> Still, none of this explains why the working classes haven't moved
> decisively towards social democracy, or even thorough-going progressive
> politics.
I would argue they have, but maybe not in the ways many of us expected progressive politics to happen. The thing is, the developmental states of the semiperiphery are not retreads of one-party/autarkic states, they are vast, continental-sized engines of cultural, economic and political democratization. In the last 15 years, they've accumulated $3.5 trillion in forex/SWF funds, pulled a billion people out of poverty, built world-class media cultures, undergone widespread democratization, and created $10 trillion of wealth.
These developmental states aren't just state agencies, however. They're complex, inchoate fields of contestation and class struggle -- just think of the enormous complexity of the Venezuelan civic and social mobilizations, which can't be reduced to the executive orders of the Chavez Presidency.
-- DRR