Socialism with a spine: the only 21st century alternative | John Quiggin

Soft neoliberalism has exhausted its appeal. The best progressive alternative is an explicit embrace of socialism

Socialism is back, much to the chagrin of those who declared it dead and buried at the "end of history" in the 1990s. When the New Republic, long the house organ of American neoliberalism, runs an article on The Socialism America Needs Now, it's clear that something has fundamentally changed.

The soft neoliberalism represented by Tony Blair, Bill Clinton and Paul Keating has exhausted its appeal, and not just in the English-speaking world. Throughout Europe, new movements of the left have emerged to challenge or displace social democratic parties discredited by the austerity politics of the last decade.

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