After the new social democracy

Abstract

The welfare of future generations 8 The new genetics 9 Democratising welfare Conclusion This is the story told by those such as Giddens (1998), Dell (2000), Plant (2002) and hints of it can even be heard in Sassoon (1996) and Moschonas (2002). The problem with it is that it tells only one part of the tale. For although the term itself was not conceptualised until the 1870s, significant elements of social democracy predate that period, whether within the trade unions and burgeoning workers' movement or on the Left of the bourgeois liberal movement. So, if social democracy is not a dilution of Marxist Communism, if they share a contemporaneous development, then the history of social democracy is not one of decline but, as with most ideologies, much more complex than this. And what the defenders of the NSD downplay, when they are not omitting it altogether, is the history of capitalism over the last century or more, for if we are to interpret history in terms of either ascent or decline, then it makes as much sense to talk about the decline of capitalism in the century following the last quarter of the nineteenth century. The so-called decline of social democracy might also be written as the decline of capitalism to a point where it would not have been recognisable to its eighteenth-and nineteenth-century forebears. More accurately, we should think of social democratic history as a complex evolution rather than as either an ascent or decline. Ah, say new social democrats, but this only takes the story to the 1980s at best. The resurgence of market capitalism since then means that social democratic traditions have lost their former relevance. So whether the decline is measured in generations or decades there has been a recent decline to which the NSD is the only viable response. Yet what this argument conveniently does is to resurrect the determinism which has usually been employed to caricature Marxism (and which Marxists have often used as caricatures of themselves). If the resurgence of market capitalism was and is inevitable, then what are the laws of history which will make the future an endless reflection of the present? New social democrats are understandably silent on this point. But what really gives the lie to their argument is that this insistence on inevitability ('There Is No Alternative') used to be deployed by conservatives-and often still is, of course-against any form of social democracy. So if the NSD really is a viable option then the resurgence of market capitalism must be political rather than deterministic, i.e. the result of social forces mobilising for ideological ends within particular, conjunctural circumstances, and if it is political, then although the NSD is one viable option it is not necessarily the only one. However, the new social democrat has an additional argument. Even if the NSD is not the only option it is nonetheless the best given the immense problems that we face. Would today's socially excluded really thank us for spending time, energy and resources building radicalism for se...

Disablers in the Implementation of Performance Management System in the Zambian Public sector

“…New employee"s induction is thus, left to the informal channels within organizations thereby creating the risk of them being taught ineffective work processes and attitudes. As Fitzpatrick (2003) put it, any new entrant to an organization should undergo induction training; ideally at an early stage and before some "disgruntled old hand" tells them the "real story" around the organization. "There is no real expense involved in delivering such training in-house, and the bad effects of "negative socialisation" can be avoided" (Fitzpatrick, 2003:23).…”