Subject: The Euroleft, or, Who's Afraid of Tina?/DANIEL SINGER/The Nation
source: The Nation (New York) January 11 1999
The Euroleft, or, Who's Afraid of Tina?
by DANIEL SINGER
Europe, you are rightly told, is swinging to the left. In thirteen of the
fifteen countries making up the European Union, the Social
Democrats are now in office. And on the eve of the historic moment
when eleven of the union members will inaugurate their common
currency, the euro, these leftist governments were reportedly putting
pressure on the central bankers to relax their deflationary policy, to
lower interest rates in order to spur production. With only Spain and
Ireland still having openly conservative administrations, the European
electorate has clearly rejected right-wing rule.
But does this herald a socialist revival or, less ambitiously, the
resurrection of social democracy? And if the prospect is even less
exciting, can a new New Left, buoyed by a movement from below,
put pressure on these governments and push them in a more radical
direction? As the certitudes of the ruling religion of the market are
being shaken by the world economic crisis, the change of chancellors
in Germany--the replacement of the Christian Democrat Helmut Kohl
by the Social Democrat Gerhard Schröder--has put such unorthodox
questions on the European agenda.
To answer the questions requires defining the shifting terms and,
hence, a bit of history. Social democracy once stood for the parties
trying to bring the reign of capital to an end; Lenin and Rosa
Luxemburg were social democrats. The sense of the word, however,
was reversed after World War II. It has since meant the reformist
management of the existing society; indeed, the quarter-century after
the war, the so-called golden age of capitalism--years in Western
Europe of exceptionally rapid growth, rising living standards and the
extension of the welfare state--was a period particularly favorable for
this new interpretation. The climate in Western Europe was "social
democratic" even when left-wing parties were not in office.
The irony is that by the early seventies, when almost
everybody--including the Communists deprived of their Stalinist
model--was converted to the idea that the aim was no longer to
change society but to make changes within its framework, the era of
unprecedented prosperity was over. The last quarter-century has seen
a reversal of policy, an attempt to take back the concessions granted
in the years of expansion and a growing tendency to follow the
American example. The past fifteen years have also witnessed a
complete change in the ideological climate. Keynesian reformism went
out of fashion as the system returned to the law of the capitalist jungle.
Those who protested were silenced with the magic formula
"Tina"--there is no alternative--the nickname given Maggie Thatcher,
who had General Pinochet for tea and who used to proclaim louder
and more often than anybody that there is no exit from our society.
The snag is that Tina then became the dominant feature of political
debate, accepted, nay, absorbed by the left, whose moderate leaders
were offered the unenviable task of acting as the counterreforming
managers of existing society.
Are they now rebelling against this difficult duty? It must be
remembered that whatever the readiness of Britain's Tony Blair,
France's Lionel Jospin, Germany's Gerhard Schröder or Italy's
converted Communist Massimo D'Alema to follow the US model, it
was always tempered by popular resistance to attacks on the welfare
state, resistance that was strongest in France and weakest in Britain.
Besides, now that they are all in office together, they are well aware
that they will be judged essentially on their handling of unemployment.
With the gospel of globalization weakened by the economic crisis,
they now have more room for maneuver. In any case, their audacity
should not be exaggerated. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan
Greenspan has cut interest rates three times; paradoxically, for once
the US financial establishment is not on the side of Europe's keepers
of financial orthodoxy. Washington wants Western Europe to play an
active role in fighting the threat of world depression.
The problem facing Europe's Social Democrats is not only monetary.
It is whether they are ready to challenge financial orthodoxy with a
project designed to fight unemployment and, more broadly, to defend
the interests of working people. Much will depend on the
performance of the newcomers. In Germany the mood of the rank
and file and the stand of IG Metall and other labor unions will
determine whether Oskar Lafontaine, the country's new economic
overlord, will challenge the financial establishment and its protégé, the
Dutchman Wim Duisenberg, the president of the new European
Central Bank, who cares more about a strong currency than about
low unemployment. In the months after the reign of the euro starts on
January 1, Germany may be the place to watch. Meanwhile, to
understand the dilemmas of the European left, one must look at
Britain, with its Clintonian Tony Blair; at France, where something is
stirring on the fringes of the left; and at Italy, which has dramatically
raised the question of the relations between radicals and moderates
within the European movement.
Thatcherism With a Human Face
If you want to know the philosophy inspiring Tony Blair, read the
opuscule of his purported guru, Anthony Giddens, The Third
Way--or, because seldom have so many platitudes been packed into
so little space, I shall spare you the effort by summing up its essence.
