The Dilemmas of Social Democracies seeks to advance the eradication of poverty and the ethical construction of social democracy and sustainable peace. Howard Richards and Joanna Swanger argue that the reason that capitalism resists transformation and that social democracy is so hard to achieve is because of the philosophical and institutional underpinnings—the constitutive rules—of capitalism; the book therefore explores the historical origins of these rules, their implications for blocking progress toward social justice, and how they can be improved.