Why is social democracy failing in Europe?

[luiz]

My takes is that it's mostly a combination of 3 factors:

-What Kaiserguard said. Old people have different interests than young people, and tend to side with the right more often, except on pensions. As Europe gets older, the right will gain a natural advantage as long as they seem tamed on pension reform.

-A global tendency. Note that the most leftist and social-democratic tendencies of the US Democratic Party, or the Canadian Liberal Party, and many others worldwide, were largely abandoned since the 80's. So many leftist parties lost a bit of their old identity, and this may be bad electorally. This has to do with multiple and complex factors and may need a thread of its own.

-Simple response to the 2008 crisis. Lost of social-democratic parties were in power, so they got kicked out. When right-wing parties were in power they also got kicked out (or will get kicked out, as in France).

 

[Algeroth]

Isn't SD in Sweden failing due to the rise of Greens and Left Party?

Here, in Czech Republic, the SD is the biggest party, have won the elections, but was unable to form a government with the bolsheviks (Too little seats) or with any centre or right-wing party (due to SD arrogant style and proposed policies, no-one would like to associate with them). This could have something with SD insisting on being the only party on the left side of the spectrum and they are offended by the notion that there could be another left party between center and the communists.

SD here is viewed as vehicle of big industry, unions and is somewhat socially conservative. It have no appeal to young people and middle class. But that is our (and Slovakia) problem, I doubt it is anywhere else similar.

On the European level, you start with the false premise that "despite the fact that the financial crisis has proved the social, moral, and ecological bankruptcy of ultraliberalism". Didn't happened in the eyes of common european citizen. At least here in mittleeurope. People voted for conservative and liberal governments because they thought that could cope better with another economic downturn. Just as they voted for SD in times of prosperity as it were them who promised them more. And now the pendulum have swung again and many countries will elect SD parties becuse they are tired with endless austerity.

tldr: It's part of cycle. Plus SD could have some problems with responding to cultural issues as its electorate is getting more socially conservative.

 

[Loppan Torkel]

I think the OP is under the misapprehension that a european right wing party is comparable to the US right wing party.

If so, then let me tell you this: The most rightwing party (not counting various neo-nazi parties) in Germany is the CSU (Christian Social Union) which always comes bundled with the CDU (Christian Democratic Union).
Politically speaking both parties are to the far left of the US democratic party. And germany as a whole is considered a rather conservative country.

Other (functioning) countries in europe are similiar. The only country where "social democracy" is really failing right now is Greece ... and the cause for that isn't social democracy but plain old corruption.

Not at all. Europe isn't doing well as a whole, the parties to the left have moved towards the middle and they still lose the elections to the right. It looks like they're failing pretty bad.

Isn't SD in Sweden failing due to the rise of Greens and Left Party?
..

The Green party is on the rise.

 

[uat2d]

The Social Democrats are now on power on Portugal, elected in last May. They replaced the Socialists. In the article Barroso is described as a ultra-liberal, which he's not, he's from the Portuguese Social Democrat Party, it's centre-right.

Don't take the names seriously, the Socialists here are like the UK's Labour and the Social Democrats are like UK's Conservatives, and so it's probably less than 5 countries ruled - assuming the Portuguese lefty names confused foreigners as they usually do.

My take on it is that people are realizing that a full blown social state just isn't financially sustainable and are therefore opting for a much more moderate and modest version of it - focusing much more on keeping a NHS or public education accessible for everyone than rather continuing accumulating debt with huge social states that provide subsidies and spend money in everything and anything.

With the current Greek situation and with other countries like mine also going through some rough times with debts - debts that they got themselves into under centre-left and left governments, it's quite easy to understand why all of Europe is leaning right.

 

[pesgores]

The Social Democrats are now on power on Portugal, elected in last May. They replaced the Socialists. In the article Barroso is described as a ultra-liberal, which he's not, he's from the Portuguese Social Democrat Party, it's centre-right.

Don't take the names seriously, the Socialists here are like the UK's Labour and the Social Democrats are like UK's Conservatives, and so it's probably less than 5 countries ruled - assuming the Portuguese lefty names confused foreigners as they usually do.

My take on it is that people are realizing that a full blown social state just isn't financially sustainable and are therefore opting for a much more moderate and modest version of it - focusing much more on keeping a NHS or public education accessible for everyone than rather continuing accumulating debt with huge social states that provide subsidies and spend money in everything and anything.

With the current Greek situation and with other countries like mine also going through some rough times with debts - debts that they got themselves into under centre-left and left governments, it's quite easy to understand why all of Europe is leaning right.

The Portuguese Social Democrat party is not exactly Social Democrat, I think. It's kind of center-right.

