Left-wing politics have been on the decline for a considerable while, from about the 1970s. The Eastern Bloc has collapsed and numerous previously state capitalist countries are now undergoing or have undergone economic liberalization (China, Vietnam with doi moi, North Korea, Cuba).
Countries in the former Eastern Bloc have been notoriously eager to economically liberalize. Russia is a good example, with the rapid privatization of state owned businesses during the 1990s and the implementation of a flat income tax under Putin.
Within the West, traditionally center-right parties have since headed far to the right, with traditionally proletarian and center-left parties following them in advocating neoliberal policies (Bill Clinton, Tony Blair). This includes the French Socialist Party and the German Social Democratic Party (which was founded as a Marxist party), both of which no longer seriously advocate socialism. The Italian Communist Party, Italy's former largest opposition party which captured 35% of the vote in 1976, has since also headed far to the right along with its other center-left/left-wing counterparts in the West. It has since been succeeded by the Democratic Party.
In Japan, the historic center-left party, the Socialist Party, has since fallen apart as Socialist voters flocked to parties created out of a fracturing of the center-right Liberal Democratic Party. Japan's only major left-wing party left, the Japanese Communist Party, although getting 12.55% of the vote in the 1996 general election, now only gets a fraction of that percentage. The Japanese Communist Party has also been attempting to moderate itself through the adoption of pink as one of its colors and the acceptance of the Emperor.
Despite India officially being a socialist nation according to its constitution (added by Indira Gandhi), it has also since undergone economic liberalization, most notably under former Prime Minister P. V. Narasimha Rao. It should also be noted that P. V. Narasimha Rao was from the Indian National Congress, a formerly left-wing party which added the amendment to India's constitution defining it as a socialist nation under Indira Gandhi.
The African nation of Angola has long been dominated by the formerly Marxist-Leninist MPLA, but the MPLA now denotes itself as merely a "social democratic" party and is dominated by a wealthy mestico elite which enjoys making contracts with international oil companies. The wealth inequality present in Angola is astounding, with rich regions getting richer and many regions in the impoverished interior getting even poorer.
The meaning of being left-wing has changed considerably over the years. Nowadays, especially among the younger people on the Internet, it's popular to be a "social democrat." This is considered left-wing, and it is, but people often define themselves as such without understanding that social democracy advocates for a democratic transition into socialism, rather than the 'friendly capitalism' and "Third Way" policies they support.
These people on the Internet, of course, are the next generation and will be heavily influential. The rise of "libertarianism" also helps to denote the world's increasing turn toward the right, especially as "libertarians" often advocate more serious economic liberalization than those in center-right and right-wing major parties.
Is the left doomed to fade away into irrelevance? Or is the current global trend toward economic liberalization merely another phase in history preceding a trend toward the left? In 1992, Francis Fukuyama argued that liberal democracies and free market capitalism marked the end of history. However, it's unlikely that this is true, and the position is merely representative of the presentism.
I think that the left will make an eventual comeback, but unfortunately not in the near future. I think that the adoption of the "Third Way" and right wing economics by traditionally center-left parties in developed countries worldwide has changed people's perception of what is left, and causes people to view ideas to the left of that as radical and unconventional.
What are your thoughts?
