Is a Robust Social Democracy the Best the Left has to Offer?

The large center-left, allegedly social democratic parties in Europe and North America are increasingly becoming irrelevant, hollowed-out shells of their former selves by abandoning party core principles, core constituents, and largely embracing right-wing conservative ideology as their own in an attempt to be taken "seriously" by the electorate and media. A good example of this can be seen in Britain's Labour Party leader Ed Milliband's recent legitimization of the governing Conservatives austerity agenda. Three years away from the next general election, Labour has effectively endorsed the Conservative Party's ideology and managed to alienate their own supporters while doing nothing to persuade independent voters from choosing Labour in the process.

Europe's large social democratic parties, like Britain's Labour, Germany's SPD, Scandinavia's Social Democrats, as well as those in financially-stricken countries like Spain, Portugal, and Greece, currently offer no better alternative to their right-wing counterparts other than a less harsh version of conservative, neoliberal doctrine. The same can be said of the supposedly center-left Democratic Party in the United States, who have largely embraced austerity and right-wing economics so as to be considered "serious" and "responsible".

Germany's SPD has lost hundreds of thousands of members in only a few years

The mainstream Left thus finds itself in a predicament; they cannot stray too far to the left for policies for fear of becoming unelectable, but their rightward shift has angered vast swathes of their formerly-ardent supporters, who are leaving en masse to alternative leftist parties. This shift has meant that the Left, out of new ideas, are in danger of becoming (or finalizing their transition to) conservatives-lite - Labour, for example, is increasingly being perceived by their core supporters of offering essentially the same social and economic platform as the Conservatives.

The mainstream Left is out of ideas. It has proven itself unable to build upon its successes of the past. This begs the question: Is a robust social democratic society the best the Left has to offer?

For many decades, the Left was able to smooth out the rough edges of capitalism so as to create a better, more prosperous, more healthy, more progressive society. The safety net may vary from country to country, but its existence is unquestioned. Though unquestioned, it is still threatened. That is the crux of the problem for social democrats everywhere - the safety net is under attack, its future uncertain, and the very fact that it can be destroyed means that there is a potentially gaping hole in future society that will need to be filled to avoid mass poverty and deprivation. The Left needs to fill this hole, but at the moment, they have no idea how to.

Instead of building upon their past successes, parties of the Left are joining conservatives in tearing them down. Though many countries have succeeded in vastly reducing poverty, hunger, deprivation, etc., they have not abolished them. Unemployment, high at the moment due to the financial crisis, nonetheless remains a constant threat for millions.

The vast majority of Democrats voted along with Republicans to deregulate Wall Street in 1999

The Left must come up with new ideas, new movements, new ways to improve life so that even in a recession as deep as the current one, citizens may stay out of poverty, can remain employed, can enjoy a high standard of living, need not go hungry, need not lose their homes, their savings, their health. The Left must find a way to reverse the effects of financial policies of the past several decades that have resulted in increased productivity but stagnant wages and the vast majority of income and wealth growth going to an incredibly small amount of the population who was already affluent to begin with.

A living wage, unemployment insurance, universal healthcare, social security, and the rest of the safety net is good, but it is not enough. For social democracy is under attack, the safety net is being torn down bit by bit, and the Left in Europe and North America is at its ideologically weakest in decades.

Now is the time for the Left to reinvigorate itself. Now is the time for the Left to reassert itself. Now is the time for the Left to return and fulfill its time-honored goals. The Left must offer a true alternative to neoliberalism. The Left must renew itself, or it will fade, wither, and die.

Austerity is not the Answer

Since the collapse of the global economy in 2007-2008, almost every industrialized country has embarked on a series of so-called austerity measures, in an apparent attempt to either grow the economy by contraction, reduce accumulated debt, or sometimes both.

Such measures involve in most cases drastically scaling back social spending and social safety nets - pensions, welfare, unemployment benefits - while raising taxes and privatizing formerly-public institutions. These actions inevitably fall the hardest upon those who most depend upon public services: the poor, the middle-class, minorities, students, the working class. In these tough economic times, citizens are told, governments and countries must endure "shared sacrifice" and to "live within their means". This narrative has been taken up by most of Europe's governments, the majority of whom are conservative, as well as the United States - despite having a Democratic President and Senate.

