of these ends, Third Way advocates differ in their policies, owing to conflicting priorities. Anthony Giddens, for example – believing that society should be more inclusive to the elderly – called for abolishing the retirement age so people could exit the workforce whenever they have saved enough; [13] Emmanuel Macron did the exact opposite, raising the retirement age to balance the budget. [14] The Bill Clinton administration, influenced by the works of the controversial political scientist Charles Murray, [15] was less friendly to the welfare state than Tony Blair. [16]
The Third Way has been criticised by other social democrats, as well as anarchists, communists, and in particular democratic socialists as a betrayal of left-wing values, [17] [18] [19] with some analysts characterising the Third Way as an effectively neoliberal movement. [20] It has also been criticised by conservatives, classical liberals, and libertarians who advocate for laissez-faire capitalism. [21] [22]
As a term, the third way has been used to explain a variety of political courses and ideologies in the last few centuries. [23] These ideas were implemented by progressives in the early 20th century. The term was picked up again in the 1950s by German ordoliberal economists such as Wilhelm Röpke, resulting in the development of the concept of the social market economy. Röpke later distanced himself from the term and located the social market economy as first way in the sense of an advancement of the free-market economy. [24]
During the Prague Spring of 1968, reform economist Ota Šik proposed third way economic reform as part of political liberalisation and democratisation within the country. In historical context, such proposals were better described as liberalised centrally-planned economy rather than the socially-sensitive capitalism that Third Way policies tend to have been identified with in the West. In the 1970s and 1980s, Enrico Berlinguer, leader of the Italian Communist Party, came to advocate a vision of a socialist society that was more pluralist than the real socialism which was typically advocated by official communist parties whilst being more economically egalitarian than social democracy. This was part of the wider trend of Eurocommunism in the communist movement and provided a theoretical basis for Berlinguer's pursuit of the Historic Compromise with the Christian Democrats. [25]
Third Way politics is visible in Anthony Giddens' works such as Consequences of Modernity (1990), Modernity and Self-Identity (1991), The Transformation of Intimacy (1992), Beyond Left and Right (1994) and The Third Way: The Renewal of Social Democracy (1998). In Beyond Left and Right, Giddens criticises market socialism and constructs a six-point framework for a reconstituted radical politics that includes the following values: [26]
In The Third Way, Giddens provides the framework within which the Third Way, also termed by Giddens as the radical centre , is justified. In addition, it supplies a broad range of policy proposals aimed at what Giddens calls the "progressive centre-left" in British politics. [27]
Bill Clinton espoused the ideas of the Third Way during his 1992 presidential campaign. [28]
The Third Way has been defined as such:
[S]omething different and distinct from liberal capitalism with its unswerving belief in the merits of the free market and democratic socialism with its demand management and obsession with the state. The Third Way is in favour of growth, entrepreneurship, enterprise and wealth creation but it is also in favour of greater social justice and it sees the state playing a major role in bringing this about. So in the words of ... Anthony Giddens of the LSE the Third Way rejects top down socialism as it rejects traditional neo liberalism. [29] [2]
The Third Way has been advocated by its proponents as a "radical-centrist" alternative to both capitalism and what it regards as the traditional forms of socialism, including Marxian and state socialism. [29] It advocates ethical socialism, reformism and gradualism that includes advocating the humanisation of capitalism, a mixed economy, political pluralism and liberal democracy. [29]
The Third Way has been often hard to holistically summarize, partly due to its flexible nature of putting ends before means, that is prioritizing achieving social justice rather than focusing on the methods by which one achieves social justice. Often cited as the easiest summary of the Third Way is 'rights with responsibilities'—for example, pairing the right to education with the responsibility to put effort towards achieving good grades. On economics specifically, a great deal of emphasize of the Third Way is placed on tax revenue, and the means by which it is generated. The Third Way argues that wealth must be enticed in a globalized economy, and that any capital flight caused by high taxes is counterproductive to generating tax revenue, for future tax revenue will be lost. The Third Way argues that growth is the best way to raise tax revenue, and that growth can be achieved through a free market economy, fiscal discipline and a healthy human capital stock.
