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René Cuperus
Social democrats must reaffirm their commitment to people whose security is threatened by modernisation.
The project of Andrea Nahles and John Cruddas must be supported. Their inspiring future-oriented idea of a good society is exactly what is needed to get contemporary European social democracy out of its pessimist, gloomy depression.
But we should be sharp and precise: what good society do we have in mind and for whom? European social democracy faces an existential crisis for one reason: the electorate is of the opinion that social democracy is betraying the good society it once promised and stood for - the good society of equal citizenship, solidarity, social mobility, trust and strong community. The electorate thinks that this good society has been undermined and destroyed by an elitist, pseudo-cosmopolitan concept of the good society, built around neoliberal globalisation, European Unification, permanent welfare state reform, ill managed mass migration, the rise of individualism and a knowledge-based meritocracy.
Europe faces a dangerous populist revolt, against the good society of both the neoliberal business community and progressive academic professionals. The revolt of populism has been 'produced' by the economic and cultural elites. Their 'TINA' project is creating fear and resentment on the part of the non-elites. A deterministic image of a future world of globalisation, open borders, free flows of people, and lifelong-learning in the knowledge-based society, is a nightmare vision for non-elites.
In the elite narrative, sizable parts of the middle and working class are being confronted with economic and psychological degradation. Theirs is no longer the future. They feel alienated, dispossessed and downgraded, because the society in which they felt comfortable, in which they had their respected place, and which has been part of their social identity, is being pushed aside by new realities. They consider social democracy to be part of the 'modernisation' that is eroding old comforts and old securities. In far too many countries social democracy has lost touch with these sentiments and anxieties. It has become part of the 'brave new world' of the bright, well-educated, entrepreneurial and highly mobile.
As a tragic consequence, we are confronted with what I call 'the broken society of the left': a splitting within the social-democratic constituency into two parts - on the one hand optimists about the future, who embrace the new world of globalisation, market dynamics, individual enterprise and diversity, and on the other, the pessimists about the future, who feel threatened by these forces. What is at stake is the alarming fragmentation of the social-democratic constituency into different camps - social liberal academic professionals versus traditional trade-union social democrats - a cleavage between higher-educated and less educated, between cosmopolitan libertarian attitudes and national-populist attitudes. Will European social democracy survive the sociology of the new global world? Will the Volksparteien, the people's parties, survive the polarisation of our societies? That's the billion-dollar question of the coming period.
We are dealing with a world in flux, and in the process of complex transformations, perhaps comparable with the shift at the end of the nineteenth century from Gemeinschaft to Gesellschaft. Where is the new Durkheim, the new Tönnies, the new Weber, to give meaning to the change we are witnessing today - from Gesellschaft into globale, multikulturelle Gesellschaft? Will European social democracy be able to deal with the pressures, anxieties and fears that accompany this rough and turbulent transformation?
What we urgently need is a new social deal, a new pact between the privileged and the less privileged, forging a new idea of progress - a pact of socio-economic security (based on welfare-state stability) and cultural openness (a tolerant, international outlook, while retaining national democracy).
We must save and renew the 'Volkspartei', as a bridge between the winners and losers in the new world that is emerging. This new Volkspartei will emerge from progressive coalition-building encompassing other left political parties, as well as progressive individuals regardless of party-affiliation and 'progressive' organisations, such as trade unions, churches and NGOs.
We must - against all American and Asian odds - renew and maintain European welfare societies under the conditions of mass migration and globalisation. And we must compete on the basis of human well-being and welfare, against the narrow neoliberal concept of economic growth.
René Cuperus is Director for International Relations and Senior Research Fellow at the Wiardi Beckman Foundation, thinktank of the Dutch Labour Party/PvdA. He is a member of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation's international team, 'Adjusting the Profile of Social Democracy'; a member of the Scientific Committee of the Paris-based thinktank Terra Nova, and active within Policy Network (London) and the Foundation for European Progressive Studies in Brussels. He is a co-founder of the Berlin-based forum Scholars for European Social Democracy. He was also a member of the Basic Values Commission and the European Policy Review Commission of the PvdA, and served as senior policy adviser to the Chairman of the PvdA, as well as to the Party's Parliamentary Group.
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