Though the austerity movement is pervasive and being attempted everywhere, it is not the answer. For nowhere is austerity working the way its proponents said it would. Indeed, it appears to be causing more harm than good, and coincidentally happens to be favoring the rich, big businesses, and corporations; though calls are made for "shared sacrifice", almost nothing of substance is being asked of the rich or corporations to contribute to the effort in scaling back.

The rich don't need pensions, welfare, or social security. The rich don't care if health care is reduced, as they are already healthy and can afford quality care if they need it. Corporations are making record profits and have no desire to see things change, as firing large sections of their workforce increases their profits while not reducing efficiency. At a time when the vast majority of society needs the essential services that government social spending provides, they are being told that it can no longer be afforded, and they must make do without.

It appears that this is partly a matter of priorities, and governments everywhere have shown that their main priorities are maintaining the banking and financial systems, which have cost billions and trillions of dollars to preserve. Though it was these institutions' reckless greed and irresponsible behavior that caused this global recession, the myth persists that it was the debt that caused the crisis, rather than the other way around. Nobody seemed to care about their country's debt before the global recession - why should it matter now? It matters now because it presents a fantastic opportunity for conservatives and neoliberals to radically transform society into what they hope will be a libertarian utopia. Trillions of dollars are put aside to salvage the financial sector, but in exchange, teachers must lose their jobs, workers have to give up more for the same benefits, education budgets must be drastically cut, and millions of people must reduce their quality of life - all because of a relatively small handful of people/organizations and their insatiable appetite for making more money.

Many proponents of austerity proclaim that cutting services, cutting debt, and cutting spending is the only way to shore up business confidence, and in this way the economy will grow by contraction. Yet this business confidence is nowhere to be seen, with the cruel effects of the cutting being shown in the millions of people in the United States who are now living on food stamps, unemployment benefits, and are without jobs. It can be seen in the rioting and mass protests in the United Kingdom, Greece, and France.

It seems that, despite widespread public opposition to such cuts, conservative and even leftist parties are agreed on this course of austerity.

In the United States, the Republican Party's objectives of dismantling the New Deal and returning the country to 1900-era standards of living are nakedly obvious; they are merely using the financial crisis (a crisis they largely helped to create) as a way to savagely exterminate the feeble American safety net of unemployment insurance, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. This can be seen in the vast majority of states under Republican governors and legislatures, and all with disastrous results. The undemocratic breaking of unions in Wisconsin and Ohio, the destruction of unemployment insurance in Florida - these measures were not causes of the crisis, but are nonetheless being targeted merely because of the ideological opposition of radical neo-fascist Republicans. Such drastic spending cuts are sure to harm the economy, as most economists and even financial institutions such as Goldman Sachs say. Their argument is that the U.S. is spending too much, and so-called "entitlements" need to be reformed, that is, destroyed. This argument, for cutting spending, reforming the safety net, and balancing the budget, has largely been taken up by the Democratic Obama administration, as well as most Democratic state governors - despite there being an incredibly strong case to be made for running a deficit, raising taxes on the rich, fixing the corruption inherent in Wall Street and Washington, and reversing all of the negatives the Bush administration inflicted upon the country.

Republicans say the U.S. has a spending problem, but this could not be farther from the truth. Taxes are the lowest they've been for decades, with the vast majority of the $1.4 trillion deficit coming from Bush-era policies. Though the stimulus added some to the deficit, most of the rest of that has been because of the economy's decline, as more people require unemployment insurance, food stamps, health care, and so on. Neither the U.S. deficit or national debt are serious problems at the moment, despite all the rhetoric. The U.S. debt-to-GDP ratio is about average for industrialized countries, and while the $1.4 trillion deficit sounds large, the United States still has the largest economy in the world by far, at over $15 trillion. Interest rates are low and foreign governments still are more than willing to buy U.S. Treasury bonds; the deficit is not a problem. That extremely fiscally conservative Republican ideology has been largely embraced by President Obama and many other state Democratic governors and parties despite widespread popular opposition to such policies is worrying for the future of the United States.