The Third Way has been advocated by proponents as competition socialism, an ideology in between traditional socialism and capitalism. [30] Anthony Giddens, a prominent proponent of the Third Way, has publicly endorsed a modernized form of socialism within the social democracy movement. However, he argues that traditional socialist ideology, specifically referring to state socialism involving economic management and planning, is flawed. Giddens asserts that as a theory of the managed economy, it barely exists any longer. [31]
In defining the Third Way, Tony Blair once wrote: "The Third Way stands for a modernised social democracy, passionate in its commitment to social justice". [32]
Under the centre-left Australian Labor Party (ALP) from 1983 to 1996, the Bob Hawke and Paul Keating governments pursued many economic policies associated with economic rationalism such as floating the Australian Dollar in 1983, reductions in trade tariffs, taxation reforms, changing from centralised wage-fixing to enterprise bargaining, restrictions on trade union activities including on strike action and pattern bargaining, the privatisation of government-run services and enterprises such as Qantas and the Commonwealth Bank and wholesale deregulation of the banking system. Keating also proposed a Goods and Services Tax (GST) in 1985, but this was scrapped due to its unpopularity amongst both ALP and electorate. The party also desisted from other reforms such as wholesale labour market deregulation, the eventual GST, the privatisation of Telstra and welfare reform. The Hawke-Keating governments have been considered by some as laying the groundwork for the later development of both the New Democrats in the United States and New Labour in the United Kingdom. [33] [34] One political commentator agreed that it led centre-left parties towards the path to neoliberalism. [35] Meanwhile, others, particularly former Labor MP and current National President Wayne Swan, acknowledge several economically conservative reforms, but at the same time disagreed and focused on the prosperity and social equality that they provided in the "26 years of uninterrupted economic growth since 1991", seeing it as fitting well within "Australian Laborism". [36] [37] Swan also mentioned the fact that the policies and reforms of the Hawke–Keating governments, described as Third Way, predated the idea by a decade or more. [38]
Both Hawke and Keating made some criticism too. [39] [40] In the lead-up to the 2019 federal election, Hawke made a joint statement with Keating endorsing Labor's economic plan and condemned the Liberal Party for "completely [giving] up the economic reform agenda". They stated that "[Bill] Shorten's Labor is the only party of government focused on the need to modernise the economy to deal with the major challenge of our time: human induced climate change". [41]
Various ideological beliefs were factionalised under reforms to the ALP under Gough Whitlam, resulting in what is now known as the Labor Left, who tend to favour a more interventionist economic policy, more authoritative top-down controls and some socially progressive ideals; and Labor Right, the now dominant faction that is pro-business, more economically liberal and in some cases, more socially conservative.
Former Labor Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's first speech to parliament in 1998 stated:
Competitive markets are massive and generally efficient generators of economic wealth. They must therefore have a central place in the management of the economy. But markets sometimes fail, requiring direct government intervention through instruments such as industry policy. There are also areas where the public good dictates that there should be no market at all. We are not afraid of a vision in the Labor Party, but nor are we afraid of doing the hard policy yards necessary to turn that vision into reality. Parties of the Centre Left around the world are wrestling with a similar challenge—the creation of a competitive economy while advancing the overriding imperative of a just society. Some call this the "third way". The nomenclature is unimportant. What is important is that it is a repudiation of Thatcherism and its Australian derivatives represented opposite. It is in fact a new formulation of the nation's economic and social imperatives. [42]
While critical of economists such as Friedrich Hayek, [43] [44] Rudd described himself as "basically a conservative when it comes to questions of public financial management", pointing to his slashing of public service jobs as a Queensland governmental advisor. [45] [46] Rudd's government has been praised and credited "by most economists, both local and international, for helping Australia avoiding a post-global-financial-crisis recession" during the Global Recession. [36]
Examples of Brazilian Third Way politicians include current Vice President Geraldo Alckmin and former president Fernando Henrique Cardoso. Other politicians include Simone Tebet, José Serra, and to a lesser extent Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Ciro Gomes. [47]
Examples of French Third Way politicians include current President Emmanuel Macron, and to a lesser extent François Hollande, Dominique Strauss-Kahn and Manuel Valls. [48]
