'No automation must be achieved without improving living standards'. The British Labour Party, the Italian Socialist Party and the German Social Democratic Party during the postwar technological revolution. Issue 1 (2nd January 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Perazzoli, Jacopo
• Is Part Of: History of European ideas. Volume 46:Issue 1(2020)
• Page Start: 79
• Page End: 94
• Publication Date: 2020-01-02
• Subjects: Socialism -- postwar -- technological development -- automation -- Cold War -- political history; Europe -- Intellectual life -- Periodicals; Europe -- History -- Periodicals; 190.5
• DOI: 10.1080/01916599.2019.1703858
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0191-6599

Abstract

ABSTRACT: This article discusses the connection between Western socialist parties and technological development during the 1950s. The cases of the British Labour Party (LP), the German Social Democracy (SPD), and the Italian Socialist Party (PSI) let us to examine socialist perspectives in managing technological progress and in conceiving programmes and purposes on scientific research. This choice allows to understand two different aspects: on the one hand, the new pragmatism of socialist and social democratic parties, which was a typical trait of Postwar's socialist revisionism; on the other hand, the predominance assumed by domestic affairs in socialists' vision, instead international topics. A very specific choice concerns the article's main focus. A large historiographical dispute has started to trace about Postwar Social Democracy's revisionism. Given such historiographical debate, this article firstly explores the behaviour and politics of the LP, the SPD, and the PSI about the the so-called modernization, a process which concerned the entire Postwar Europe. It also discusses programmes or ideas circulations about the 1950s 'technological revolution' and the agendas settled by socialist and social democratic parties to govern such global phenomena.