In Great Britain, David Cameron's Conservative Party have embarked upon a radical agenda of draconian cuts to the British social safety net, despite dressing up the process in somewhat progressive terms. These cuts come amid mass demonstrations that oppose them, as well as riots against the raising of student fees and other cuts to vital social services. The opposition Labour Party has a large faction of Blairites who largely agree and accept the principle of the Conservatives agenda, thereby failing to present an alternative for the people of the United Kingdom. This comes at a time when the Labour Party should be more relevant than ever, as inequality in Britain is higher than it has been for decades - yet the party is more unfocused, diffident, and weakened that at any point in the last 20 years.

For the European countries that are requiring bailouts due to their financial situation, one can argue about the extent to which such measures are necessary, but what should not be debated is that these countries have lost their ability to democratically determine the course of action the people of those countries want to choose. The IMF, European Central Bank, and ratings agencies are a group of unelected, unaccountable private institutions whose agenda is clear. They have demanded that countries like Ireland, Greece, and Portugal embark upon severe and drastic austerity measures before they are able to give them the loans they need to help solve their distress. By applying essentially the same measures to each of those countries, regardless of the differences in their situations, these private institutions with leaders who no one elected are dictating the course of action that sovereign nations take, thereby undermining the democratic foundation of these countries' citizens' right to self-determination. Even when, for example, Greece employed such austerity measures as dictated to it by the IMF and ECB, their economy did not recover; in fact, its credit rating has continued to be downgraded while its financial situation shows little sign of improving - despite decreases in the quality of life for most citizens while also drastically and forcibly changing the Greek social landscape.

Austerity is not working. Austerity is not the answer. The best way to grow the economy and reduce debt is by putting people back to work. At a time when private-sector growth is anemic, and can no longer be relied upon to employ the same amount of people that it had before, the government must step in and directly stimulate the economy by massively spending on the employment of its citizens.

When asked what got the U.S. out of the Great Depression, most people will respond with "World War II". What was it about the war that put the economy back on its feet? Massive government spending on the military for several years, combined with much higher taxes on the rich. The United States debt-to-GDP ratio in the middle of World War II was 143%, incredibly higher than it currently is. But after robust economic growth following the end of the war, this was significantly reduced to a point where it was no longer an issue. So why are governments not treating this global economic crisis like World War II? Why not spend massively, not on tanks, rifles, and planes, but on housing, roads, bridges, and rail?

Germany is a good example of a country that has largely pursued a Keynesian economic course; the German government spent large amounts of money keeping their workforce employed, while also giving bailouts to companies on stringent conditions dictating what they could and could not use the money for. As a result, the German economy has grown far faster than any of their neighbors and employment has rebounded. The governing conservative-neoliberal coalition is planning on introducing a tax cut for middle-incomes and a tax hike for higher-incomes, due to the budget deficit being so low.

The money that was used to save the financial sector can also be used to save the middle-class. The beneficiaries of the bailouts need to give back to society what they took through their own negligence, corruption, and criminality. This is a time when public service and government social spending should be higher than ever, when the safety net is strengthened and enhanced, not destroyed. This is a time when people need their government to provide for them because no one else can. This is a time when the excesses of right-wing economic policy should be reversed and destroyed, not the opposite.

Austerity is not the answer. Democracy, citizens, and government are the answer.

Whither the Left?

The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission of the United States has just released its final report on the causes of the economic catastrophe that has so impacted the world. The report concludes that the monumental economic collapse was largely avoidable and occurred mostly because of "human action and inaction"; that is to say, in so many words, insufficient regulatory practices at all levels of government and the private sector combined with an excessive drive to accumulate more wealth by financial institutions, ultimately leading to the worst economic crisis in 80 years.
At the same time that the institutions were causing this financial meltdown, which economically crippled millions of people who had contributed nothing to the crisis, they were rewarded with massive tax-payer-funded bailouts by the government and lavished themselves with massive bonuses.