Former German chancellor Gerhard Schroder (1998–2005) was a proponent of Third Way policies. Throughout his campaign for chancellor, he portrayed himself as a pragmatic new Social Democrat who would promote economic growth while strengthening Germany's generous social welfare system. [49] During Schröder's time in office, economic growth slowed to only 0.2% in 2002 and Gross Domestic Product shrank in 2003, while German unemployment was over the 10% mark. [50] Most voters soon associated Schröder with the Agenda 2010 reform program, which included cuts in the social welfare system (national health insurance, unemployment payments, pensions), lower taxes, and reformed regulations on employment and payment. He also eliminated capital gains tax on the sale of corporate stocks and thereby made the country more attractive to foreign investors. [51]
Incumbent German chancellor Olaf Scholz (2021–present) has not explicitly stated support for Third way policies, but is widely seen as part of the moderate wing of within the SPD. [52] During his tenure as minister of finance in the Fourth Merkel cabinet (2018–2021), Scholz prioritized not taking on new government debt and limiting public spending. [53]
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The Italian Democratic Party is a plural social democratic party including several distinct ideological trends. Politicians such as former Prime Ministers Romano Prodi and Matteo Renzi are proponents of the Third Way. [54] Renzi has occasionally been compared to former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair for his political views. [55] Renzi himself has previously claimed to be a supporter of Blair's ideology of the Third Way, regarding an objective to synthesise liberal economics and left-wing social policies. [56] [57]
Under Renzi's secretariat, the Democratic Party took a strong stance in favour of constitutional reform and of a new electoral law on the road toward a two-party system. It is not an easy task to find the exact political trend represented by Renzi and his supporters, who have been known as Renziani . The nature of Renzi's progressivism is a matter of debate and has been linked both to liberalism and populism. [58] [59] According to Maria Teresa Meli of Corriere della Sera , Renzi "pursues a precise model, borrowed from the Labour Party and Bill Clinton's Democratic Party", comprising "a strange mix (for Italy) of liberal policy in the economic sphere and populism. This means that on one side he will attack the privileges of trade unions, especially of the CGIL, which defends only the already protected, while on the other he will sharply attack the vested powers, bankers, Confindustria and a certain type of capitalism". [60]
After the Democratic Party's defeat in the 2018 general election [61] in which the party gained 18.8% and 19.1% of the vote (down from 25.5% and 27.4% in 2013) and lost 185 deputies and 58 senators, respectively, Renzi resigned as the party's secretary. [62] [63] [64] In March 2019, Nicola Zingaretti, a social democrat and prominent member of the party's left-wing with solid roots in the Italian Communist Party, won the leadership election by a landslide, defeating Maurizio Martina (Renzi's former deputy secretary) and Roberto Giachetti (supported by most Renziani). [65] Zingaretti focused his campaign on a clear contrast with Renzi's policies and his victory opened the way for a new party. [66] [67]
In September 2019, Renzi announced his intention to leave the Democratic Party and create a new parliamentary group. [68] He officially launched Italia Viva [69] to continue the liberal and Third Way tradition [70] [71] [72] within a pro-Europeanism framework, [73] especially as represented by the French President Emmanuel Macron's La République En Marche!. [74] [75]
In 1939, Harold Macmillan wrote a book entitled The Middle Way, advocating a compromise between capitalism and socialism which was a precursor to the contemporary notion of the Third Way. [76]
In 1979, the Labour Party professed a complete adherence to social democratic ideals and rejected the choice between a "prosperous and efficient Britain" and a "caring and compassionate Britain". [77] Coherent with this position, the main commitment of the party was the reduction of economic inequality via the introduction of a wealth tax. [77] This was rejected in the 1997 manifesto, [78] along with many changes in the 1990s like the progressive dismissal of traditional social democratic ideology and the transformation into New Labour, de-emphasising the need to tackle economic inequality and focusing instead on the expansion of opportunities for all whilst fostering social capital. [79]
Former Prime Minister Tony Blair is cited as a Third Way politician. [80] [54] According to a former member of Blair's staff, Blair and the Labour Party learnt from and owes a debt to Bob Hawke's government in Australia in the 1980s on how to govern as a Third Way party. [81] Blair wrote in a Fabian pamphlet in 1994 of the existence of two prominent variants of socialism, namely one based on a Marxist–Leninist economic determinist and collectivist tradition and the other being an ethical socialism based on values of "social justice, the equal worth of each citizen, equality of opportunity, community". [82] [83] Blair is a particular follower of the ideas and writings of Giddens. [54]
In 1998, Blair, then Labour Party Leader and Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, described the Third Way, how it relates to social democracy and its relation with both the Old Left and the New Right, as follows:
The Third Way stands for a modernised social democracy, passionate in its commitment to social justice and the goals of the centre-left. ... But it is a third way because it moves decisively beyond an Old Left preoccupied by state control, high taxation and producer interests; and a New Right treating public investment, and often the very notions of "society" and collective endeavour, as evils to be undone. [31]
