English historian Tony Judt has a powerful essay in the latest New York Review of Books which is a must-read for anyone interested in the future of the Left. Titled What is Living and What is Dead in Social Democracy? it starts out considering the old question why there is no socialism in America and then takes the reader through a history of social democracy in twentieth century political thought, ending with a call to action that should stir even the most jaded Labour heart.
He frames the twentieth century’s contest of ideas around Hayek and Keynes. And then charts the rise of the post-war welfare state. Its great success, here in New Zealand and in the US, the UK and everywhere it was tried, was the reduction in social and economic inequality. The great paradox of the welfare state was that its success undermined its own appeal. The generation that remembered the 1930s was the most committed to hanging on to progressive taxation, strong public institutions, and universal social services. Those who came later began to forget why they had sought such security in the first place. Remember NZ in the 1980s anyone?
The next three decades saw the rise of neo-liberalism, a reassertion of the Right, which set about the conquest of the political high ground in every western society and the dismantling of the institutions of the post-war social democratic compromise. Read it and weep: the flattening of tax scales, winding back of social assistance, privatisation of the functions of the state. And no big surprise, the return of high levels of inequality.
There is a great discussion of privatisation in which he contrasts the British approach to the railways with that taken by the Italians and the French. In 1996, the year before the UK privatised rail, they boasted the lowest public subsidy of rail in Europe per capita (9 pounds). The French subsidy was 21 pounds, the Italian 33; a differential reflected in the quality of the service and the state of the infrastructure.
The French and the Italians have long treated their railways as a social provision. Running a train to a remote region, however cost-ineffective, sustains local communities. It reduces environmental damage by providing an alternative to road transport. The railway station and the service it provides are thus a symptom and symbol of society as a shared aspiration.
Judt isn’t sentimental about social democracy. It was after all, the era’s belated response to the dilemmas of capitalism, and as he points out our problems are rather different. He thinks we are entering a new age of uncertainty, with climate change and the volatility of our globalised world economy posing a threat to peace and prosperity of comparative scale to the ones faced by our forebears in the early years of the twentieth century. The challenges might be different but we should look to the ways our grandparents’ generation responded. Social democracy, the New Deal in the US, and the first Labour Government’s reforms here in New Zealand were direct responses to the insecurities and injustices of the time.
The task of the Left says Judt is to remind people of the achievements of the twentieth century, along with the consequences of our heedless rush to dismantle them. If social democracy has a future it is as a ’social democracy of fear’ – the fear of what we have to lose. The Right on the other hand has inherited the modernist totalitarian impulse to destroy in the name of a universal project.
A social democracy of fear is something to fight for. To abandon the labours of a century is to betray those who came before us as well as generations yet to come. It would be pleasing – but misleading – to report that social democracy, or something like it, represents the future that we would paint for ourselves in an ideal world. It does not even represent the ideal past. But among the options available to us in the present, it is better than anything else at hand.
Looking back on 2009, we in Labour have done a fair bit of fighting to defend the gains of the past: opposing regressive tax cuts, cuts to education, health and ACC, and the privatisation of prisons. We’ve outed Key as the leader of a do-nothing government content to sit on its hands while tens of thousands of Kiwis are thrown out of work. We’ve put inequality back on Labour’s agenda, and signalled that ending child poverty will lie at the heart of the next Labour Government’s agenda.
And I like to think that we have revealed a few of the green shoots of a new social democratic politics. First, we defended an emissions trading scheme that actually could have reduced the economy’s long term reliance on carbon. It will come back. Second, we signalled an end to the 1984 consensus on monetary policy, that will I hope lead to an economic policy focused on Kiwi firms, jobs and economic resilience. Third, in opposing the Government’s corporate stitch-up of the Auckland super city, but supporting the Royal Commission’s vision, we have recognised the possibility of strong regional government as the driver of democratic progressive change in our biggest city. Fourth, Labour’s advocacy on open source software and social media hints at the possibilities for new technology to open up more inclusive and democratic political engagement.