It's all the same <snip>, really, Socialists, Social Democrats, whatever, they're all either Masons or corrupt. Most of the times both.

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[stormerne]

Social democracy is not the same as any particular Social Democratic party. Because a party is waning, it doesn't mean that their underlying principles are waning. Instead it's often a sign that their core principles have been adopted by other mainstream parties (even if only to recapture their lost electorate) and the pioneers are no longer necessary.

 

[uat2d]

The Portuguese Social Democrat party is not exactly Social Democrat, I think. It's kind of center-right.

It's all the same <snip>, really, Socialists, Social Democrats, whatever, they're all either Masons or corrupt. Most of the times both.

Com generalizações dessas não admira que toda a gente se queixe da classe política.

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[pesgores]

Com generalizações dessas não admira que toda a gente se queixe da classe política.

Partidos grandes é tudo assim. Não se pode confiar em ninguém, as influências são todas movidas por lobbies, tem de se fazer muitos favores para subir na escadaria política e quando se chega ao poleiro tem de se retribuir a toda a gente senão cai-se.

Ou então tenho de deixar de ser piegas, não é verdade? Comer e calar?

EDIT: Bacalhau quer alho

Spoiler :

Big parties are exactly like that. You can't trust them, all the influences come from lobbies, one has to do a lot of favors to rise up in the political stairwell and once you're on the top, you've got to help them back, otherwise the government falls.

 

[innonimatu]

The Social Democrats are now on power on Portugal, elected in last May. They replaced the Socialists. In the article Barroso is described as a ultra-liberal, which he's not, he's from the Portuguese Social Democrat Party, it's centre-right.

The portuguese social democrats (PSD) started out as (supposedly) social-democrats but were always actually the "right" party, inheriting most of the late "technocrats" of the former regime (Balsemão being the main political orchestrator of the thing, the Espirito Santo family the main financiers) who had been trying to manage a "transition to democracy" where they would keep their grip on power and wealth.
As it turned out there was a military coup instead, some of the most notorious bastards lost power and fled for a while, but their people remained, took control of the "social-democrat" party, and proceeded to put the old plan back into motion. The EU turned out to me most useful for that.

The PSD was, from the start, the party of the economic elites of late corporatist/fascist regime, just like the PP in Spain. The PS was the portuguese "social-democrat" party, set up with financing from the german SPD (through the Friedrich Ebert Foundation) and from the british Labour Party where Mário Soares found strong backers in both Wilson and Callaghan.

Incidentally, the Friedrich Ebert Foundation was also a player in setting up certain parties in both Greece and Spain. All those parties them moved quickly to get their countries applying for membership in the EEC... if you want conspiracy theories about portuguese (or, actually, southern Europe) politics since 1974 don't bother with the freemasons, there are bigger fish in the pond.

My take on it is that people are realizing that a full blown social state just isn't financially sustainable and are therefore opting for a much more moderate and modest version of it - focusing much more on keeping a NHS or public education accessible for everyone than rather continuing accumulating debt with huge social states that provide subsidies and spend money in everything and anything.

With the current Greek situation and with other countries like mine also going through some rough times with debts - debts that they got themselves into under centre-left and left governments, it's quite easy to understand why all of Europe is leaning right.

The accumulation of huge debts was not due to welfare-related subsidies, at least not in Portugal. Social security has been running a surplus for a long time and heath expenses are not above the european average. The debts were accumulated as a consequence of 25 years of reckless EU-encouraged "investment" in public works backed by loans (instead of being paid in full as they were built), of under-financing of public services provided by state-owned companies so that those were forced to take on debt without it showing up on the government's accounts (because those had to look good for the EU), of cheap privatization of profitable public services with contracts which guaranteed high profits for the new owners (highway concessions being the most visible, but certainly not the only, case; the sales of banks, the telecommunications industries, energy companies, all that were ruinous deals for the state).

European states have been pillaged during the past 30 years of economic "liberalism", are still being pillaged, for the sake of the private profits of a few new owners.

 

[Verbose]

The accumulation of huge debts was not due to welfare-related subsidies, at least not in Portugal. Social security has been running a surplus for a long time and heath expenses are not above the european average. The debts were accumulated as a consequence of 25 years of reckless EU-encouraged "investment" in public works backed by loans (instead of being paid in full as they were built), of under-financing of public services provided by state-owned companies so that those were forced to take on debt without it showing up on the government's accounts (because those had to look good for the EU), of cheap privatization of profitable public services with contracts which guaranteed high profits for the new owners (highway concessions being the most visible, but certainly not the only, case; the sales of banks, the telecommunications industries, energy companies, all that were ruinous deals for the state).