In 2002, Anthony Giddens listed problems facing the New Labour government, naming spin as the biggest failure because its damage to the party's image was difficult to rebound from. He also challenged the failure of the Millennium Dome project and Labour's inability to deal with irresponsible businesses. Giddens saw Labour's ability to marginalise the Conservative Party as a success as well its economic policy, welfare reform and certain aspects of education. Giddens criticised what he called Labour's "half-way houses", including the National Health Service and environmental and constitutional reform. [84]
In 2008, Charles Clarke, a former United Kingdom Home Secretary and the first senior Blairite to attack Prime Minister Gordon Brown openly and in print, stated: "We should discard the techniques of 'triangulation' and 'dividing lines' with the Conservatives, which lead to the not entirely unjustified charge that we simply follow proposals from the Conservatives or the right-wing media, to minimise differences and remove lines of attack against us". [85]
Brown was succeeded by Ed Miliband's One Nation Labour in 2010 and self-described democratic socialist Jeremy Corbyn in 2015 as the Leader of the Labour Party. [86] This led some to comment that New Labour is "dead and buried". [87] [88] [89] Keir Starmer, now the Prime Minister, succeeded Corbyn in 2020, and has since reverted on his initial more left-wing pledges, in favour policies more associated with New Labour.
The Third Way as practised under New Labour has been criticised as being effectively a new, centre-right [90] and neoliberal party. [91] Some such as Glen O'Hara have argued that while containing "elements that we could term neoliberal", New Labour was more left-leaning than it is given credit for. [92]
In the United States, Third Way adherents historically embraced fiscal conservatism to a greater extent than traditional economic liberals, advocated for some replacement of welfare with workfare, and sometimes held a stronger preference for market solutions to traditional problems (as in pollution markets) while rejecting pure laissez-faire economics and other libertarian positions. The Third Way style of governing was firmly adopted and partly redefined during the administration of President Bill Clinton. [93]
As a term, it was introduced by political scientist Stephen Skowronek. [94] [95] [96] Third Way presidents "undermine the opposition by borrowing policies from it in an effort to seize the middle and with it to achieve political dominance". Examples of this are Richard Nixon's economic policies, which were a continuation of Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society, as well as Clinton's welfare reform later. [97]
Along with Blair, Prodi, Gerhard Schröder and other leading Third Way adherents, Clinton organised conferences to promote the Third Way philosophy in 1997 at Chequers in England. [98] [99] The Third Way think tank and the Democratic Leadership Council are adherents of Third Way politics. [100]
In 2013, American lawyer and former bank regulator William K. Black criticized then-extant Third Way movements: "Third Way is this group that pretends sometimes to be centre-left but is actually completely a creation of Wall Street—it's run by Wall Street for Wall Street with this false flag operation as if it were a center-left group. It's nothing of the sort". [17] [18] [19]
Other leaders who have adopted elements of the Third Way style of governance include:
By the 2010s, social democratic parties that accepted Third Way politics such as triangulation and the neoliberal [33] [34] shift in policies such as austerity, deregulation, free trade, privatisation and welfare reforms such as workfare experienced a drastic decline [144] as the Third Way had largely fallen out of favour in a phenomenon known as Pasokification. [145] Scholars have linked the decline of social democratic parties to the declining number of industrial workers, greater economic prosperity of voters and a tendency for these parties to shift closer to the centre-right on economic issues, alienating their former base of supporters and voters. This decline has been matched by increased support for more left-wing and populist parties as well as Left and Green social-democratic parties that rejected neoliberal and Third Way policies. [146]
Democratic socialism has emerged in opposition to Third Way social democracy [5] on the basis that democratic socialists are committed to systemic transformation of the economy from capitalism to socialism whereas social-democratic supporters of the Third Way were more concerned about challenging the New Right and win social democracy back to power. This has resulted in analysts and critics alike arguing that in effect it endorsed capitalism, even if it was due to recognising that outspoken opposition to capitalism in these circumstances was politically nonviable; and that it was anti-social democratic in practice. [20] Others saw it as theoretically fitting with modern socialism, especially liberal socialism, distinguishing it from both classical socialism and traditional democratic socialism or social democracy. [147]
Third Way economic policies began to be challenged following the Great Recession, and the rise of right-wing populism has put the ideology into question. [145] Many on the left have become more vocal in opposition to the Third Way, with the most prominent example in the United Kingdom being the rise of self-identified democratic socialist former Labour Party Leader Jeremy Corbyn as well as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders in the United States. [148] [149] [150]
