"A few short years ago, the far left was resurgent." Only if your memory does not extend beyond a few short years.

From The Rapid Fall of the Left by Yascha Mounk. Interesting because I disagree with his interpretation of most the facts he presents but agree with his overall conclusion. Mounk state his thesis:

A few short years ago, the far left was resurgent. Fringe politicians such as Britain’s Jeremy Corbyn, Greece’s Alexis Tsipras, and France’s Jean-Luc Mélenchon were turning into the standard-bearers of the mainstream left. Meanwhile, in the United States, Bernie Sanders was staging a surprisingly robust primary challenge against Hillary Clinton, the anointed heir to the Democratic Party.

Progressive commentators, activists, and politicians argued that the far left was about to conquer Europe, and that the best way forward for Democrats was to ride the red wave to victory. “Jeremy Corbyn has given us a blueprint to follow for years to come,” wrote Bhaskar Sunkara, the founder of Jacobin. Representative Ro Khanna, the leader of the Justice Democrats in the House, argued that the populist message adopted by leftist leaders in Europe “is not just morally right—it’s also strategically smart.”

But reports of socialism’s resurrection were greatly exaggerated. Recent electoral defeats in Europe suggest that the much-heralded red wave crested before it reached the shore.

I agree, there has been a surge of neo-marxism in the form of critical theory postmodernists, more in culture than politics, but certainly in politics as well. And I agree that the appearance of advancement was illusory and overstated.

But Mounk begins his argument with, I think, a highly disputable claim.

For decades, the European left was dominated by moderate social democrats. Though the far left had a minor presence in most European parliaments, and many establishment parties contained radical currents within them, it was the moderates who ultimately called the shots.

I don't think so.

The Left of Europe in the sixties through the early eighties was hard left. Marxist left. In deed if not always in language. The Labour Party of Britain was always about nationalizing the commanding heights of the economy. Social Democrats everywhere mostly middle class but markedly statist in their policies. Everyone was spending far more on their social safety net than was sustainable, particularly as the post-war boom years reverted back to the norm of global competition.

It is possible Mounk makes his claim simply based on his youth. He was born in 1982 just about the peak of the period when old-style socialism (Marxism-lite) was at its peak. He did not live through massive labor strife, riots, capital flow crises, IMF administration of European economies, nationalization of major portions of the economy in most European countries, etc.

I think it more likely that Mounk makes this claim by obscuring the distinctions between old-style Socialism and its current form, critical theory postmodernism. The old European Socialism was much the product of the labor movement and lived through the prism of class. It sought state control of the economy in order to advance the interests of the working class and used ideological language and policies, not far from marxist theory.

Which was all quite markedly different from today's critical theory postmodernism which cares little about the well being of the commonweal or the class issue and cares everything about power structures and the demographically oppressed.

You can see the distinction reasonably clearly in the arc of the left in Britain. In the 1960's you had the pugnacious unionism of Harold Wilson. This eventually gave way the reforms of Tony Blair which attempted to meld the Labour Party with some modicum of commercial centrism. There was an old style reversion to the older labour union ethos (with technocratic state control) by Gordon Brown. Is Jeremy Corbyn old style labour? Sure, his ideological DNA is rooted in old Marxism, but his manifestation is as a critical theory postmodernist. He cares little about the well-being of British but he is happy to focus on power structures and the victimhood of Palestinians (indulging in some pretty egregious old-style anti-semitism along the way), and socially constructed identities, etc. He is no Harold Wilson, James Callaghan, Michael Foot, or Neil Kinnock. He is postmodernist Labour.

There was no resurgence of Socialism in 2015 as posited by Mounk. There was a temporary rise of protest voting tinged with postmodernist progressivism. But it was a blip and is receding. Old style socialism is continuing its long retreat from its high point in the early 1980s. It did not work, could not work. Instead of a return to Classical Liberalism, the polity has monkeyed around with progressive postmodernism, but I think that too has peaked and is in retreat.

What does not work, eventually dies away.