What causes strong left wing political parties to emerge?

[Shekwan]

By left wing I mean economically left wing labour/socialist parties. What social conditions are necessary for a strong left wing party to emerge in any given country?

I've just finished an assignment at the moment about why Ireland has never had an explicitly left wing achieve widespread popularity. Ireland is somewhat unique in Western Europe that it has no really left wing party that is truly popular nationwide. and I thought the above question would be an interesting one to address. It's a bit of a basic political science topic but interesting nevertheless.

Also, I'm not really up on US history, but has there ever been a popular nationwide left wing party there? Was it always the fear of communism that mean such parties would never gain widespread popularity?

I have some ideas of my own but I'm just throwing out these questions to see if anyone has any other ideas.

 

[Princeps]

Necessity...

 

[Yoda Power]

Does the UK have one? I mean Labour isn't really left wing compared to continental Europe.

Which leads me too guess it's an Anglo-Saxon thing.

 

[dutchfire]

Common sense

 

[Shekwan]

Does the UK have one? I mean Labour isn't really left wing compared to continental Europe.

Which leads me too guess it's an Anglo-Saxon thing.

Well yes you could argue that the UK Labour Party is no longer explicitly left wing. The point though is that the Labour party emerged as a popular left wing party, similar to other parties in western europe. Ireland is an exception because since independence the Labour Party has never had popular support - as a result of our political culture which seemed to promote authoritarianism and individualism.

As for the anglo saxon idea, I'm not so sure. Australia and Canada both have strong and popular left wing parties.

Are there any other countries that are an exception? The US is definately an exception as far as I know in that regard. Again, a culture of individualism and authoritarianism seems to be the theme.

Common sense

It isn't so common you know.

 

[luiz]

There's no clear answer. Don't always think of things in terms of "social-economic forces that lead to certain conditions". Maybe a country has a popular left-wing party just because said party was started by a very charismatic and popular guy.

 

[cubsfan6506]

Common sense

When I say this thread I was gonna post htis.

 

[Traitorfish]

I think that class consciousness is an important factor, at least if we're talking about traditional labour-orientated left-wing parties. In unindustrialised countries, there is no working class, and the peasantry, who tend to be isolated and reactionary, are unlikely to instigate the rise of leftist movements (although they may join them, as in China or Vietnam). In countries like the USA, a strong class system is not percieved, due to an ideological and cultural dedication to individualism (perhaps also why American leftism is traditionally linked to ethnic minorities who did not share in the "American dream"). A large working class with a strong identity- preferably urban and industrial, but a rural, agricultural working class can emerge, as in Cuba, is likely to see the benefits of a mutual struggle to improve their place in the world.
Of course, this only explains things to a point- as I said, this only really explains traditional labour-orientated movements, and not modern leftism of the "European Social Democracy" sort...

I'm not sure why Ireland lacked leftism, as it doubtlessly had a large working class, but perhaps the traditional ethnic divide between the Irish Catholic working class and the British upper class absorbed the class conflict into an ethno-religous one? The Irish working class may have been more strongly motivated by Irish nationalism than by class consciousness, and so given greater support to parties which they saw as protecting nationalist interests.

 

[Masada]

As for the anglo saxon idea, I'm not so sure. Australia and Canada both have strong and popular left wing parties.

Australia's Labor Party is center left, it is far to the right of the British Labor Party. Economically they are both fairly similar, although I don't think we quite have the British system of political patronage going quite yet. Socially ours is different, sure we here they wanted to bring in internet filtering [which is about to be canned as an idea], but we haven't had a massive centralization of information, nor have we had a serious push for biometric ID cards etc. We also steered away from Third Way politics, the Labor party here is far more conservative than yours, the Union content of the party has been neutered.

New Zealand Labor is closer the British Labor party, but even then it is far more explicitly right wing in its economic policies now, Roger Douglas, and the former government Labor government did economically things Blair would not have done. New Zealand politics is arguably more right wing economically than Australia and probably Britain, ACT is a good example. Labor traditional base here is dead, its lost the Maori vote because it was to socially liberal and made more than a few offensive gaffes, it doesn't/can't go to pro-Union because so few people are Unionists in the traditional sense, it's stuck with right wing economics precisely because in the New Zealand context they worked. Heck Labor kick started the tearing down of the tariff walls and the liberalization of the economy. Its stuck between Hard Core Leftists [to few votes], Maori [socially conservative for the most part], Modern Liberals [to socially to the left] and it can't decide with whom to side, it if sides with the Hard Core Leftists, Unionists it alienates the Modern Liberals, and the Maori vote, if it sides with the Maori it annoys the other two, and on and on. It hasn't competed well against the Maori Party, so its losing more votes that way, and purely out of spite they've side with The National Party.

I would however hazard a guess that the rise of Unions can be attributed at least in Australia and New Zealand to the strength of the country, and the dichotomy between land owners and their employees, shearers were the perennial Unionists and organizers. Neither country had the industry to have a large body of industrial workers. I would also link it to economic fortune, when both countries were prosperous, things ticked along nicely, when the tempo of the economy slowed down things got hairy.

 

[Traitorfish]

Australia's Labor Party is center left, it is far to the right of the British Labor Party.

The "New" Labour is pretty centralist, too. Hardie's been dead and gone a long time...

 

[Cutlass]

Conservatism.

 

[luiz]

People should really consider what I said. I think it is a sad vice to always try to understand things in terms of class conflicts and "the stages of organizations of the productive forces". Sometimes the popularity of a party, and even of an ideology, only go as far as the charisma and leadership skills of the people on top.