The Third Way has been criticized as being a vague ideology with no specific commitments:
The Third Way is no more than a crude attempt to construct a bogus coalition between the haves and the haves not: Bogus because it entices the haves by assuring them that the economy will be sound and their interests would not be threatened, while promising the have-nots a world free from poverty and injustice. Based on opportunism, it has no ideological commitment at all. [29]
After the dismantling of his country's Marxist–Leninist government, Czechoslovakia's conservative finance minister Václav Klaus declared in 1990: "We want a market economy without any adjectives. Any compromises with that will only fuzzy up the problems we have. To pursue a so-called 'third way' [between central planning and the market economy] is foolish. We had our experience with this in the 1960s when we looked for a socialism with a human face. It did not work, and we must be explicit that we are not aiming for a more efficient version of a system that has failed. The market is indivisible; it cannot be an instrument in the hands of central planners". [151]
Left-wing opponents of the Third Way argue that it represents social democrats who responded to the New Right by accepting capitalism. The Third Way most commonly uses market mechanics and private ownership of the means of production and in that sense it is fundamentally capitalist. [152] In addition to opponents who have noticed this, other reviews have claimed that Third Way social democrats adjusted to the political climate since the 1980s that favoured capitalism by recognising that outspoken opposition to capitalism in these circumstances was politically nonviable and that accepting capitalism as the current status quo and seeking to administer it to challenge laissez-faire liberals was a more pressing immediate concern. [153] With the rise of neoliberalism in the late 1970s and early 1980s and the Third Way between the 1990s and 2000s, social democracy became synonymous with it. [5] [154] As a result, the section of social democracy that remained committed to the gradual abolition of capitalism and opposed the Third Way merged into democratic socialism. [155] [156] Many social democrats opposed to the Third Way overlap with democratic socialists in their committiment to an alternative to capitalism and a post-capitalist economy and have not only criticised the Third Way as anti-socialist [91] and neoliberal, [20] but also as anti-social-democratic in practice. [91]
Democratic and market socialists argue that the major reason for the economic shortcomings of command economies was their authoritarian nature rather than socialism itself, that it was a failure of a specific model and that therefore socialists should support democratic models rather than abandon it. Economists Pranab Bardhan and John Roemer argue that Soviet-type economies and Marxist–Leninist states failed because they did not create rules and operational criteria for the efficient operation of state enterprises in their administrative, command allocation of resources and commodities and the lack of democracy in the political systems that the Soviet-type economies were combined with. According to them, a form of competitive socialism that rejects dictatorship and authoritarian allocation in favor of democracy could work and prove superior to the market economy. [157]
Although close to New Labour and a key figure in the development of the Third Way, sociologist Anthony Giddens dissociated himself from many of the interpretations of the Third Way made in the sphere of day-to-day politics. [84] For him, it was not a succumbing to neoliberalism or the dominance of capitalist markets. [158] The point was to get beyond both market fundamentalism and top-down socialism—to make the values of the centre-left count in a globalising world. He argued that "the regulation of financial markets is the single most pressing issue in the world economy" and that "global commitment to free trade depends upon effective regulation rather than dispenses with the need for it". [159]
Libertarian socialism is an anti-authoritarian and anti-capitalist political current that emphasises self-governance and workers' self-management. It is contrasted from other forms of socialism by its rejection of state ownership and from other forms of libertarianism by its rejection of private property. Broadly defined, it includes schools of both anarchism and Marxism, as well as other tendencies that oppose the state and capitalism.
Left-wing politics describes the range of political ideologies that support and seek to achieve social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy as a whole or certain social hierarchies. Left-wing politics typically involve a concern for those in society whom its adherents perceive as disadvantaged relative to others as well as a belief that there are unjustified inequalities that need to be reduced or abolished through radical means that change the nature of the society they are implemented in. According to emeritus professor of economics Barry Clark, supporters of left-wing politics "claim that human development flourishes when individuals engage in cooperative, mutually respectful relations that can thrive only when excessive differences in status, power, and wealth are eliminated."
