Since its beginnings during the revolutions of 1848, social democracy has been a political project defined by its transformative nature. From the progress achieved throughout the 20th century by leaders such as Harold Wilson, Willy Brandt, Mário Soares and François Mitterrand, social democrats have always been characterised by a continuous attitude of challenge towards the prevailing state of affairs, whenever that “current time” happened to be. That critical attitude towards the structure of society and its institutions not only led to a transformation of society—through achievements such as the creation of the welfare state—but also enabled social democrats to change the way their core policies were implemented, ensuring they always reflected contemporary necessities and continued to benefit ordinary people.
For some years, however, that transformative edge—which has always defined the social democratic way of doing politics—has been eroding. With the rise of right-wing populism and its inherent threat to democracy, the centre-left was forced onto the defensive. Although acutely aware of widespread unhappiness with the current state of things and of the urgent need for change across various aspects of society, when confronted with the possibility of something far worse gaining power, social democrats found themselves in a position where they had to defend a flawed status quo, with all its faults, rather than offering the bold change people demanded.
As a result, social democrats have, in recent times, adopted a conservative attitude towards politics. Not conservative in their policies, but conservative in their posture—characterised no longer by their traditional emphasis on the gradual transformation of society, but by a defensive desire to preserve what they have already achieved, notwithstanding the need for those achievements to be updated according to current needs. Owing to this conservative way of doing politics, social democrats—who were once perceived as the side of progress and reform towards a fairer society within democracy—came instead to be perceived as supporters of a system most people find unjust. This perception shift has had visible and painful electoral consequences for the centre-left.
Social democracy has never been a conservative force. Its way of doing politics, of acting upon public affairs, rests on the principle of reformism. That is to say, it rests on the conviction that, through gradual and constant reform of existing institutions, one can make them fairer and, in turn, make society fairer, freer and more equal. Social democrats must therefore reject this conservative attitude that has plagued them in recent years and re-embrace the approach that made their movement a positive, progressive and transformative political force. In short, they need to re-embrace radical reformism.
What radical reformism actually demands
But what is radical reformism? How does it translate into a coherent project? When we talk about radical reformism, we are talking about a principle of action. That is to say, we are talking about an attitude towards politics—about the way that social democratic politics should be conducted.
It is not only about rejecting the blind defence of existing institutions, but also about maintaining a critical view towards them. It is about recognising and defending their core elements while simultaneously being willing to rethink how those same policies and institutions should be implemented and put into practice. As such, radical reformism means, firstly, taking social democratic reformism beyond the negative aspects of liberalism and aiming it at social democracy itself and its own policies. It means having the courage and willingness to change and reshape the institutions and organisations that we support, and the humility to listen to those who are dissatisfied and feel that they have been failed.
Consider the welfare state as an example. While it is true that reforms achieved by the centre-left in this area—such as the creation of National Insurance or the National Health Service—have improved people’s lives at an unprecedented pace, it is equally true that there is a widespread feeling that the public services making up the welfare state are not fulfilling their universalist purpose. As reality changes and new problems and needs arise, the social democratic response cannot be to blindly defend public services as they currently exist, from a high horse. Instead, it should be to acknowledge that, while their underlying principles remain correct, their current organisation and funding are not fit to address people’s needs—and so they must be reformed and adapted. In this case, such change means both abandoning the top-down, bureaucratic and centralised structure of public services—reorganising them so they operate at a community level, closer to their users and more responsive to their needs—and restructuring the way professionals are remunerated, with their salaries increased according to the number of monthly performance goals achieved.
But what about the “radical” part of radical reformism? What does it mean? Does it mean adopting a more populist rhetoric and posture? Far from it. Although the term “radical” might suggest an extremist position, radical reformism is far from being a revolutionary attitude. Instead, drawing from that aforementioned humility, it seeks to convey that there is a sense of urgency for this broadened reformism—that the necessary changes must be made as quickly as possible and that they must be implemented in a way that ensures their effects are felt as soon as possible. While at first this might understandably raise some alarms, that radicalism seeks only to reinforce social democracy’s transformative nature and its capacity to improve people’s lives.
This radicalism, however, cannot only be demonstrated through policy measures. Most importantly, it must be shown in communication—by telling a story of the society the project seeks to build, by demonstrating both a will to change and a clear vision of what that change entails. Along with having transformative ambitions and policies to match, social democrats must develop a discourse that is energetic and emphasises that their project is not simply to manage society, but to reform it through existing institutions. As a political project whose mandate is given by the people, its way of communicating must always reflect the mood of the electorate. At a time when there is a widespread craving for fast-paced, energetic change, social democratic discourse cannot be one of “business as usual”—it must be a language of movement, framed by a clear vision of the core elements of the transformation being offered.
