Can Social Democracies Survive in the Global South?

To succeed, social-democratic movements in the global South must steer a course toward a society without poverty or social exclusion, avoiding two current utopian projects. The first utopia is a neoliberal fantasy, the self-regulating market. In the words of Karl Polanyi in The Great Transformation, this "would result in the demolition of society," with humanity "robbed of the protective covering of social institutions." The second utopia, subscribed to by some tendencies in the global justice movement, advocates "delinking" and "localization" as "post-growth" strategies for achieving environmental sustainability, grass-roots democracy, and genuine community. In contrast, social democracy constitutes what the disillusioned Yugoslav communist, Milovan Djilas, approvingly called an "unperfect society." The pursuit of perfection leads to despotism, Djilas warned; far better, then, to opt for perpetually "unperfect" societies—like those in Scandinavia—that pragmatically strive to reconcile liberty, equity, and community with the demands of a market economy.