Neil Warner is an Economic and Social Research Council postdoctoral fellow at the European Institute. His research focuses on plans for the socialization of investment in Britain, France, and Sweden during the 1970s and ’80s.
Fifty years ago, British Labour leader James Callaghan used his party conference speech to promote some of the key ideas associated with neoliberalism. A close look at the speech can help explain why neoliberalism keeps defying predictions of its demise.
European left parties responded to the crisis of social democracy by proposing more radical reforms to be carried out at a transnational level. But the call for “social Europe” ended up serving as a thin veneer for the neoliberal core of European integration.
Despite Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s strong showing in the recent presidential campaign, France’s left was defeated again by the neoliberal center and far right. The roots of that weakness lie in the Mitterrand government’s capitulation to neoliberalism in the 1980s.