It is one of the great ironies of our times. While inequality returns as an urgent concern in Western democracies, social democratic parties are in crisis. From France to Austria and the Netherlands to Italy, the mainstream left is losing. The French economist Thomas Piketty sums up the puzzle. His book Capital, charting the rise of inequality, has sold millions of copies. Translating his research into a political choice, Piketty backed Benoît Hamon, the Socialist Party (PS) candidate in the 2017 French presidential elections. Hamon came fifth, the former ruling party lost most of its deputies in the following month’s legislative elections, and the PS put its historic Rue de Solférino headquarters in Paris up for sale in order to pay off its creditors.
Popular concern about the injustices of contemporary capitalism are not doing much for the fortunes of the centre left in Europe. The rise of populist radical-right parties is well documented but the more powerful trend is one of fragmentation across the political spectrum, on the right and the left. Much of this fragmentation is driven by the unravelling of the social democratic left as a credible political force.
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