The gist of his argument is based on the assumption that we are living
in a world in which there are no alternatives to capitalism, that
socialism is dead and that even the reformist objectives of social
democracy are obsolete. There is still a difference between left and
right, concedes Giddens, but fortunately it has been so reduced that "it
permits exchange across political fences." With such a diagnosis it is
easy to imagine the remedies. The state has an essential role to play in
providing "the infrastructure needed to develop an entrepreneurial
culture." The welfare state must be "reconstructed," with social
benefits kept not too high so as to avoid "moral hazard" (read: the lazy
blighters won't work). The author is, naturally, against "an obsession
with inequality" and against "limits to the working week fixed by
government."
How does Tony the performer get away with playing such a script?
Charisma, spin doctors and efficient publicity? No, there is a deeper
reason: In Britain Europe's labor movement suffered its most serious
defeat back in 1984, when Thatcher took on the miners. Because
other trade-union leaders did not rally behind the strikers, she
defeated them after an epic one-year struggle that altered the balance
of forces in the country. It takes time to recover from such a major
setback. Blair now has more latitude to ignore popular discontent
because he did nothing, on coming to power, to restore the balance in
favor of working people. Naturally, such situations are not eternal.
There are already some signs of discontent within the Labor Party. At
the last party conference, held in Blackpool at the end of September,
in the elections to the National Executive Committee from the
constituency branches--the only direct vote reflecting the mood of the
militants, of the rank and file--the left, critical of the current line, won
four of the six available seats.
The leadership, however, need not worry. With its control of the
party machinery and with the rules tightened still further in
undemocratic fashion, the critics will be gagged. What is more
important, most of the places in both parliamentary and local elections
will be duly reserved for the faithful. Blair is safe, especially as long as
he rides high in the ratings, though these could slump next year if the
economy falters. In any case, for the time being, the leader of the
Labor Party is the only one in Europe who can drive his party and his
country in the American direction. Britain, to borrow the language of
Giddens, "could be a sparking point for creative interaction between
the US and continental Europe." If Tony's social democratic
colleagues try to change their economic course, you can count on him
to apply the brakes. With speeches full of references to dynamism
and enterprise, he will be there defending the interests of the
employers.
'La Gauche de la Gauche'
Lionel Jospin is at the other end of the social democratic spectrum.
Not that he looks beyond the capitalist horizon. Far from it. He was
an influential member of François Mitterrand's team, which converted
the French left to consensus politics and obedience to the rules of the
international market. Indeed, during his nineteen months as prime
minister he has privatized more than his conservative predecessor. But
Jospin is also the byproduct of the strikes and demonstrations that
shook France in the winter of 1995. He is sensitive to pressure from
below. To preserve his leftish reputation, he has decreed that a
thirty-five-hour workweek will be legally binding in two years, and
he's urged his European partners to put the struggle against
unemployment at the top of their agenda. Unlike Blair, he does dream
of a reformist management of the existing society, though he does not
mobilize the mass movement that would be necessary for this
purpose.
What did that French winter of discontent change? Nothing
fundamental in the structure of the country, but something subtle in its
mood. It precipitated President Chirac's decision to hold a snap
parliamentary election, which brought the victorious Jospin to the
prime minister's office. It probably drove Jospin to form a coalition
with the Communists and the Greens as junior partners in his
government. The existence of this "plural left," as it is called, created a
void on its left. In the local elections held last March, the Trotskyists
captured nearly 5 percent of the vote. This was not a sudden French
conversion to the ideas of the prophet of permanent revolution but a
warning by the radical electorate accusing the rulers of excessive
moderation, a warning that was particularly worrying for the
Communists but perturbing for all members of the coalition. The
government must take into account the fact that it can lose votes on its
left.
The change in the general atmosphere is at once difficult to define and
undeniable. The idea of Tina is no longer supreme. Articles and
essays are being published questioning the reign of the market,
domestic and foreign, as well as the domination of our life by money.
The monthly Le Monde diplomatique, a nonconformist journal, has
gained in influence. A series of little books, not necessarily red in
color but critical in substance, edited by the well-known sociologist
Pierre Bourdieu and called "Reasons to Act" is selling like hotcakes.
(Serge Halimi's indictment of the media servants of the system holds
the record so far, with 200,000 copies). The virulence of attacks
against Bourdieu since he has become more directly involved in
politics is symptomatic. He is accused of using his prestige and his
position at the top of the French academic establishment--he is a
professor in the holy of holies, the Collège de France--to undermine
the established order. The anger of his many accusers is a sign that the
priests of the ruling religion have lost their supreme self-confidence.
But they are not on the run. Indeed, the protesters have failed so far in
their greatest ambition. At the height of the strike in 1995 labor
activists and intellectuals decided to work together in search of
alternative solutions. And they did for quite a time, both in Paris and
the provinces. The contacts thus established have certainly proved
useful, but these General Estates of the Social Movement did not
produce concrete counterproposals, let alone the outlines of an
alternative project. They did not crown their efforts, as was originally
projected, with a vast national conference. But the search for different
solutions, for another future, has not been abandoned. Actually, a new
body, the Copernic Foundation, has just been set up by unionists and
intellectuals to encourage such work.
