| Popis: |
This introductory chapter outlines the theme, research objectives, main arguments, methodology, and structure of the book. By investigating, in a transnational perspective, the forgotten struggle of the European Left for a ‘social Europe’ favouring the lower and middle classes in the long 1970s—as well as the reasons for its defeat—this book ambitions to shed new light on a critical turning point in the recent history of European integration, the history of European socialism, and by extension the history of capitalism. The main argument of this work is that the years stretching from the late 1960s until the 1980s saw a political struggle of conflicting social forces over the European order, and that the defeat of the Left’s ‘social Europe’ project was crucial in determining the progression of European integration on the neoliberal road, the Left’s forced acceptance of the ‘neoliberal consensus’, and the shift between welfare capitalism and neoliberal capitalism. |