Tony Judt’s essay is a great read. It is based on a lecture he gave at New York University on October 19 which you can watch here. A year ago Judt was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s Disease, a neuro-degenerative disorder. He is now a quadraplegic and can only breathe with the aid of a machine. It didn’t stop him getting up in front of an audience and delivering a 90 minute tour de force.
Labour has done a good job in trying to oppose all that National is destroying.
Spud, that is the silliest comment I have heard you make. The only word of truth in it is ‘trying’. Very trying.
But yes I DO think they’re doing a good job
$15 per hour min wage anyone ?
@ Phil Twyford.
Thanks for a great post!
As the consequences of climate change in particular start to seriously affect our lives, I believe people will turn to Labour (together with the Greens I hope) in ever increasing numbers for a solution. In other words history will repeat itself…
It is a good read. I recoil, though, against the idea of social democracy being solely a defence, an effect of fear of something that might happen. One of the reasons that the Right, and neo-liberalism, made so much ground in those three decades is that it posed the prospect a different future (or, at least, told a partial story about a rosy future, playing down the real effects of rhe approach). One of the features of the Western Left is precisely that capacity to look back and adopt a conservative, defensive approach. I hear it, for example, every time a unionist friend bemoans the loss of the award system. The way I see it is this – capitalism is a highly unstable mode of accumulation; capitalists will seek to regulate it only so much, and then, usually, only as an effect of crisis. The Left has divided between those who reject that system and posit an alternative (that may come, but we’ve not done too well on that front so far) and those who seek to manage capitalism better than the capitalists (where I find myself sitting, somewhat to my surprise). If we are to be successful in this project, we have, of course, to reflect on the past and build thereon, but we must also move our model of social democracy forwards. This means, I think, that we have to re-think a range of traditional settings – tax, social protection, international relations and the global order, the environment etc – which will not, I suggest, be done from a basis of a ’social democarcy of fear’.
That is a very thought provoking article and it would be lovely to see Labour returning to this kind of philosophy instead of the watered down neo-liberal approach of the past government. It is also interesting to see that Judt joins John Ralston Saul in quoting Adam Smith against the ideology of our times. Is there a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel? (one that isn’t merely the train coming the other way?)
@ Robert Winter – But isn’t it just the reality that the Right’s project is still essentially dismantling the institutions of social democracy? And that there IS a huge amount still to be lost? (Think ACC.) We have become the new conservatives. And is there anything wrong with that? We should be defending the gains made in nation building, reducing inequalities and building public institutions through the middle years of the twentieth century (1930-70s). Neoliberalism has restored levels of inequality not seen since the 1920s and 30s. As social democrats we should be putting the fear of God into people about the likely consequences of privatisation, flat tax, and cuts to social provision. Because such things should be feared. One of the things I liked about the Judt piece is that he is saying ‘get angry’. We should inject a bit more heart and soul into our politics. But I agree with you we have to rebuild and renew social democracy. Labour and the rest of the centre-left has to build an agenda for the next decade or two, not re-fight the last few decades. We have to nurture those green shoots.
Socialism doesnt exist in America ?
They seem to be in a phase of state owned Sports stadiums, just like us, where the benefit is entirely for private users.
And as for the UK railways privatisation, the public subsidies today , adjusted for inflation, are about twice that of the British Rail era. We can say much the same for Bus Transport in Auckland. Yet some commentators say look the owners are making a profit compared to the ‘ loss’ under public control. Yet some in Labour want public funding of a Hamilton Auckland commuter train service ??
@ ASA – You do the 5th Labour Government an injustice describing it as ‘watered down neo-liberalism’. Its a tad early to assess its lasting impact but for social democrats there is much to celebrate and defend from the Clark-Cullen years. Hope to post on this in the next few days.
