The Tragedy of Social Democracy is about the rise, fall and future of social democracy as a politico-ideological force, a force that was believed would democratically transform capitalism into socialism. Instead of democratizing capitalism, social democracy was itself liberalized by capitalism. Why has social democracy gravitated into the magnetic field of neoliberalism? Who can be blamed for such a tragedy? Can social democracy reverse its political and ideological eclipse?

Numerous books and articles have been written on social democracy, and its political viability has continued to be the subject of debate among left-wing intellectuals. In The Tragedy of Social Democracy, Srivan Karimi sheds light on the innate structural vulnerability of social democracy to progressive degeneration. Karimi theorizes the transformation of social democracy and establishes a structural linkage between its rise, ascendancy and subsequent decline since the theoretical raid of neoliberalism on Keynesianism in the 1980s and highlights certain public policy measures that are indispensable to the social democratic renewal that is being debated among socialists and social democrats.

Sirvan Karimi is an assistant professor in the School of Public Policy and Administration at York University.

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