The underlying dilemma of social democracy in the twenty-first century is that neoliberalism has failed while a coherent alternative has yet to be fully developed and embraced by most social democratic parties.
The Golden Age was marked by very strong economic growth and by close to full employment, resulting in steadily rising real wages and the expansion of the fiscal base needed to finance the growing welfare state.
By the inter-war period, social democracy had emerged in Canada as a more or less coherent ideological and political force.
Social democracy was not only about the welfare state and public services and expanding social rights, but also about regulated capitalism, economic democracy, or even transcendence of capitalism as an economic system.
Ethel Tungohan illuminates how the goals and desires of migrant care worker activists go beyond political considerations like policy changes and overturning power structures.
The 2023 Ellen Meiksins Wood Lecture was delivered by economist Armine Yalnizyan—a leading voice on Canada’s economic scene.
Since the mid-2000s, the hegemonic neoliberal order has itself entered crisis, driven above all as a political reaction.
Canadian social democrats, simply put, need to re-embrace the value in challenging private property’s dominance over the state.
What was innovative was the way Layton talked about social democratic ideas as pragmatic solutions to everyday problems that bring hope and optimism to average Canadians.
