Berman 2010_European Left

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What Happened to the European Left?

Sheri Berman

Dissent, Volume 57, Number 3, Summer 2010, pp. 23-29 (Article)

Published by University of Pennsylvania Press

DOI: 10.1353/dss.0.0158

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continent. In the 2009 European Union elec-

tions, socialist and social democratic parties won

less than 30 percent of the vote and were left

with only 184 out of 736 seats in the European

Parliament. Conditions in individual countries

are at least as bad. In September 2009 in

Germany, the Social Democratic Party (SPD)

suffered its worst defeat since the founding of

the Federal Republic, obtaining just 23 percent

of the vote and losing ground among almost all

groups of voters: the young, the hip, the new

middle classes abandoned the party in droves,

and even its own core voters defected in huge

numbers (to the left, the right, and by staying

home). In France, the situation is even more

dismal. Asked recently, if the French Socialist

Party was dying, Bernard-Henri Lvy said,Noit is already dead. Indeed, despite recent

wins in regional elections, the party does seem

committed to its own demise, devoting most of

its energy to internecine squabbles. And in Italy,

the Left has become farcical, unable to mount

any significant opposition to Silvio Berlusconi.

In Britain and Spain, where they had been in

power, the Labour Party has been ousted, and

the Spanish Socialists look to be in trouble.

In order to understand the Lefts present

crisis (as well as begin sketching possible pathsto a better future), we need to recognize the

back story. The Lefts contemporary impotence

has many causes, but perhaps the most

important (and least discussed) lies in dynamics

dating back to the 1970s. However, these

dynamics are themselves a product of long-

standing divisions and weaknesses within the

European Left that can only be understood by

examining the movements historical evolution.

The Origins of the Democratic LeftThe origins of the democratic Left lay in the

challenges the socialist movement faced during

the last decades of the nineteenth century. The

1870s and 1880s were a period of growth.

Buoyed by a powerful and optimistic ideology

orthodox Marxismthat provided a sense of

identity and purpose and a conviction that

history was on their side, socialist parties were

becoming a force to be reckoned with in

European societies. Yet as the turn of the

century neared, new conditions caused stressesand strains within the socialist movement.

The end of the nineteenth century was a

period of rapid and disorienting change. Then,

as now, a wave of globalization engulfed the

European periphery, changing the structure of

businesses and industry and bringing new

products to Europes shores. Alongside these

economic shifts came social ones. Millions of

Europeans were on the move during this time,

abandoning rural areas for the cities and

moving from one country to another. These

changes challenged the European Left in two

ways. First, many Marxist predictions were not

coming true: the proletariat was not growing

immiserated, while the middle classes were

expanding and becoming more differentiated;

small farming and businesses were not disap-

pearing; economic collapse seemed increasinglyremote; and the bourgeois state was under-

taking important economic, political, and social

reforms. Socialist parties were becoming

powerful actors in a number of European coun-

tries, but orthodox Marxism could not furnish

them with a strategy for using this power

because it had little to say about the role of

political organizations in socialist transfor-

mation.

The second challenge stemmed from those

who bemoaned the erosion of traditional valuesand communities and growing social dislocation

and atomization. Europeans groped for ways to

reintegrate their societies and restore a sense of

meaning to a world seen as confusing and

amoral. The results were new communitarian

arguments and nationalist movements. But

orthodox Marxists and socialists had little to say

about such problems. Ostensibly committed to

internationalism, they had no sympathy for

national loyalties or bourgeois values.

In response to these challenges, splits

developed on the Left. The sharpest of these, of

course, was between defenders and opponents

of violence. Faced with a growing realization

that socialism was not inevitable, some on the

Left began to argue that it would have to be

imposed through the politico-military efforts of

a revolutionary vanguard. Lenin was the early

adopter of this view, and his heirs became the

communists of the twentieth century. Most

leftists, however, unwilling to accept elitism

and violence, stuck to a democratic path.

Standard narratives of this era often leave thestory here; in fact, however, an additional split

S O C I A L I S M N O W ?

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emerged within the democratic camp.

The democratic faction believed that

although Marx might have been wrong about

the imminence of capitalisms collapse, he was

basically right in arguing that it could not persist

indefinitely. Because of its internal contradic-

tions and human costs, it would ultimately give

way to something fundamentally differentand

the main role of the Left was to prepare for this

transition. This faction had little patience with

communitarian and nationalist movements,

viewing them as backward relics of capitalism,

fated to disappear along with it. There was no

point in actively responding to them.

