Capitalism and Social Democracy

Adam Przeworski

★★★★☆

Written before the fall of the Eastern Bloc and chiefly the USSR, "Capitalism and Social Democracy" seeks to account the story of social democracy's rise, and why it was unable to reform capitalism in favour of socialism. The main story Przeworski maps in this collection of essays is that social democracy, originally a socialist movement, faced a key limit: It was intent on seeking political power, however the industrial working class (which he sees as decisive and not a more inclusive definition of the working class) was not becoming a majority, but continually a minority. In this situation, social democracy had to abandon its class orientation - with this it had to compromise on socialism however, instead simply focusing upon a series of reforms to increase general well-being. These reforms, however, undermined themselves because they focused on achieving full employment and high investments, when they achieved such a situation however, the high taxes would prevent enough savings for capitalists to invest them into profits.
Much of the rest the book deals with is the question of why the working class does not rise up for socialism, but instead pursued 'class compromises' with others - and argues this is because capitalism can offer material compromises through unions and social democratic parties, which can genuinely benefit the interests of workers - as revolutionary politics are instead a trade-off short-term for workers, as they will lead to detoriation of the situation.
However, as the book was written before the end of the Cold War, it does not account for the transformation under neoliberalism: the assault on working class structures and institutions, however some things discussed in the book can help explain it. As the book argues, workers tend to a strategy of moderate resilience, i.e. striking periodically without a radical uprising or such. As this is within one generation the most rational decision, this however is very painful for the capitalist economy; in this context did neoliberalism arise, as response to the crisis of capitalism led in part by unions encouraging such moderate resilience. It also discusses how democracy increasingly became less accountable to mass politics, which has led to many of the issues now.
The main issue of the book is that it is quite academic and can get very boring, however it is the best book to understand why the Western working class has went the path it did and the dream it fought for has mostly collapsed, for worse in my opinion.