Socialism is an economic and political philosophy encompassing diverse economic and social systems characterised by social ownership of the means of production, as opposed to private ownership. It describes the economic, political, and social theories and movements associated with the implementation of such systems. Social ownership can take various forms, including public, community, collective, cooperative, or employee. As one of the main ideologies on the political spectrum, socialism is considered as the standard left-wing ideology in most countries. Types of socialism vary based on the role of markets and planning in resource allocation, and the structure of management in organizations.
The Swedish Social Democratic Party, formally the SwedishSocial Democratic Workers' Party, usually referred to as The Social Democrats, is a social democratic political party in Sweden. The party is member of the Progressive Alliance and the Party of European Socialists.
New Labour is the political philosophy that dominated the history of the British Labour Party from the mid-late 1990s to 2010 under the leadership of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. The term originated in a conference slogan first used by the party in 1994, later seen in a draft manifesto which was published in 1996 and titled New Labour, New Life for Britain. It was presented as the brand of a newly reformed party that had altered the old Clause IV and instead endorsed market economics. The branding was extensively used while the party was in government between 1997 and 2010. New Labour was influenced by the political thinking of Anthony Crosland and the leadership of Blair and Brown as well as Peter Mandelson and Alastair Campbell's media campaigning. The political philosophy of New Labour was influenced by the party's development of Anthony Giddens' Third Way which attempted to provide a synthesis between capitalism and socialism. The party emphasised the importance of social justice, rather than equality, emphasising the need for equal opportunity and believed in the use of markets to deliver economic efficiency and social justice.
The Nordic model comprises the economic and social policies as well as typical cultural practices common in the Nordic countries. This includes a comprehensive welfare state and multi-level collective bargaining based on the economic foundations of social corporatism, and a commitment to private ownership within a market-based mixed economy – with Norway being a partial exception due to a large number of state-owned enterprises and state ownership in publicly listed firms.
Socialism of the 21st century is an interpretation of socialist principles first advocated by German sociologist and political analyst Heinz Dieterich and taken up by a number of Latin American leaders. Dieterich argued in 1996 that both free-market industrial capitalism and 20th-century socialism have failed to solve urgent problems of humanity such as poverty, hunger, exploitation of labour, economic oppression, sexism, racism, the destruction of natural resources and the absence of true democracy. Socialism of the 21st century has democratic socialist elements, but it also resembles Marxist revisionism.
Social democracy is a social, economic, and political philosophy within socialism that supports political and economic democracy and a gradualist, reformist and democratic approach toward achieving limited socialism. In modern practice, social democracy has taken the form of predominantly capitalist economies, with the state regulating the economy in the form of welfare capitalism, economic interventionism, partial public ownership, a robust welfare state, policies promoting social equality, and a more equitable distribution of income.
Li Minqi is a Chinese political economist, world-systems analyst, and historical social scientist, currently professor of economics at the University of Utah. Li is known as an advocate of the Chinese New Left and as a Marxian economist.
Progressivism is a left-leaning political philosophy and reform movement that seeks to advance the human condition through social reform – primarily based on purported advancements in social organization, science, and technology. Adherents hold that progressivism has universal application and endeavor to spread this idea to human societies everywhere. Progressivism arose during the Age of Enlightenment out of the belief that civility in Europe was improving due to the application of new empirical knowledge.
One Nation Labour refers to the theme and branding of the British Labour Party adopted by the party in 2012 under the leadership of Ed Miliband. Miliband described the "One Nation" term as being related to British Conservative Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli's idea of One Nation conservatism. Disraeli claimed a need for government to reduce economic inequality, which he believed was splitting Britain into two nations of rich and poor people. Miliband stated that the theme of One Nation was shared by Labour Prime Minister Clement Attlee. Miliband has declared inspiration from Disraeli's and Attlee's One Nation theme, in that it challenges social barriers of class and promotes the unity of Britain.
