With the rise of parties on the far-right and radical left of European party systems, social democratic parties now face a challenge to retain their support base in several European countries. Tom Angier writes that the primary problem facing social democrats is that they have shifted their appeal away from their core constituencies and the social organisations that previously entrenched their place in communities, such as unions and cooperatives. He argues that only be reengaging with their traditional priorities can social democrats hope to arrest this decline

Angier, Tom

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30/01/2015European social democracy is in danger of terminal declineunless it can reengage with its core valuesblogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2015/01/30/european-social-democracy-is-in-danger-of-terminal-decline-unless-it-can-reengage-with-its-core-values/With the rise of parties on the far-right and radical left of European party systems, social democraticparties now face a challenge to retain their support base in several European countries. TomAngier writes that the primary problem facing social democrats is that they have shifted their appealaway from their core constituencies and the social organisations that previously entrenched theirplace in communities, such as unions and cooperatives. He argues that only be reengaging withtheir traditional priorities can social democrats hope to arrest this decline.Europe is in trouble. This is evident at the purely political level, where the EU project elicitsindiﬀerence or hostility from an increasing number of European citizens, and membership of mainstream parties hasdeclined precipitously since 1980. It is evident at the economic level, where wealth is being concentrated in a smallnumber of hands, hands that seem unbound by ties to any particular nation or locale. And it is evident at the level ofcivil society, where the social fabric is being disﬁgured by fears of political Islam, fears unallayed by those whoreduce them, patronisingly, to a form of mental disorder or ‘phobia’.In face of these developments, what should be the response of social democrats? Commentators like TimothyGarton-Ash put their hope in a renewed EU-loyalism, telling UK citizens, for instance, that they are far moreEuropean than they think. Recourse to European identity and values will supposedly preserve us from widespreadpolitical disaﬀection, radical economic inequality and bitter cultural dissension. But this advice sounds more hollowthan ever. Genuine EU-loyalism was never widely or deeply spread, even outside the UK, and worse, in the currentclimate it smacks of a Merkelite version of Am deutschen Wesen soll die Welt genesen – ‘the German spirit willrescue the world’.Indeed, EU structures have moved ever closer to the neo-liberal consensus, thereby ensuring both politicaldisaﬀection and economic inequality, while doing nothing to address incipient cultural conﬂict. What can the left oﬀerthat is not only practicable, but also embodies real hope for the future?Reviving social democracy in EuropeHere we face a problem of great historical moment: namely, the European left’s abandonment of its coreconstituency. Since the 1980s, the working classes have been progressively deprived of a political voice, a situationexacerbated by the increasing ‘immiseration’ of those still clinging to the label ‘middle class’. In the face of suchdownward mobility, those who might have stood up to the emerging status quo have engaged, instead, in a full-scaleretreat. And this has taken place on two main fronts.First, the social front, where the left – previously alive to the reality and signiﬁcance of social classes – has becomeincreasingly enamoured of social justice construed in ‘lifestyle’ or so-called ‘identity’ terms. Here the left’s agendahas shifted to embrace all those priorities prophetically announced in Theodor Adorno’s The AuthoritarianPersonality: ridding the public sphere of ‘prejudice’, ‘discrimination’, ‘intolerance’, ‘bigotry’ and ‘ethnocentrism’. Whatthis new lexicon has enabled, however, is the privileging of policies which appeal primarily to the metropolitan uppermiddle class, whose concerns are of little consequence to the majority of citizens.Such policies are relatively easy to enact, involving no cost to the wealthy, while steadily occluding the real territoryof social justice – namely, the socio-economic well-being of ordinary families. At the same time, the left sees noproblem with the main corollary of identitarian or lifestyle politics: strongly increased powers for the State. For years1/3Credit: PES Communications (CC-BY-SA-3.0)now, the State has been called on to act as auniversal parent (so that when children are harmedby their ‘carers’, outrage is directed not at their familyor wider community, but at the ‘social services’). Butidentity politics has made organs of the State all themore ubiquitous and ready to interfere. By contrast,organisations