Transition Risks
Adam Przeworski
Przeworski argues that European socialist parties in the first half of the 20th century faced a sequence of electoral dilemmas. The first dilemma was whether or not to participate in bourgeois elections, when universal suffrage was progressively established in Europe. The question was whether or not participation would contribute to the struggle for socialism or strengthen the capitalist order. According to Przeworski, most socialist parties have opted to get involved in elections, since it was a means to advance some of the interests of workers in the short run and, as references to Friedrich Engels and Eduard Bernstein illustrate in Przeworski’s book, to move toward socialism.
According to Przeworski, the decision to participate in bourgeois elections led to another dilemma. Given that manual workers were not the numerical majority in any European country, to win elections they had to choose whether or not to compromise their socialist principles and adopt a social democratic agenda to attract the support of allies, especially the middle class. Such compromise had major consequences for socialist parties, including the withdrawal of support of workers, the abandoning of extra-parliamentary tactics, and progressively the defection from socialist policies when in power.
Wikipedia (2023) Adam Przeworski
Tooze
As we get into the details of green transition, one thing to draw out is its temporalities: what particular challenges are attached to different moments in the transition? This is an urgent question reminiscent of Adam Przeworski’s classic u-curve of socialist transition, where the move away from capitalist production would involve losses before it brought gains to workers. Przeworski’s work in the 1980s was designed as a challenge to social democratic hopes in seamless electoral progress, so how will we mitigate the analogous climate problem amid a polycrisis defined in part by increasing tensions between states? Here’s an IMF working paper:
During the “mid-transition” period, when the economic transformation is most rapid, cross-border risks could generate or exacerbate instability in the economic, political, and financial spheres, which may become detrimental to the global transition process
Source: Espagne et al. (2023) Cross-Border Risks of a Global Economy in Mid-Transition
17 Social Democracy
17.1 Transition Risks
Adam Przeworski
Przeworski argues that European socialist parties in the first half of the 20th century faced a sequence of electoral dilemmas. The first dilemma was whether or not to participate in bourgeois elections, when universal suffrage was progressively established in Europe. The question was whether or not participation would contribute to the struggle for socialism or strengthen the capitalist order. According to Przeworski, most socialist parties have opted to get involved in elections, since it was a means to advance some of the interests of workers in the short run and, as references to Friedrich Engels and Eduard Bernstein illustrate in Przeworski’s book, to move toward socialism.
According to Przeworski, the decision to participate in bourgeois elections led to another dilemma. Given that manual workers were not the numerical majority in any European country, to win elections they had to choose whether or not to compromise their socialist principles and adopt a social democratic agenda to attract the support of allies, especially the middle class. Such compromise had major consequences for socialist parties, including the withdrawal of support of workers, the abandoning of extra-parliamentary tactics, and progressively the defection from socialist policies when in power.
Wikipedia (2023) Adam Przeworski
Tooze
As we get into the details of green transition, one thing to draw out is its temporalities: what particular challenges are attached to different moments in the transition? This is an urgent question reminiscent of Adam Przeworski’s classic u-curve of socialist transition, where the move away from capitalist production would involve losses before it brought gains to workers. Przeworski’s work in the 1980s was designed as a challenge to social democratic hopes in seamless electoral progress, so how will we mitigate the analogous climate problem amid a polycrisis defined in part by increasing tensions between states? Here’s an IMF working paper:
Source: Espagne et al. (2023) Cross-Border Risks of a Global Economy in Mid-Transition