Democratic socialism is a left-wing economic and political philosophy that supports political democracy and some form of a socially owned economy, with a particular emphasis on economic democracy, workplace democracy, and workers' self-management within a market socialist, decentralised planned, or democratic centrally planned socialist economy. Democratic socialists argue that capitalism is inherently incompatible with the values of freedom, equality, and solidarity and that these ideals can only be achieved through the realisation of a socialist society. Although most democratic socialists seek a gradual transition to socialism, democratic socialism can support revolutionary or reformist politics to establish socialism. Democratic socialism was popularised by socialists who opposed the backsliding towards a one-party state in the Soviet Union and other countries during the 20th century.
State socialism is a political and economic ideology within the socialist movement that advocates state ownership of the means of production. This is intended either as a temporary measure, or as a characteristic of socialism in the transition from the capitalist to the socialist mode of production or to a communist society. State socialism was first theorised by Ferdinand Lassalle. It advocates a planned economy controlled by the state in which all industries and natural resources are state-owned.
Centre-left politics is the range of left-wing political ideologies that lean closer to the political centre and broadly conform with progressivism. Ideologies of the centre-left include social democracy, social liberalism, and green politics. Ideas commonly supported by the centre-left include welfare capitalism, social justice, liberal internationalism, and multiculturalism. Economically, the centre-left supports a mixed economy in a democratic capitalist system, often including economic interventionism, progressive taxation, and the right to unionize. Centre-left politics are contrasted with far-left politics that reject capitalism or advocate revolution.
Liberal socialism is a political philosophy that incorporates liberal principles to socialism. This synthesis sees liberalism as the political theory that takes the inner freedom of the human spirit as a given and adopts liberty as the goal, means and rule of shared human life. Socialism is seen as the method to realize this recognition of liberty through political and economic autonomy and emancipation from the grip of pressing material necessity. Liberal socialism opposes abolishing certain components of capitalism and supports something approximating a mixed economy that includes both social ownership and private property in capital goods.
Ethical socialism is a political philosophy that appeals to socialism on ethical and moral grounds as opposed to consumeristic, economic, and egoistic grounds. It emphasizes the need for a morally conscious economy based upon the principles of altruism, cooperation, and social justice while opposing possessive individualism.
Reformism is a political tendency advocating the reform of an existing system or institution – often a political or religious establishment – as opposed to its abolition and replacement via revolution.
A socialist state, socialist republic, or socialist country, sometimes referred to as a workers' state or workers' republic, is a sovereign state constitutionally dedicated to the establishment of socialism. The term communist state is often used synonymously in the West, specifically when referring to one-party socialist states governed by Marxist–Leninist communist parties, despite these countries being officially socialist states in the process of building socialism and progressing toward a communist society. These countries never describe themselves as communist nor as having implemented a communist society. Additionally, a number of countries that are multi-party capitalist states make references to socialism in their constitutions, in most cases alluding to the building of a socialist society, naming socialism, claiming to be a socialist state, or including the term people's republic or socialist republic in their country's full name, although this does not necessarily reflect the structure and development paths of these countries' political and economic systems. Currently, these countries include Algeria, Bangladesh, Guyana, India, Nepal, Nicaragua, Sri Lanka and Tanzania.
Democratic socialism represents the modernist development of socialism and its outspoken support for democracy. The origins of democratic socialism can be traced back to 19th-century utopian socialist thinkers and the Chartist movement in Great Britain, which somewhat differed in their goals but shared a common demand of democratic decision making and public ownership of the means of production, and viewed these as fundamental characteristics of the society they advocated for. Democratic socialism was also heavily influenced by the gradualist form of socialism promoted by the British Fabian Society and Eduard Bernstein's evolutionary socialism.
Social democracy originated as an ideology within the labour movement whose goals have been a social revolution to promote socialism within democratic processes. In a nonviolent revolution as in the case of evolutionary socialism, or the establishment and support of a welfare state. Its origins lie in the 1860s as a revolutionary socialism associated with orthodox Marxism. Starting in the 1890s, there was a dispute between committed revolutionary social democrats such as Rosa Luxemburg and reformist social democrats. The latter sided with Marxist revisionists such as Eduard Bernstein, who supported a more gradual approach grounded in liberal democracy and cross-class cooperation. Karl Kautsky represented a centrist position. By the 1920s, social democracy became the dominant political tendency, along with communism, within the international socialist movement, representing a form of democratic socialism with the aim of achieving socialism peacefully. By the 1910s, social democracy had spread worldwide and transitioned towards advocating an evolutionary change from capitalism to socialism using established political processes such as the parliament. In the late 1910s, socialist parties committed to revolutionary socialism renamed themselves as communist parties, causing a split in the socialist movement between these supporting the October Revolution and those opposing it. Social democrats who were opposed to the Bolsheviks later renamed themselves as democratic socialists in order to highlight their differences from communists and later in the 1920s from Marxist–Leninists, disagreeing with the latter on topics such as their opposition to liberal democracy whilst sharing common ideological roots.