Another democratic faction rejected the view

that capitalism would collapse in the foreseeable

future and argued that in the meantime it wasbothpossible and desirable to take advantage of

its upsides while addressing its downsides.

Rather than working to transcend capitalism,

they wanted to encourage its immense

productive capacities, reap the benefits, and

deploy them for progressive ends. This group

also recognized the power and destructive

potential of nationalism and believed that

dealing with it was a challenge the Left could

not ignore.

The real story of the democratic Left over thelast century has been the story of the battle

between these two factionsbetween, say,

democratic socialism and social democracy. And

this battle, and the incomplete victory of the

social democrats, has constrained the Lefts

ability to respond to political challenges up

through the present day.

During the late nineteenth and early twen-

tieth century, this schism was epitomized by the

debate between Eduard Bernstein and his

critics. Bernstein argued not only that the capi-

talist system had changed greatly since Marx

and Engelss time, becoming increasingly

complex and adaptable, but also that constantly

preaching the demise of the system robbed the

socialist movement of its ability to address

concrete social needs. Bernstein also attacked

Marxist views of class struggle, arguing instead

that it was the task of socialist parties to reach

across social divides to unite the vast majority of

citizens suffering from the injustices of the

contemporary order. Similarly, he did not

believe that socialists could ignore the rising tideof nationalism; they had to recognize and

respond to the fundamental longings that such

ideas represented. Though few socialist leaders

were prepared to follow Bernstein down the

path to apostasy, the Second International and

all European socialist parties were consumed by

the revisionist controversy. It wasnt,

however, until Europe was wracked by a world

war and an economic depression that it became

fully clear how high the stakes were in this

controversy.

The Rise of Social Democracy

The debate between democratic socialists and

social democrats reached a crescendo during the

1920s and 1930s. Populist movements on the

Right were chipping away at the support oftraditional liberal and conservative parties.

Concerned about the appeal of this new Right,

many social democrats argued that clinging to

the Lefts traditional program would doom the

democratic Left to oblivion. They proposed

instead to address directly the needs of disori-

ented and discontented Europeans.

In the context of the Great Depression, this

meant using the power of the state to reform

and perhaps transform capitalism. But how

could political forces control economic ones?Orthodox Marxists and democratic socialists

(and, of course, liberals) refused to countenance

the idea. Perhaps the most tragic playing out of

this conflict occurred in Germany, where the

SPD, flanked by Nazis on the Right and commu-

nists on the Left, rejected the activist economic

strategies proposed by budding social democrats

within the party. Wladimir Woytinsky, for

example, argued that the time had come for

socialists to stop lulling the masses withsozialis-

tische Zukunftsmusik [socialist future music]. He

proposed a proto-Keynesian strategy that would

help tame the anarchy of the market and

provide the labor movement with a foundation

upon which to build a new economic and social

order. Commenting on the debate between

those who favored such a strategy and those

who stuck to the SPDs traditional passivity,

Fritz Tarnow (a union leader and co-sponsor of

Woytinskys plan) summed up the SPDs (and,

more generally, the Lefts) dilemma:

Are we standing at the sickbed of capitalism

not only as doctors who want to heal the


S U M M E R 2 0 1 0 DISSENT 25


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patient, but also as prospective heirs who

cant wait for the end and would gladly help

the process along with a little poison?.We

are damned, I think, to be doctors who seri-

ously want to cure, and yet we have to

maintain the feeling that we are heirs whowish to receive the entire legacy of the capi-

talist system today rather than tomorrow.

This double role, doctor and heir, is a damned

difficult task.

But the party could not adopt the

doctors role. Its leading economist, Rudolf

Hilferding, as well as most of its top lead-

ership, refused to believe that they could do

much to reform capitalism.

Activists in other socialist parties were alsopushing strategies that would enable the Left to

fight the Great Depression and begin building a

revitalized movement based on a new view of

the relationship between capitalism, the state,

and society. In Belgium, Holland, and France,

for example, Hendrik de Man and his Plan du

Travailfound energetic champions. De Man

argued for an activist depression-fighting

strategy, an evolutionary transformation of

capitalism, and a focus on the control rather

than the ownership of capital.Regardless of the specific policies they advo-

cated, one thing that joined together all of the

budding interwar social democrats was a

conviction that the state could and should be

used to tame the capitalist system. They thus

came to champion a real third way between

classical liberalism and Soviet communism,

based on a belief that political forces could

triumph over economic ones.

In order to do this, however, they had to

win majority support for their programs.