 

[Arwon]

I assume your answer in the case of Ireland was that the independence and treaty divides superseded a lot of explicit ideological disputes? It seems like your two main parties have been chameleons and shapeshifters depending on the ideological climate of the day, taking on and shedding different aspects of different ideologies.

I don't think you can ever come up with a single reason, but some of the variables that spring to mind are:

*Strategy. The Social Democrats in Germany went very reformist and became an establishment party from very early on, they became huge and institutionalised. At the other end of the spectrum, the Spanish PSOE's leadership was essentially anti-political and revolutionary right up until the republic and even then, the rank-and-file continued being so. My guess is that many parties succeeded or failed on how well their strategic approach matched the opportunities their situation presented them.

*Political conditions - the openness of the political system is a huge determiner of how political parties form and function. In some countries socialist parties were illegal and clandestine, the labour movement was very weak and unions were persecuted. In other countries, universal suffrage and democratic elections gave these parties more power and room to move, and led to them operating within the system rather than seeking to overthrow it. UK Labour versus socialists in the Russian or Habsburg Empires illustrate this point.

Some would argue that political openness is contingent on the relationship of classes and productive forces... I'm not sure that's such a strong link. I mean Louis Napoleon and Bismarck instituted universal suffrage specifically in order to forestall threats to their political power.

*Other parties - The rise of organised labour and social democratic parties was almost exactly correlated to the decline of liberalism. Countries where liberal parties managed to prevent big splits or being outmanoeuvred to the left would logically have less powerful socialist parties. I don't know the history, but my uneducated bet is that in Canada, the Liberals managed this. It's possible that the Republicans in the US did something similar.

*Economic change certainly plays a role. Obviously the existence of industrialisation and an urban workforce predisposes a country towards the development of these movements.

HOWEVER. I don't think you can necessarily correlated advanced industrialness to left-wing strength. This is simply because ideas spread faster than economic change, and political ideas entered the backwards part of the European continent well before factories or railroads. Spain is a reasonably compelling counterexample to the more deterministic class-based narratives... it developed both liberalism and socialism/social democracy without being a particularly bourgeois or industrial country.

Granted, the left wing politics that developed in Spain tended to be millenarian, absolutist revolutionary and absolutist in comparison to other Western European countries, but the anarchists were still the largest political organisation in the country and the socialists weren't far behind.

It's not that big a stretch for peasants to link anarchism or socialism to their communal, community-based lifestyle and think "if we just got rid of the superstructure rich people and landowners everything would be better".

*Other political issues. Ireland is an example here - the biggest political issue was not the 'social question' but rather independence and later, the treaty. In many parts of the continent, similar nationalist questions superseded class struggles. Wars would also have played a major role. The civil war, reconstruction, and racial conflict probably altered the course of politics quite dramatically in the US - I think the racialisation of American class relations is one of the biggest reasons it's had a different political course to Europe.

I'd also be interested in a comparative study of left wing movements in countries involved in WW1, versus countries not involved in it.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

Necessity...

What this guy said

 

[Agent327]

By left wing I mean economically left wing labour/socialist parties. What social conditions are necessary for a strong left wing party to emerge in any given country?

I've just finished an assignment at the moment about why Ireland has never had an explicitly left wing achieve widespread popularity. Ireland is somewhat unique in Western Europe that it has no really left wing party that is truly popular nationwide. and I thought the above question would be an interesting one to address. It's a bit of a basic political science topic but interesting nevertheless.

Also, I'm not really up on US history, but has there ever been a popular nationwide left wing party there? Was it always the fear of communism that mean such parties would never gain widespread popularity?

I have some ideas of my own but I'm just throwing out these questions to see if anyone has any other ideas.

Looking at world history I'd say some (social) injustice is a necessary precondition, as well as a certain level of intellectual development. Most socialist theories were developed in 19th century Europe, with those of the social-democrat (!) Marx being dominant, but ranging from anarchist/communist to social-democrat movements.

I'm not particular familiar with Irish history, which focused more on independence, but communism and socialism had their own movements in the US, where labour organization however became the dominant force as opposed to political organization.

So, what are your own thoughts on this?

 

[Perfection]

Drunkeness

 

[jessiecat]

Given all the legitimate reasons why a strong socialist movement failed to take off in Ireland, I'd like to hear the OP's take on the great Irish socialist and revolutionary, James Connolly, who was executed by the British after the Easter Uprising in 1916.

 

[Yoda Power]

There's no clear answer. Don't always think of things in terms of "social-economic forces that lead to certain conditions". Maybe a country has a popular left-wing party just because said party was started by a very charismatic and popular guy.

So how come charismatic socialist guys not appear in the US, and how come they all appear in each Western European country?

You can do better than that Luiz.

 

[jessiecat]

So how come charismatic socialist guys not appear in the US, and how come they all appear in each Western European country?

You can do better than that Luiz.

Could it be that in America they are usually assassinated or die mysteriously in suspicious accidents?

 

[Cutlass]

A couple of charismatic leaders, notably Castro and Ho Chi Mihn, turned to communism specifically because the US and the US pushed economic policies and puppet governments were their enemies. So they picked our enemies as allies, and our enemies happened to be the USSR. The enemy of their enemy was their friend.

But the most important part is why the US (and allied nations) and our economic system was their enemy in the first place. And the reality of that is that capitalism in third world nations was evil and oppressive.

You simply cannot get a strong left wing movement until you have had right wing domination to convince people that capitalism has no value.