In fact, therein lies the primary reason for today's relative lack of worker militancy. The social safety net - food stamps but, more generally, unemployment insurance, pensions, health care, and other universal benefits - HAS held up the system, despite resentment from reactionaries and ongoing efforts to trim and constrain the welfare state."
[WS:] Although I agree with the general idea of your argument, I do not agree with your views on the welfare state. In reality, the welfare state was not only the main goal of labor struggles, but also an attainable one - as opposed to revolutionary fantasies. Welfare state provided major tangible benefits to the working class as a whole while maintaining democracy, unlike revolutionary pursuits that often resulted in totalitarian states of one sort or another, while providing much more meager, if any, benefits to the working class vis a vis those offered by welfare states.
Welfare state is the MAJOR and ONLY VICTORY of the working class, and a relatively permanent one, judging from the European experience. Unlike the revolutionary pursuits, which were either thrown int the dust bin of history or degenerated into libertarian or totalitarian states. There is a reason why it is under a vicious and relentless neoliberal attack - it democratizes wealth distribution and undermines business control of labor.
The reasons why the Left can't inspire anymore are twofold. First, the Left has become the rear guard instead of avant garde - ritualistically repeating old slogans and battle cries that lost their appeal long time ago or altogether retreating into literary analyses of sacred scriptures.
Second, and more importantly, the Left does not have what Gramsci called "organic intellectuals" and what I would call "organic institutions" i.e. institutions organically linked to broad working class interests. Labor unions are in decline, labor and socialist parties are no longer tied to working class interests, and institutions that are "organically" aligned with working class interests, such as cooperatives, mutuals and similar institutions practicing democratic governance and wealth distribution are generally frowned upon by what passes for the Left today. We have a situation where cultural manifestations of individual nonconformism and rejection of bourgeois values are more important for many Leftists than building institutions organically linked to broad working class interests.
Little wonder that this "culturalist Left" has little appeal to the working class concerned about mundane "bread and butter" issues.
What undermined the appeal of the Left is not the welfare state but academia that become the home of the Left today. As the Left has become more and more academic, literary pursuits, such as esoteric theorizing, debating, and holy scripture exegesis gained importance while the connections to the more mundane working class interests waned. By contrast, throughout the 19th and the first half of the 20th century, academia was basically out of reach of most people, and the organic intellectuals of the working class, such as Gramsci were often autodidacts who found their institutional home in organic institutions of the working class, such as unions, socialist or communist parties and their organs.
-- Wojtek
"An anarchist is a neoliberal without money."