Hence, during the interwar years many

returned to the themes of cross-class cooper-

ation and proto-communitarianism that

Bernstein and others had championed a gener-

ation before. They realized that appeals to the

people, the community, and the common

good were much more attractive than the

emphasis on class struggle and internationalism

stressed by their democratic socialist colleagues.

If the Left did not explicitly address the

longings that nationalist movements were

responding to, they argued, there would beterrible consequences not only for the socialist

movement but for democracy as well.

It was, however, only in Scandinavia, and

particularly in Sweden, that the social demo-

cratic approach was embraced wholeheartedly

by a unified party. This is why the Swedish case

has achieved such iconic status on the Left.

During the interwar years, the Swedish

SAP developed a whole new view of the rela-

tionship between the state and capitalism.

The key figure in this development, Nils

Karleby, argued that improvements in the

efficiency of economic activity have always

been, and should continue to be, the only

meansof improving societys welfare. He

urged his colleagues to recognize that [a]ll

social reformsresulting in an increase of

societal and a decrease in private controlover property [represent a stage] in social

transformation.[Furthermore] social

policies are, in fact, an overstepping of the

boundaries of capitalisman actual shift in

the position of workers in society and the

production process. This is the original (and

uniquely) social democratic view.

The SAP championed a proto-Keynesian pro-

gram during the Great Depression, which it sold

to the electorate by stressing its commitment to

the common good. The partys leader, Per AlbinHansson, popularized the theme of Sweden as

the Folkhemmet or peoples homean idea

he stole from the Swedish Right. As a result,

while in Germany and Italy it was the populist

Right that appeared politically dynamic and de-

fended communal solidarity, in Sweden the so-

cial democrats became the party with exciting

plans for helping the little people, the party

that was at one with the nation.

By the mid-1930s, therefore, social

democrats had a clear political profile and a

set of policies all their own. They favored an

emphasis on the ordinary or little people,

the community, and the collective good.

They advocated Keynesian-type stimulus

programs and state intervention in the

economy, cross-class alliances, and commu-

nitarian appeals. The irony of the postWorld

War Two era would be that although these

policies came to be widely accepted, the

democratic Lefts long-standing divisions

remainedand prevented the movement

from reaping the full benefits of its policies.




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again, this is in part because key insights of

social democracy have been lost: most

important, that communitarianism is essential

for a successful leftist strategy. Social democrats

once understood that communitarianism was

necessary not only as a counterweight to the

atomization and discord generated by capitalism

but also as a facilitator of other aspects of the

movements program. Both a strong, interven-

tionist state and generous, universalist welfare

policies depend on the support of a citizenry

with a high degree of fellow feeling and a sense

of shared purpose.

The communitarian leg of social democracy

has proven at least as difficult for the contem-

porary Left to stand on as its economic leg. It

may smack of nationalism or exclusivism; but ifyou want a social order based on solidarity and

the priority of public goods over individual

interests, you need a sense of fraternity and

common interest. So long as nation-states

remain the basic form of political organization

in the world, moreover, such fellow feeling will

have to be fostered within national borders.

Leftists who cant deal with this will end up

ceding ground politically to the radical Right

and to populists of different sorts, who will

provide the feeling of community that peoplecontinue to want.

This is risky territory, because the dark side

of communitarianism can be very dark indeed.

The Left cannot peddle fascism-light, nor can

it accept nativism and prejudice. But ignoring

the desire for some sort of community at a time

when long-standing cultural traditions are

constantly questioned is a recipe for disaster.

How to generate strong and emotionally

satisfying communities in an increasingly post-

modern world is one of the major challenges of

the century. One practical implication is that the

multiculturalism in vogue among contemporary

leftists (every group has its own values and all

are equally valid) is as much a threat to the

Left as is the changing nature of capitalism. The

desire of many leftists simply to ignore the issue

because it is too sensitive is also not a viable

long-term strategy. The Left needs to deal forth-

rightly with the social and cultural divisions

currently roiling Europe and to suggest ways to

accommodate diversity that do not require

giving up shared principles and traditions.

The Road Ahead

The European Left stands today at a truly critical

juncture. A shadow of its former and potential

self, it has gone down in flames in recent elec-

tions largely because it has no coherent narrative

of current problems or convincing plans for

dealing with them. The center Right, on the other

hand, has adopted enough of the old social demo-

cratic program to appear non-threatening to

center and center-left voters; it also appears more

competent and less divided than its leftist coun-

terparts. Is it any wonder that it has emerged

victorious in recent elections?

