5.3 Socialism Today
Étienne Schmitt
According to commentators, socialism is in decline. The facts seem to speak for themselves: utopian and libertarian currents are now marginal; after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, most communist regimes collapsed or adapted to the market economy; communist parties in liberal democracies transformed themselves abandoning the idea of revolution and Marxist references; and social-democratic parties recorded major electoral setbacks in the 2000s, 2010s and 2020s. However, who have been predicting the end of socialism was wrong. The resilience of socialism lies in its capacity to adapt itself to new contemporary challenges. New divisions have emerged, such as those opposing productivism and environmentalism, or globalization and anti-globalization. Similarly, socialism is reinventing itself through issues of feminism, multiculturalism, and nationalism.
