Bernardo Valli on the triumph of the Keynesian Right over social democracy

Bernardo Valli explains in the left-liberal daily La Repubblica why there is no paradox whatsoever in the fact that the creators of the crisis, the representatives of neoliberalism, emerged as the victors in the European elections: "Because the social democratic Left, which began the test in the dock and ended it in the losers' cage, simply failed to present itself as a credible alternative owing to the fact that it still hasn't adjusted to the new global situation. … Moreover the Right took it unawares. It was not squeamish with the budget, it put up with deficits to guarantee social benefits, it attacked the tax havens, lost no time setting up new market rules and nationalising banks. … Right-wing neoliberalism has become super-Keynesian. The world champions of deregulation have … forgotten their past and essentially appropriated the principles of social democracy. They have stolen them and left the Left empty-handed by forcing it to polemicize about the content of the measures and depriving it of the chance to present serious arguments about who was originally to blame."

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