The Economist UK - 30.11.2019

80 The EconomistNovember 30th 2019

1

T

he fallof the Berlin Wall in 1989 sup-

posedly consigned socialism to history.

Now, after a decade of slow growth in living

standards, and amid widespread belief that

inequality is soaring, the radical left is

back. “Millennial socialists”, as The Econo-

mist described them earlier this year, are

fizzing with ideas. They soon hope to put

them into practice—whether under Presi-

dent Bernie Sanders or Prime Minister Je-

remy Corbyn, whose Labour Party aims to

triumph in Britain’s general election on De-

cember 12th. A wave of new books shows

what millennial socialists really want, and

how they plan to get it.

Socialists from Karl Marx onwards have

deployed both ethical and empirical argu-

ments to buttress their system. In “The So-

cialist Manifesto” Bhaskar Sunkara ofJaco-

bin, a radical magazine, proceeds from first

principles, maintaining that “to be a social-

ist is to assert the moral worth of every per-

son, no matter who they are, where they’re

from, or what they did”. By contrast, in “The

99 Percent Economy” Paul Adler of the Uni-

versity of Southern California sprays sta-

tistics to prove that modern capitalism is

broken and socialism is the fix.

Many readers will find both approaches

unconvincing. A dyed-in-the-wool liber-

tarian might use Mr Sunkara’s nostrum as a

justification for an individualist world-

view instead. Mr Adler’s methodology feels

sketchy. Can all the problems he identifies,

from stress to racism to underpaid teach-

ers, truly be attributed to the capitalist

mode of production? Fortunately, however,

both books are better at explaining what

21st-century socialism might look like.

Fortunately, because millennial social-

ists’ objectives are often misunderstood.

One common mistake is to assume that

they want to build a society in the image of

social democracies such as the Nordic

states, where progressive taxation of light-

ly regulated markets funds high-quality

public services. But Messrs Sunkara and

Adler insist they are no social democrats.

Rather, they are democratic socialists.

That may sound like a meaningless fac-

tional distinction. In fact it points to an en-

tirely different system of economic man-

agement. Thomas Piketty explores the

contrast in his polemical new book, “Capi-

tal and Ideology” (currently only available

in French). Though everyone on the left

sees social democracy as an improvement

on red-blooded capitalism, it nonetheless

struggles to break free from what Mr Pi-

ketty calls “proprietarianism”, defined as

“the political ideology founded on the ab-

solute respect for private property”.

Since, under social democracy, true

power continues to reside with the capital-

ists, its commitment to egalitarianism is

necessarily fragile. A social-democratic

government might tax the rich a bit more

and redistribute the proceeds to the poor,

which is all well and good. But such re-

forms are easy to undo. Look at the ease

with which the Conservative government

elected in Britain in 2010 reversed New La-

bour’s munificence in the previous decade.

Down with social democracy

And the tools which social democrats typi-

cally use to advance their goals are ill-

suited to the modern economy, as Branko

Milanovic, a left-leaning scholar formerly

at the World Bank, convincingly argues in

“Capitalism, Alone”. Heavy industry, the

Political economy

The fire next time

What would millennial socialists do with power?

The Socialist Manifesto. By Bhaskar

Sunkara. Basic Books; 288 pages; $28. Verso;

£16.99

The 99 Percent Economy.By Paul Adler.

Oxford University Press; 240 pages; $24.95

and £16.99

Capitalism, Alone.By Branko Milanovic.

Belknap Press; 304 pages; $29.95 and £23.95

People Get Ready! Preparing for a Corbyn

Government.By Christine Berry and Joe

Guinan. OR Books; 240 pages; £12

Books & arts

81 The Dresden jewellery heist

82 Canadian fiction

82 Walter Raleigh’s life

83 Johnson: How to talk to aliens

Also in this section