To many who remain attached to that conservative attitude and technocratic approach to politics, adopting this posture towards our speech and public presentation risks crossing into populist terrain, making social democrats look irresponsible and losing the centrist electorate. However, that perspective is mistaken. We need only look at the world around us to see that the general populace is craving change. While the centre-left has always represented positive change—especially after abandoning the Third Way—our discourse and pace of action must also reflect that identity. The results of failing to embody the force for change are there for all to see: that role will inevitably be filled by those who present themselves as agents of change, yet only offer us the worst possible version of the present.
From principle to transformative practice
Now that we know what radical reformism means, it begs the question: how does that change social democracy? That is what I will now attempt to answer. As an attitude that regards having a critical outlook towards its own achievements as a positive thing—always seeking to make them better prepared to fulfil their mission—it will certainly have an impact on what progressive proposals should look like. However, as I have said before, unlike Anthony Giddens’ Third Way or Trotskyist entryism, this attitude is firmly democratic socialist. It does not seek to change social democracy’s fundamentals, but instead to adapt them to current needs, both in implementation and in style.
The changes I have proposed above to public services—such as reorganising them in a way that brings them closer to communities and changing how their workers are paid so that salaries are indexed to the fulfilment of performance goals—are examples of radical reformism’s effect on social democratic proposals. While keeping the principles and core elements of public services intact, namely their state-provided, need-based and universalist nature, this approach manages to look critically towards their current deficiencies and change them, both in their organisation and in their funding allocation, so they better reflect contemporary needs. Instead of remaining on the defensive, seeking only to preserve what exists despite people’s mounting frustrations, it seeks to present a fairer model, reflecting the ever-transformative and ever-critical nature of radical reformism.
There are, however, many more ways in which this attitude manifests itself. One of them, which is completely inescapable, concerns our approach towards the economy. Although, since rejecting the Third Way, social democrats throughout Europe have stayed true to their views on the market—supporting stronger labour rights and regulation, and greater public investment as means towards economic growth—we have neglected many of the instruments that can deliver fair economic growth within this framework. Ideas such as a genuine industrial policy, made real through a National Wealth Fund that allows the state to strategically support high-value-added industries, deserve serious consideration. So too do development partnerships between the state and local authorities, where the latter tells the former how it wants to invest the resources available to it—so that communities which have seen their vitality fade, whether because of globalisation or because their young people emigrated abroad or to larger urban centres, can regain their economic and social dynamism.
Another area where radical reformism must make itself felt is the cost of living. Here, admittedly, the centre-left has always had greater difficulty dealing with this phenomenon than with others, such as economic depressions. Traditionally, its answer to inflation has been the “social welfare” approach, championed by leaders such as Harold Wilson and Shimon Peres. This consisted of a tripartite agreement according to which salaries would not be raised above inflation—thereby mitigating but not eliminating its effects—while the government provided greater support, mainly through subsidies and continued investment in public services, and intervened in the market both by limiting price increases on essential goods and through windfall taxes on excess profits. While this remains a desirable policy, and one certainly less harmful than those offered by the centre-right and far-right, it shares a weakness with our broader approach to the economy: it ignores other solutions that fit within the social democratic framework and are necessary for the long-term prevention of these phenomena.
Solutions such as using the revenue from windfall taxes to establish a consumer co-operative fund—to be accessed by local authorities and with membership tied to residency—represent one such neglected option. In countries where public energy providers have been privatised, the creation of a new public energy company, avoiding the enormous cost of full renationalisation, offers another path forward. These ideas fit squarely within the social democratic worldview, yet they have been overlooked by social democrats who have become too cautious, too wedded to familiar policy instruments.
In all of these areas, as with the welfare state reforms mentioned earlier, the core commitments of social democracy—the existence of a strongly regulated market economy, a publicly provided universal welfare state, and a progressive taxation system—are kept intact, and rightly so. Yet the way these commitments are translated into reality is different: bolder, more imaginative, and revealing of an ability to think critically about social democracy’s own achievements and adapt them to present circumstances.
In short, that is the radical reformist attitude that democratic socialists, social democrats, labourists and progressives should adopt. It means taking up the reformist essence of their ideology and applying it to that ideology itself—to its achievements and conquests—while doing so with a sense of urgency and rapid transformation that current times demand. It is about ceasing to be defensive and finally going on the attack.
By doing that, and by rejecting the conservative attitude that has held the centre-left back, there may yet be hope for a fairer future.
Miguel Xavier is a Bachelor of Law student at the Faculty of Law of the University of Lisbon and a member of the JS (Portugal) National Political Commission.
