After the Great Crash: socialism versus liberal solidarity

Geoffrey M. Hodgson ()

Chapter 10 in From Marx to Markets, 2025, pp 230-265 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: The 2008 Great Crash and subsequent austerity measures led to a rise of (right and left) populism. Populism offers simple solutions to complex problems and sanctifies ‘the will of the people’. In response, Geoffrey Hodgson wrote Wrong Turnings (2018), Is Socialism Feasible? (2019), and Liberal Solidarity (2021). Wrong Turnings shows how the rise of socialism in the nineteenth century diverted that movement from its core allegiance to Enlightenment ideas. Is Socialism Feasible? argues that large-scale socialism is incompatible with democracy, while small-scale socialism (worker cooperatives) is impossible without markets. As Helena Rosenblatt demonstrated, liberals such as Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayek were far from the ‘classical’ liberals of the nineteenth century. The long tradition of ‘social democratic’ liberalism is the best option for human advancement and for dealing with climate change. The chapter concludes with a defence of representative democracy, after explaining why the extension of democracy has its limits.

Keywords: The Great Crash of 2008; Economic austerity; Right and left populism; Varieties of liberalism; Neoliberalism; Social democratic liberalism (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
ISBN: 9781035350094
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