While this type of financial bust is inherently systemic in a capitalist economy, the magnitude of this crisis should have, in particular, irrevocably damaged right-wing, neoliberal economic practices that preached deregulation of financial sectors and, more broadly, strengthened parties on the Left that are more anti-free market or less pro-capitalism. Yet, despite this demonstration of the deficiencies in neoliberalism or capitalism, the Right appears to have emerged stronger, while the Left is in disarray.

In Europe, only a few countries are currently governed by left-wing parties (Norway, Spain, Portugal among them), while the majority of the rest, including the large economies of Germany, Britain, France, and Italy are run by conservatives and/or neoliberals. Support for social democratic parties like Britain's Labour or Germany's SPD are the lowest they've been in decades.

In the U.S., the Tea Party advocated for even less government regulation and the right-wing Republican Party just won control of the House of Representatives. A Conservative minority government in Canada has remained in power for the past 5 years, despite the opposition's best efforts at unseating them. Chile elected its first conservative president in years.

Certainly, some of the Right's success in Europe can be attributed to a rise in anti-immigrant sentiment, but this doesn't explain wholly why they control a majority of ruling governments on the continent.

Whither the Left? Why has the left wing been unable to conquer the right at a time when they should have already easily done so?

Some think that it's because they have nothing new to offer. If that were true, though, then why did the Republican Party gain so many seats after having essentially the same platform that Americans overwhelmingly rejected in 2006 and 2008?

Perhaps it's because the message isn't getting out about what the Left stands for. This is a possibility. The center/center-left Liberal Party of Canada has been having somewhat of an identity crisis for the past several years, with voters unsure of what the party stands for; their traditional support has steadily eroded. But, if one looks at the fracturing of the Left in European countries, voters are clearly given a variety of options of left-wing choices and it's still not been enough, even for traditionally strong leftist countries like Sweden or Denmark.

One of the major problems facing the Left is this fracturing. The German Left is composed of the Greens, SPD, and Die Linke. The SPD has ruled out the possibility of any future coalition governments with Die Linke, who should be a natural ally. So has the Liberal Party of Canada thus far appeared offended at even the mention of joining with the social democratic NDP. The Obama administration's disdain for the "Professional Left" has been well-documented. If everyone on the Left apparently hates each other, then they cannot unite and therefore allow the Right to take control. The French Right is united behind the UMP, after several conservative and center-right parties merged together several years ago.

For so-called "Big Tent" parties who were recently unseated by their conservative counterparts, like Labour in Britain or the SPD in Germany, the fracturing of the Left attributed to their decline in popularity, as traditional core supporters disliked Tony Blair's Third Way and support of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, while German voters questioned just how socialist the SPD were after they introduced more right-wing policies, like raising the retirement age and changing the way social welfare payments were distributed. The SPD reached a new low in the 2009 Federal election, while the other parties on the German Left achieved historically high percentages.

American liberals became disillusioned with the Democrats when they perceived certain right-wing policies of the Obama administration, and they stayed home during the 2010 midterms. It can be inferred, therefore, that supporters of center-left or Left wing parties expect these parties to behave in a certain ideological fashion, an expectation that can be sometimes harsh on parties that have to develop policies in a more pragmatic fashion due to the circumstances of the situation.

The mutual dislike the Left feels for itself has only done more to damage to its common cause; austerity is the new nationalization in Europe as a result of conservative governments who proclaim to want to rein in spending and reduce deficits, but possibly have a thinly-veiled desire to tear up the social safety net. Pillars of Left-wing political monuments, like Britain's NHS or America's Social Security program are inching closer to the chop-block. For those who believe in a large government presence and social programs designed to smooth the rough edges of capitalism, they face a severe threat to their cherished ideals.

With in-fighting, blame, and accusations the order of the day for the Left, however, the defense of these pillars has become weaker at a time when they should be assured. For a resurgence of the Left, common cause and consensus will have to be found. As well, the impatience of many who want change and progress will have to be overcome, as the journey in the future will be a long, bumpy ride.