Nonetheless, the center Right has not done

particularly well in helping Europe recover

from the crisis, nor does it have a vision of howcapitalism could be managed to create a more

just and prosperous future. Vigorous and

sustained recovery would require recognition of

capitalisms strengths and weaknesses and a

coherent long-term program to reconcile these

two halves of the capitalist beast. This has

historically been the contribution of the social

democratic Left. Today, as in the past, a truly

democratic Left should be prepared to deal with

capitalism in a progressive way. This means

fighting for policies that help people adjust toeconomic change rather than resist it. It means

investing in training and education programs

that prepare the work force for new jobs and

industries. It means giving up the fight to

protect unproductive businesses and declining

industries and instead helping workers adjust to

changing labor market conditions and providing

incentives to invest in new industries and

endeavors. It means reshaping welfare state

policies so that they encourage social

adjustment rather than merely provide social

protection. More generally, it means using the

powers of the state to promote growth and

equality. As always, the social democratic Left

should work simultaneously to improve living

standards and to create a fairer and more just

society. In todays world, these goals remain as

important and attractive as ever.

Alongside a lack of plans for dealing with the

challenges of twenty-first-century capitalism, the

center Right also lacks a convincing plan for

dealing with the challenge of diversity. Many of

its parties deal with popular fears and anxietiesby indirectly aping the arguments of their




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colleagues further to the right. This has perhaps

succeeded in assuaging the concerns of some

voters, but given demographic realities, it is

neither a viable nor attractive long-term strategy.

What is required is a recognition of the costs and

benefits of diversityof the dislocation and

disorientation, but also of the strength and

growththat comes from bringing new voices

and perspectives into European societies. A

program that insists on the non-negotiable

nature of certain fundamental principles

democracy, tolerance, respect for minorities, and

so onwhile also incorporating realistic plans for

assimilation is Europes only hope for social

peace and solidarity. Here, too, the Left has an

advantage over the Right, as social democrats

have traditionally focused on the need to connectcitizens communitarian longings with

democracy. Right now, this means that the Left

must confront the fears and anxieties of many

citizens rather than ignoring them, as it too often

does, or denigrating them as racist. Leftists must

renew their advocacy of values and goals that

have historically been theirsdemocracy, full

citizenship, and equalityand they must ask

new members of European societies to respect

these values and pursue these goals just as older

members have. They must press for policies that

will help immigrants achieve equal status and a

strong stake in their new homes. A radical intol-

erance for discrimination must be accompanied

by more active efforts to integrate immigrants

into the economic, social, and cultural life of

European societies. In short, for Europes current

situationcenter-right political dominance, the

continuing growth of radical-right populism, and

economic malaisethe Left, ironically, is largely

to blame. This situation is tragic, not only for

committed leftists, but more generally for those

who want to see a full European recovery. For

this to happen, the Left will have to make a

major course shift and begin to implement social

democratic principles. If it doesnt do that, we arelikely witnessing the end of an era.

Sheri Berman is an associate professor of political science at

Barnard College and the author of The Primacy of Politics:

Social Democracy and the Making of Europes Twentieth

Century. This article draws on material previously published

by the author in Dissent.


S U M M E R 2 0 1 0 DISSENT 29

Socialism and the Current Crisis

R O B I N B L A C K B U R N

Today, because of the crisis, the relevance ofsocialism can and must be addressed not simply

as a desirable long-term goal but as a question

of practical policy, focused on securing jobs,

benefits, and social provision. After giving some

examples of this I will look at what remains

valid and what needs to be changed in classic

socialist values.

In the weeks and months after September

2008, capitalism as we know it was saved from

a near-death experience by massive state inter-

vention that left the U.S. federal authorities

with major assets that included a huge stake in

Citigroup, the countrys largest bank; in A.I.G.,

the largest insurer; and in G.M., the worldslargest automobile concern. Fannie Mae, the

mortgage giant, was returned to public hands.

Although it is ridiculous to label these

desperateand temporarymeasures

socialism, it would be equally absurd not to

see that public ownership on this scale

presented an element of a distinctly socialist

approach, especially given the rapid success of

the intervention.

The visible bailout was huge but was greatly

exceeded by the invisible bailout whereby

banks could borrow money from the Federal

Reserves discount window at only 0.5 percent

interest, while lending out that same money at

4 percent or 8 percent or 16 percent. There was

also a largebut not large enoughstimulus

package, too much in the form of tax cuts and

too little in the form of investment in infra-

structure and new manufacturing. The rescuepackage staved off the crisis, and nearly all the

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Berman 2010_European Left