The Socialist Awakening: What’s Different Now About the Left

There is renewed interest in socialism in the US and the UK, particularly among young people. Who are these new socialists? Why now?

In The Socialist Awakening author John B. Judis, who brilliantly explained the rise of populism and nationalism in his two most recent books, The Populist Explosion and The Nationalist Revival, charts the path of socialism in the last century to today’s rising left, which has little connection to Marxian socialism and consists primarily of leftwing Keynesians seeking to displace the older centre-left parties. Socialists today are driven by their growing anxiety and uncertainty about their place in the world. What they see in socialism is what early socialists and Christian socialists saw: communal values, cooperation rather than competition, an ethical approach to government. They seek public intervention about their concerns over access to education, healthcare, and the danger of climate change. But Judis sends out a warning against misreading the rise of the left not as a reaction to the populist right, but as an opportunity to re-introduce Marxist claptrap.