Sheri Berman replies

Let me begin by thanking Joanne Barkan for her thoughtful comments. On many points we agree, but on several big ones we do not—about the distinctiveness of the social democratic tradition, its superiority to other traditions on the democratic left, and the requirements for the Left’s success today and in the future. Barkan is bothered by my linkage of Michael Harrington’s work, and American politics more generally, to older European political debates. But that was precisely the topic the editors of Dissent asked me to address—and it was a challenge I accepted because I do believe there are striking similarities between the two and that the older stories I tell have contemporary relevance and, in Barkan’s words, “apply to the Western world in general.”