Limiting ourselves to democratically elected governments, and there are many of these even in the under-developed countries, progressive ideas seem to fail, and fail again at the ballot box right around the globe as you concede the strong right-wing bias of many governments across the globe.
There was one left-wing federal government in Australia in the last 60 years. That was for three years between 1972 and 1975, and it lost in a landslide. the Whitlam government got in buy a few seats in 1972by beating tired and smelly government that had held office for 23 years
This inability of progressive politics get anywhere is important because every set of ideas needs effective critics to keep it on its toes and stop it from slouching into error and special interest capture.
The Right needs a vibrant Left to keep the Right fit, trim and down to its fighting weight so as to be able to thrash the Left once again at the next election. That is the function of left-wing governments: mind the shop while the right-wing parties are fed and rested and rejuvenated.
Prior to the 1990s, all it took to see progressive ideas off the political and economic stage in a country was a visit or two by Milton Friedman, if some are to be believed. I do not believe that political transformations are as easy as this.
However, some still want to maintain the rage over, for example, Friedman’s April 1975 trip to Australia for 18 days leading to a paradigm shift to neo-liberalism and Hayden’s supposedly monetarist budget shortly after if Alex Millmow is to be believed. Apparently, the spirited, witty Joan Robinson’s visit the same month and her own Monday conference program did not do the trick as an anti-biotic and vaccine.
Progressives will have no role in future political transformations because if you scratch a progressive you will find a left wing populist.
A left-wing populist is too busy telling you who to fear and who to blame to put up policies that are actually robust enough to work and to have worked in the past in a society where people are not perfect in their motivations, they do not have perfect knowledge in a changing world, and there is no offsetting behaviour and unintended consequences when these policies are put in practice.
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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