"Prospects for the European Left: A Peak at the Electoral Situation" by Daniel Skidmore-Hess

Daniel Skidmore-Hess

Over a quarter century has passed since the social democratic left appeared to be in any position to make a fundamental break with capitalism. By 1983, the French Socialist Party (PSF) had clearly accepted the “necessity” of fiscal discipline and campaign rhetoric concerning a “rupture” with the logic of capital was no longer heard. By then, the efforts of Swedish Social Democrats (SAP) to actualize worker self-management through the practical proposals embodied in the Meidner Plan had faltered as well. Within the decade, the “actually existing socialism” in Eastern Europe began to crumble and the transition that followed was not the gradual reform of state socialism for which some had hoped. Instead, a rapid and socially dislocating switch to market economics ensued.

At this time, there is no social democratic movement that gives lip service, let alone concretely seeks to transform an advanced capitalist society in the direction of democratic socialism. The combination of ideological exhaustion and capitalist globalization has left all social democratic parties explicitly within the center of the political spectrum. Indeed, in some instances the more spirited social liberal parties are now clearly to the left of their social democratic rivals, especially when one factors in such issues as the Iraq war, ecology, immigration, and LGBT liberation. (examples: Denmark: RV now left of SD, & UK Lib Dems vs. Labour)
Social democracy can then no longer be confused with democratic socialism. The mainstream social democratic, labor, and socialist parties of Europe are now conservative factors in European politics, mainly concerned with managing and preserving the welfare state. Yet socialist parliamentary groupings to the left of the mainstream social democrats also remain a commonplace in European politics. These parties represent a variety of Old Left communist parties, New Left often green-oriented movements, and various combinations thereof. They are electorally successful to a point, yet with the sole exception of the Progress Party of the Working People of Cyprus, none is in position to form or lead a government, in contrast to their centrist social democratic rivals. These parties, unlike their social democratic rivals, remain committed in principle to a transformational Left politics. IN effect, all are pursuing an approach akin to the classical, pre-Leninist Marxism of the Second International’s SPD, that is to say engaging in electoral politics, although their specific understandings of the value and purpose of parliamentary politics may vary.

In Cyprus, the Progress Party received over 30% of the vote in the 2006 elections and is the leading party in the current government. Elsewhere, the Socialist People’s Party in Denmark (13%), the Left-Green Movement in Iceland (14.3%), the Socialist Party in the Netherlands (16.6%) and the Communist Party of the Czech Republic (12.8%) all received above a tenth of the vote, each of these parties is in opposition. In Denmark, the Red-Green Unity List (2.2%) adds a further measure to the Left. In Greece and Portugal the combined vote of “transformational left” factions exceeds ten percent; for Greece the Communist Party (8.2%) plus the Coalition of the Radical Left (5.0%) and for Portugal the Communist Party/Greens (7.6%) and the Left Bloc (6.4%). These parties are all in opposition as well. Additional parliamentary representation, with single digit popular support, may be found in the EU Parliament, Spain, Finland, Sweden, France, Switzerland, Germany, Ireland, Norway, San Marino, Ukraine, Serbia, and the UK. In Italy, Luxembourg, and Austria the Left polled 1.0-03.1% of the vote, but failed to gain a parliamentary representative.

Given the lessons of history, we can expect that but few of these parties will rise to power & those that do will likely be absorbed into the political fabric of late capitalist Europe much as their social democratic forerunners. Given this, what progressive reforms are may they most plausibly achieve? How may they best resist or even seek to alter the processes of globalization?