It is clear, however, that it will take quite a lot of time, and a great
deal of pushing by a genuine movement from below, before the vision
of an alternative society emerges. Yet one has the impression that
France is already ripe for the rebirth of a new New Left. It could be
centered around radical labor activists and the militants in what the
French call le mouvement des sans (movement of the
"withouts"--people without shelter, workers without jobs, immigrants
without documents). If they can combine their activity with a broader
project, they would exercise a great attraction not only for many
Communists but also for the left ranks of the Greens and the
Socialists, thus changing substantially the political balance in the
country.
Divided They Fall?
How should this budding radical left--numerically inferior, to begin
with--deal with the mainstream left, more respectful of the established
order? The problem has become salient in Italy since October 9,
when, amid a chorus of condemnation, Fausto Bertinotti, leader of
Rifondazione Comunista, or Communist Refounding, chose to bring
down a center-left government headed by Romano Prodi. Was he
right in principle? And if so, were his timing and manner appropriate?
Italy's Communist Party changed its name and policies after 1989 to
move out of opposition. Now, as the Left Democrats (DS), they sit
on the conservative side within the Socialist International, and since
October their leader, Massimo D'Alema, has been Italy's prime
minister. Meanwhile, many militants left the party and set up
Rifondazione, which was joined by fragments of Italy's New Left. By
1994 the new party had a two-headed leadership: The traditionalists
were represented by the president, Armando Cossutta; the radicals
by the secretary, Bertinotti, a newcomer who had built his reputation
as a progressive labor leader.
In April 1996 the left won the parliamentary election. D'Alema's
party, though the strongest within the ruling Olive Tree coalition,
which included the Left Democrats, leftish Christian Democrats and
technocrats, did not demand the prime minister's job, which was given
to Prodi, a moderate Catholic economist. The task of the government
was to tighten the country's belt, to reduce the deficit so that Italy
could join the euro from the start. Rifondazione stayed outside the
government, but its thirty-four votes were needed for a parliamentary
majority.
There were strains. In October of 1997 a break was avoided only at
the last minute when Prodi promised a law ordaining a thirty-five-hour
workweek as a reward. But it was clear that once Italy was admitted
into the monetary club, matters would come to a head. Bertinotti
expressed it in a metaphor: You are made to walk in the desert
because you must reach the oasis on the horizon. Once there, you are
told: Sorry, it was a mirage, keep on going. His party was not moving.
Unless it was shown a concrete shift in policy in favor of the working
people, it would not vote for the budget. Cossutta protested that to
precipitate the crisis now was to open the door for the tycoon Silvio
Berlusconi and the neo-fascist Gianfranco Fini. Although Bertinotti
carried the party, Cossutta held the parliamentary group. Twenty-one
Rifondazione deputies voted for the budget, but thirteen followed
Bertinotti and voted against it. That was enough. Prodi was defeated
313 to 312.
Now we can move on to the heart of the matter. I think Bertinotti was
right on the principle at stake. All the precedents in the left-wing
movement, notably in the British Labor Party, show that if you turn
the defense of the bad against the worse into a categorical imperative,
you carry no weight. You let the Clintons, Blairs and Prodis get away
with murder. They take you for granted. The only way you count is if
they know that beyond a certain point, you will not hesitate to veto
their action. The timing? The result did not prove as dramatic as
predicted. D'Alema, the real master, replaced Prodi as prime minister.
Admittedly, to get this result, the votes of the Christian Democratic
supporters of the reactionary former president, Francesco Cossiga,
were required. You now have a government with a follower of
Cossutta sitting together with supporters of Cossiga. This should
worry his comrades, and the Left Democrats should be perturbed to
discover how far their party is ready to move to the right. But these
are confirmations of the state of things rather than new departures.
The ideal way in which the radical left should proceed is by sketching
the vision of a different society, by presenting an alternative project
and mobilizing a mass movement behind it. It can win in Parliament
only if it wins the minds of the people in the country. Bertinotti would
probably not disagree, though he can plead that Rifondazione is not
the only party that is still in the early stages of its search for an
alternative.
This, then, is the state of the European left at the fascinating stage
when things are beginning to move once again. Historians may well
conclude that the French winter of discontent was the ideological
turning point. Tina was badly shaken when the protesters proclaimed,
If that is the future we are offered, to hell with it, alternative or no
alternative! But to get rid of Tina altogether, we must build on this
foundation. Democratically, from below, we must start elaborating an
alternative project, outlining the vision of a different future. This task,
however, is not specifically Italian, French or European. It is our
urgent and common task.
Daniel Singer is The Nation's Europe correspondent. His new
book, Whose Millennium?: Theirs or Ours? will be published by
Monthly Review this spring.