The Democratic Party has always been a big tent, encompassing a range of ideologies and political theories. It includes all perspectives that advocate for and support the disadvantaged against the elites. The strongest historical factions are the most radical: Marxists, communists, and socialists. The identity politics crowd is next, although it stands as an enemy of the socialists.
To the right of these groups are New Deal Liberals and advocates of big government.
The strange bedfellows in the tent are the neoliberals who, for a long time, looked out of place. Isn’t Neoliberalism, with its extreme advocacy of capitalism, a conservative concept? The Republicans are supposed to be the party of big business and the champions of Neoliberalism, touted during the Reagan years, but then fully adopted by Bill Clinton, who sought a release from New Deal Liberalism. Obama used Clintonites in his administration, so the ideology continued as a Democratic focus through Biden. As the Democrats began embracing Neoliberalism, they destroyed their connection to middle-class workers around whom the party had been built.
Long before the 21st Century, socialists had begun to move closer to the neoliberal ideology. What is new today is the degree to which neoliberals, in turn, have absorbed certain socialist concerns—particularly regarding inequality, sustainability, and social cohesion.
The merging of these ideologies is not accidental. Several global challenges are pushing this odd couple closer together.
Inequality and Social Mobility
Neoliberal globalization produced enormous wealth but also widened inequalities. Socialists have always emphasized redistribution, but now even neoliberal institutions like the International Monetary Fund and World Bank acknowledge that excessive inequality undermines growth and stability. As a result, neoliberals are increasingly open to policies such as progressive taxation, social safety nets, and universal basic income—ideas once confined to the socialist agenda.
Climate Change and Sustainability
Environmental crises require collective solutions that market mechanisms alone cannot provide. Socialists emphasize public investment and regulation, while neoliberals recognize the need for carbon pricing, state-led innovation, and international agreements. The convergence is visible in “green growth” strategies, which combine market incentives with state planning.
Globalization and National Sovereignty
Neoliberals traditionally championed open borders for trade and capital, while socialists criticized the exploitation associated with global capitalism. Today, both sides confront the rise of populism and protectionism. To preserve globalization, neoliberals now argue for compensatory welfare policies to ease its disruptions, while socialists recognize that a complete retreat from global markets is unrealistic.
Technological Change
Automation, artificial intelligence, and digital monopolies have disrupted labor markets and challenged traditional regulation. Neoliberals, once wary of intervention, now recognize the necessity of antitrust enforcement, public digital infrastructure, and worker retraining—longstanding themes of socialism.
The merging of socialism and Neoliberalism is most evident in actual policy frameworks across advanced economies.
Welfare and Workfare States: Many governments pursue welfare programs that are universal but tied to labor market participation. This approach combines socialist redistribution with neoliberal emphasis on individual responsibility.
Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs): Infrastructure, health care, and education often involve collaboration between state and private actors. Socialists accept private involvement to secure funding, while neoliberals recognize the legitimacy of state coordination.
Market-Friendly Redistribution: Tools like carbon trading, conditional cash transfers, or earned income tax credits embody socialist objectives but are implemented through market-compatible mechanisms.
Inclusive Capitalism: Corporate leaders and policymakers now speak of “stakeholder capitalism,” which tempers neoliberal shareholder primacy with socialist ideas of social responsibility.
The merging of these ideologies is facilitated by intellectual and political figures who explicitly attempt to reconcile the traditions. Business elites, once firmly neoliberal, now endorse “environmental, social, and governance” (ESG) standards that echo socialist concerns about accountability.
The rise of social democracy in Northern Europe is an example of ideological convergence: Scandinavian countries maintain robust welfare states, heavy taxation, and strong unions, while also embracing open markets, innovation, and global competitiveness.
Despite convergence, the synthesis of socialism and Neoliberalism is not without contradictions. Critics on the left argue that neoliberals merely co-opt socialist rhetoric to preserve capitalism, offering cosmetic reforms without addressing structural inequalities. For instance, ESG investing has been criticized as “greenwashing,” more about branding than genuine transformation.
On the other hand, neoliberal fundamentalists fear that incorporating socialist policies undermines efficiency, innovation, and personal liberty. They view redistributive measures or state intervention as slippery slopes toward inefficiency and authoritarianism.
Practical compromises can create policy incoherence, however. Public-private partnerships, for instance, sometimes combine the worst aspects of both systems—private profit-seeking and bureaucratic inefficiency—rather than their strengths.
The merging of socialism and Neoliberalism suggests that left ideological boundaries are becoming less rigid. Instead of a binary struggle between state and market, the future likely involves ongoing experimentation with mixed models. This hybrid could evolve in several directions:
Progressive Neoliberalism: Markets remain dominant, but states play a stronger role in redistribution, regulation, and environmental protection.
Socialist Market Economies: Similar to China’s “socialism with Chinese characteristics,” though adapted to democratic contexts, where the state directs investment while allowing private entrepreneurship.
Post-Neoliberal Paradigms: A broader shift toward sustainability and equity may transcend both traditions, producing new frameworks that have not yet been fully articulated.
The apparent convergence of left-wing socialism and Neoliberalism reflects a pragmatic adaptation to contemporary challenges. Socialists have recognized that markets cannot be abolished, while neoliberals have come to realize that markets alone cannot solve problems of inequality, sustainability, or legitimacy. This merging is less about ideological surrender than about survival and relevance in a world defined by complexity, interdependence, and systemic crises.
The problem with this convergence is whether a new ideology can be created from predecessors who have been historical adversaries. And maybe these groups are fighting the wrong battle. Western politics at this moment is a war between the nation-state concept and Neoliberalism, which seeks to destroy the nation-state. Socialism in its historical construction would also destroy the nation-state.
Populism is on the rise because people want to have a say in government, based on the rights that have been granted to them. They reject both Neoliberalism and Socialism. That means this convergence is actually an attempt to build a winning strategy out of two rejected strategies. Socialism has never worked and will never work. Neoliberalism came to power pretending to be an efficient machine for conducting global capitalism, but then the curtain was lifted to show us that 1984 was in the offing.
This convergence is also a problem for the Democratic Party, which keeps it far left and stands in the way of a party move to the center, which would make them more electable.
Wrong Speak is a free-expression platform that allows varying viewpoints. All views expressed in this article are the author's own.
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