The Global Financial Crisis was supposed to herald the end of neoliberalism yet social democracy seems to have entered a crisis deeper than that of the 1970s and 80s. Parties and coalitions of the centre-left have struggled against a confident laissez-faire right and resurgent nationalism. A crisis of financial capital became a crisis of public finance, leading to austerity and attacks on the remnants of the social democratic consensus. Many have claimed that social democracy is facing a crisis of irrelevance or extinction, its standing eroded by individualism and globalisation.
But is there actually a crisis of social democracy? The electoral decline of historic centre-left parties is contrasted by many of the issues championed by social democrats such as inequality, unemployment and insecurity being at the forefront of public debate, and the other rising parties on the left and populist right are campaigning on what some see as a traditional social democratic agenda. Rather than a crisis of social democracy, is it really a crisis of the traditional political establishment?
Join us and a great panel of speakers as we discuss the current state of social democracy, whether there is a crisis and what the future holds.
Mark Bahnisch, sociologist and author of “Queensland: Everything you ever wanted to know, but were afraid to ask”
Eva Cox, academic and social commentator
David Hetherington, Executive Director, Per Capita
Is social democracy actually in crisis?
Wednesday - 29 July, 2015 - 06:00 PM
Level 7, CPSU House - Haymarket, Australia