The Hawke-Keating economic reforms should be more appropriately described as Australian Laborism, and nothing like the Third Way ideology embraced by some US Democrats and some in British Labour. We were first. And we did it our way, the Australian Labor way. We led the way, forcing the conservatives into policy retreat and to fight the battles on our turf.
The Left's failure is, therefore, not so much that neoliberalism has failed, but that when it did there existed no alternative that could challenge its dominance. Keating, even now, proposes no solutions; he offers, simply, a critique.
Some even go so far as to say New Labour is a betrayal of everything the party's founders stood for and that, to all intents and purposes, is a different party merely using the same name. They often claim it represents Margaret Thatcher's greatest victory in wiping socialism off the British political map. Under New Labour, the demand for "the common ownership of the means of production" has been dumped and the free market warmly embraced. Trade unions, who helped found the party, are now held at arms length. ... Instead, New Labour looks determined to remain firmly in the centre of British politics - even though the centre moved decidedly to the right during the Thatcher years.
A great deal of what Tony Blair did in power was not neoliberal at all, or had neoliberal elements but was aimed in a quite different direction, or was better thought of as social democratic or even socialist. ... The creation of a national minimum wage and a tax credits system benefitting the low paid halted the remorseless march of inequality that had so scarred Britain in the 1980s. ... No government that rebuilt the public sphere, radically improved the state healthcare system, improved maintained schools and took on homelessness can possibly be painted only in those terms.
Obama resembles such Presidents as Nixon and Clinton in the following respect. They are what the political scientist Stephen Skowronek calls practitioners of "third way" politics (Tony Blair was another), who undermine the opposition by borrowing policies from it in an effort to seize the middle and with it to achieve political dominance. Think of Nixon's economic policies, which were a continuation of Johnson's "Great Society"; Clinton's welfare reform and support of capital punishment; and Obama's pragmatic centrism, reflected in his embrace, albeit very recent, of entitlements reform.
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: CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of November 2024 (link)The stories and reality increased the pressure on the government to make investments to relieve poverty, but Barak was self-consciously committed to 'Third Way' economic policies of lower spending, inflation, and interest rates that produced such growth in the United States and Britain.
In a joint Guardian and Financial Times interview, Mr Blair said he believed some of Mr Sanders' and Mr Corbyn's success was due to the "loss of faith in that strong, centrist progressive position", which defined his own career. He said: "One of the strangest things about politics at the moment – and I really mean it when I say I'm not sure I fully understand politics right now, which is an odd thing to say, having spent my life in it – is when you put the question of electability as a factor in your decision to nominate a leader, it's how small the numbers are that this is the decisive factor. That sounds curious to me."
Socialism is stubborn. After decades of dormancy verging on death, it is rising again in the west. In the UK, Jeremy Corbyn just led the Labour party to its largest increase in vote share since 1945 on the strength of its most radical manifesto in decades. In France, the leftist Jean-Luc Melenchon recently came within two percentage points of breaking into the second round of the presidential election. And in the US, the country's most famous socialist – Bernie Sanders – is now its most popular politician. ... For the resurgent left, an essential spark is social media. In fact, it's one of the most crucial and least understood catalysts of contemporary socialism. Since the networked uprisings of 2011 – the year of the Arab spring, Occupy Wall Street and the Spanish indignados – we've seen how social media can rapidly bring masses of people into the streets. But social media isn't just a tool for mobilizing people. It's also a tool for politicizing them.
Democratic socialism is the wing of the socialist movement that combines a belief in a socially owned economy with that of political democracy.
Some have endorsed the concept of market socialism, a post-capitalist economy that retains market competition but socialises the means of production, and in some versions, extends democracy to the workplace. Some holdout for a non-market, participatory economy. All democratic socialists agree on the need for a democratic alternative to capitalism.