What does the left stand for? Social democrats across the West seem stuck, unable to move beyond the binary option of centrist technocracy or revolutionary populism. Devoid of ideas and energy, the left suffers defeat and division while the right reinvents itself and rules. Missing from progressive politics is a sense of purpose beyond rights and utility – a vision of human flourishing anchored in fraternity and friendship. Such a vision can be found in Pope Francis’s social encyclical “Fratelli Tutti”, published on 4 October.
In this latest article for New Statesman, Professor Adrian Pabst examines what the Left can learn from Pope Francis.