Crisis, ideas, and class: A fresh look at British Labour, French socialists, and German social democrats during the neoliberal wave of accumulation

Abstract

This article traces the fortunes and misfortunes of social democracy in Britain, France, and Germany during the neoliberal age. The first part of the article offers a short discussion and critique of self-reflections offered by leading social Labor and Society. 2019;22:509-526. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/lands 509 2 | SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC SELF-REFLECTIONS The internationalization of capital, indicated by the breakdown of the Bretton Woods regime of fixed exchange rates, increasing capital mobility, and the rise of multinational corporations, rendered Keynesianism unfeasible. Rather than stimulating production and employment, Keynesian measures SCHMIDT 523

Economic ideas, capital logic and class struggle: reflections towards a people’s history of economics

“…They could acquire representative roles by persuasively criticizing hegemonic ideas and synthesizing dispersed alternative ideas, often redefining some of the hegemonic ideas and adding them to the synthesis of alternative ideas. Starting with big name theories, the twin history of capitalism and imperialism can be written as a history of class struggle (for case studies following this approach, see: Schmidt 2019Schmidt & 2021Swedberg 2018) and thereby offer an alternative to analyses that portray historical developments either as unfolding inexorable economic laws, as classical liberalism and significant currents of Marxism would have it, or as unintelligible making and remaking of spontaneous orders, as neoliberals and postmodernists would see it (on the relations between neoliberalism and postmodernism see: Amariglio & Ruccio, 2016).…”