The demise of the left. I believe Tony Judt held a very interesting last speech/lecture about this and some of its reasons before he died.
From what I gathered from it, is that he believes it has two reasons. First reason is that the people who knew the importance of having a social security system are all dead or dying. They were the people that witnessed the great depression and such. They are dead and we now have a generation in power that only knows economic growth and does not know how bad things can become. They havent witnessed it, they only know the stories. Which is easy to dismiss when everything is constantly booming.
And the second reason is our singular focus on the economy. Everything is measured in economic gain or loss. Economic growth is the most important thing any country is focusing on. And that means that people who do not contribute enough to this economy, are being seen as bothersome, lazy, stupid and a general pain in the ass no one will miss if they were to drop dead this instant. A men's worth is measured by his contribution to the economy. The left generally tries to look after the people who do not contribute as much to the economy for various reasons because the left inherently believes that a humans live is worth more then just his economic contribution. The right on the other hand, only cares for those who contribute and can look after themselves. So, the left is caring for the persons we dont want to take care off because in our minds and our way of thinking, it is caring for the people that should not be cared for. Making the left the guys that arent much better then that worthless scum they are trying to take care off.
What I find interesting is why Christian parties so often side with the right wingers. To me it seems that the whole doctrine of Christianity should embrace that of socialism. You know, Jesus taking care of the weak and feeding the poor, helping the downtrodden. Instead they side with the guys that dont care about poor people and that actively seek to protect only rich people.