After Progress: American Social Reform and European Socialism in the Twentieth Century
Norman Birnbaum
Abstract
The 20th century witnessed a profound shift in both socialism and social reform. In the early 1900s, social reform seemed to offer a veritable religion of redemption, but by the century's end, while socialism remained a vibrant force in European society, a culture of extreme individualism and consumption all but squeezed the welfare state out of existence. Documenting this historic change, this book looks at the course of social reform and Western politics after Communism. It traces in detail the forces that have shifted social concern over the course of a century, from the devastation of two ... More
The 20th century witnessed a profound shift in both socialism and social reform. In the early 1900s, social reform seemed to offer a veritable religion of redemption, but by the century's end, while socialism remained a vibrant force in European society, a culture of extreme individualism and consumption all but squeezed the welfare state out of existence. Documenting this historic change, this book looks at the course of social reform and Western politics after Communism. It traces in detail the forces that have shifted social concern over the course of a century, from the devastation of two world wars, to the post-war golden age of economic growth and democracy, to the ever-increasing dominance of the market. It makes sense of the historical trends that have created a climate in which politicians proclaim the arrival of a new historical epoch but rarely offer solutions to social problems that get beyond cost-benefit analyses. It goes one step further and proposes a strategy for bringing the market back into balance with the social needs of the people. It advocates a reconsideration of the notion of work, urges that market forces be brought under political control, and stresses the need for education that teaches the rights and responsibilities of citizenship. This book examines the state of social reform past, present, and future.
Keywords:
socialism,
social reform,
Western politics,
economic growth,
democracy,
market forces,
education,
citizenship
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2002 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780195158595 |
| Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: October 2011 |
DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195158595.001.0001 |