previously dear to the left – such astrade unions, church schools, mutual societies, andcooperatives – have been either emasculated orrendered defunct.On the economic front, the left’s retreat has beeneven more ignominious. In a thoroughly globalisedeconomy, there is an acute threat of nations (andeven supra-national organisations like the EU) beingat the mercy of multinational corporations’importunate demands. But the European left hasbeen unconscionably slow in addressing this threat.Half-hearted requests are made to close tax-loopholes, and under pressure from citizen groups like UK Uncut, the UK Labour party has paid lip service tocurtailing the activities of tax havens (many of which are ex- or surviving British overseas possessions).But this is too little, too late: it being highly embarrassing that the campaign for a living wage in the UK, for instance,emanated not from any left-leaning political party, but from the independent group, Citizens UK. Governments’reluctance to act against tax havens or in favour of a living wage goes along, of course, with a keenness to deprivethe truly vulnerable of any remaining beneﬁts provided by the welfare state. But once again, the left ﬁnds itselfcowed into submission by those who employ the rhetoric of ‘shirkers’ and welfare ‘cheats’. Such rhetoric could, ifdeployed intelligently and with conviction, be turned against precisely those corporations which have secreted theirwealth outside the countries in which they operate. But the left systematically refuses to rise to this challenge, andinstead conﬁnes itself to suggesting qualiﬁcations and minor adjustments to the neo-liberal programme.What is to be done? To begin with, social democrats need to curtail or abandon their lurch to the lifestyle left. Theyneed to recover a sense of social mission on behalf of hard-working, ordinary families, whose stability and integrity isill-served by the relentless emphasis on ‘diversity’ (which is alienating not least to those from many immigrantcommunities). A sense of responsibility within and for the family is perfectly consistent with traditional left values,and furthermore stands against an agenda that eﬀectively hands over such responsibility to the State.True, the State must be encouraged to stand up for the interests of the truly vulnerable, such as the disabled andchildren in care. But social democracy should not come at the expense of community organisations that have theresources and expertise to do such work. (That such organisations are perfectly consistent with traditional leftpolitics was obscured by David Cameron’s short-lived ‘Big Society’ idea, until it turned out to be a mere cover forfurther privatisation.) One of the most dispiriting aspects of current European life is the way in which both State andmarket have crowded out autonomous civic institutions, and the left should be at the forefront of restoring such civicsocial space.On the economic front, the good of family and community depends largely on shielding them from the depredationsof global capital ﬂuctuations. To prevent further economic impoverishment of the middle class, there must be aconcerted eﬀort among social democrats to prevent nations being at the beck and call of multinational corporations.Resistance to the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership between the EU and the US should therefore be asocial democratic priority. More widely, real pressure must be brought to bear on the abuses perpetrated by taxhavens, and on those businesses which refuse to pay their workers a living wage (not to speak of those that make2/3widespread use of unpaid internships and zero-hours contracts).If Europe becomes thus socially minded once again, the fortunes of political Islam may even be likely to wane, sinceby all accounts it oﬀers itself as a solution to those who feel socially and economically most disenfranchised. Butequally, a return to traditional left priorities is likely to allay the anti-immigrant fears of the white indigenouspopulation, whose social and economic prospects have been so drastically undermined since the ﬁnancial crisis. Letus hope that in discerning its future path, the European left will ﬁnally stop shirking its pressing responsibilities.Please read our comments policy before commenting .Note: This article gives the views of the author, and not the position of EUROPP – European Politics and Policy, norof the London School of Economics.Shortened URL for this post: http://bit.ly/1ybKbEQ _________________________________About the authorTom Angier – University of Cape TownTom Angier is a Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Cape Town. He was previously aTeaching Fellow at the University of St Andrews. His research focus is on Ethics and PoliticalTheory, with a speciﬁc interest in Ancient Greek approaches.3/3

European social democracy is in danger of terminal decline unless it can reengage with its core values

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