Phil
Quite right about the dismantling, the need to defend what we won in the past, the need to get angry about the demolition job done by the neo-liberals, and, and here I am deeply certain that you are right, the need to put more heart and soul into our politics.
But we are not the ‘new conservatives’. We intended to build the welfare state and the rest of what became social democracy in the 1950s-1980s not as a permanent structure, but as a response to the worst crisis (economic and political) then seen by the developed economies. True, it was founded on a long tradition of commitment to strong social protection, strong unions, good education, political freedom, well-paid MPs and the rest, but it wasn’t an end-state. For me, at least, the success of the welfare state has been disarming, for it slowed down, diverted, confused, diluted (pace Crosland) the long-term project for social democracy, such that sometimes I doubt if many now see that we still have most of the hard yards to do in terms of a sustainable, now global, regulated capitalism that is properly democratic. The analogy of the IC and A Act, which gave unions some political space, but which, as an effect of the awards system, damnaged badly rank-and-file trdaitions and organisation, and badly impacted on the quality of union leadership, is apt here.
Angry and active, yes. New conservatives, never.
Might I add that this is precisely the type of debate that Red Alert could foster to great effect? It is a forum of great potential, not just for the dakened-room blogger, but also for social democratic renewal.
With the twin disruptions of climate change and peak oil coming at the same time I think that it’s going to be much worse. We’re coming into a Malthusian Correction that will be compounded by a large chunk of the tropics being uninhabitable and the inability to transport food any appreciable distances the way we do now. We’re far too late to do anything about AGW or Peak Oil. If we had started 30 years ago we may have managed something.
Of course, this does have the effect of reminding people why we have a society in the first place, why we need to limit population and why we need to conserve resources (real resources, not money).
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Well Hayek wasn’t opposed to welfare and Keynes was not really a social democrat. The writer seems to forget the seventies. The stagflation, high unemplyment, high inflation that many blame on Keynesian policies. And what about the current crises – here’s a leading Keynesian Paul Krugman arguing in support of the creation of a housing bubble back in 2002:
How did that housing bubble work out again?
Nixon self-identified as a Keynesian and the supply side economics of the so-called neo-liberals were as influenced by Keynesian thought as they were by liberal economists. That’s not to mention military Keynesianism. And the New Deal as social democrat – if that’s social democracy then you can count me out. The New Deal was corporatist. This is well known since the historical revisionism of the New Left and that’s not to mention the racism, sexism and political persecution from FDR.
While reading the essay I noted this Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich Hayek, Joseph Schumpeter, Karl Popper, and Peter Drucker. The first two were the outstanding “grandfathers” of the Chicago School of free-market macroeconomics.
That’s quite wrong they’re of the Austrian school of economics not the Chicago school.
Very interesting post Phil, and an interesting questions posed too – about whether the Left should be mainly about defending the gains of the 1930-1970 period, battling against neoliberalism which is trying to negate those gains.
I must say I prefer the idea of left-wing politics looking forwards rather than backwards. As we near the end of this decade and look towards what the 2010s (and beyond) hold in store for us, I think that should be the focus – rather than fighting for some sort of return to the 1960s. That’s what Winston Peters does!
I suppose I see the big challenges of the next 20-30 years being environmental based ones (climate change being the obvious example), resource-scarcity (peak oil) and what will eventually happen when we can’t afford to bail the banks out again when the next bubble induced recession happens. I think the focus should be on working out how to best achieve the general principles of the left in this future world, rather than focusing on saving stuff.
What jarbury said, except WITH trying to save stuff.
Good to see you’re still my biggest fan Spud.
I am not saying that we shouldn’t fight against efforts to take away the gains of social democracy. I am just saying that most of the focus should be on the future, not the past. We have some massive issues ahead that will require an enormous level of collective action to fix – and I think the left is fundamentally better equipped to understand that than the right.
It’s no coincidence that most climate change deniers are on the far right. They realise that their political ideology is utterly inept at solving such a large problem, so therefore are in a state of denial about its existence.