European states have been pillaged during the past 30 years of economic "liberalism", are still being pillaged, for the sake of the private profits of a few new owners.

If, say, the French can refrain from that kind of stupid privatisations, why not Portugal? And is the answer "the EU", really?

(Besides Portugal hasn't looked good to the EU for ages. It's been a crappy low economic growth country, that none of the EU structure fund money seemed to be able to help well before it was spotted to have ended up in the current debt trap.)

 

[innonimatu]

If, say, the French can refrain from that kind of stupid privatisations, why not Portugal? And is the answer "the EU", really?

Yes, really! The EU validated and indeed mandated privatizations across Europe, following an initiative which started with Thatcher and Mitterrand, afaik. But while France stopped (so far) short of privatizing certain strategic assets (in energy, especially, and that because of France's war policy: controlling the nuclear industry) in Portugal and other economically weaker EU states governments starved for revenue went on privatizing everything they could (i.e., everything profitable at the time). Why? In Portugal's case mainly to meet the EU criteria for public debt as a %GDP for the future monetary union project!!!
Mind you, France has also been shooting itself in the foot with privatizations, it's only doing it slightly slower.

Could we have had smarter politicians? Smarter voters, actually? Yes, we could have. But things were institutionally set up to favor this outcome, and down that road we went. Path of least resistance and everything...

(Besides Portugal hasn't looked good to the EU for ages. It's been a crappy low economic growth country, that none of the EU structure fund money seemed to be able to help well before it was spotted to have ended up in the current debt trap.)

Things were actually getting better after the effects of decolonization and the oil shock were overcome by the mid-80s. Then came the EU and new priorities for investment... the 90s were wasted with the state building only infrastructure and private investment leveraging on cheap loans mainly channeled to distribution, services and finance instead of production. Entering the Euro with an overvalued exchange rate to start with was a political mistake which contributed to the abandonment of production investment, but the EU's trade policy regarding the rest of the world (opening to cheaper imports on sectors like textiles (for example) in exchange for facilitating the exports of machinery) also had something to do with it. "Northern Europe" clearly benefited from the EU's external trade policies after the 90s, "southern Europe" got sacrificed.

 

[mitsho]

As pointed out the falling of the social democratic parties all over Europe has more to do with the fact that they were in power during the financial crisis (beginning). So that's no point in questioning the Continental Welfare State.

Rather as has been pointed out, conservative politicians are now accepting of the state as well and as in Merkels case have made more leftist decisions than the social democrats before... (If the left implements those, the right protests, if a right leader does it, the right base cannot protest )

So, the "failure" of the Welfare State is not a one of popularity, the European public wants them. It's rather a "technical" problem of financing. And then of course are populist problems such as the low pension age of the Greeks angering the Germans...

The Failure of the Social Democratic Parties in the 80ies and 90ies led to the new "Third Way" of Social Democracy like Blair and Schröder. That has now been called into criticism by a new "radicalization" of the social democratic base, see Die Linke in Germany. But in the same time, the Middle has been strenghtened a lot as well. In my home country, the Middle Parties won a huge victory over the Far Right and to a much lesser extent over the Left. So, I'd argue more that the Center has been strenghened, or as some would call it "Technocratic Expert Governments". See in Italy!

So, what's the crisis of Social Democracy again?

 

[Mechanicalsalvation]

so, what's the crisis of social democracy again?

corruption?

 

[amadeus]

Where in Europe is it failing?

 

[Atticus]

Moderator Action: Just a reminder, if you post other languages than English, you need to add translation.

 

[ArneHD]

European Social Democracy is not failing. It's the social democratic parties that are failing.

 

[Traitorfish]

It's all the same <snip>, really, Socialists, Social Democrats, whatever, they're all either Masons or corrupt. Most of the times both.

Ha ha ha, what?

 

[metatron]

Isn't the left very likely to win elections in France later this year? I'm an American but everything I see about polls seems to point to a probable victory for the Socialist presidential candidate. Also in Germany polls seem to show a SDP-Green alliance with close to half of the vote if elections were being held now (I know it's some time till the next German election not sure exactly when).

What is generally called the right in most of Europe would be very moderate Republican or "blue dog" Democrat in the USA probably mostly the latter.

a) This.
b) The next Federal Diet election will be in fall 2013, 46 to 48 month after the last one - September 1st at the earliest October 27th at the latest.
Typically a late date is chosen. My guess would be 10/20 or 10/27.
c) The current administration has essentially no chance to recover until then. Well, unless there is suddenly free coke and hookers for everyone.

The Left moves to the Right because the electorate does so.

The last "social-democratic" administration Germany expierienced...

...attacked Yugoslavia and invaded Afghanistan.
Kicked unemployed people in the groin.
Allmost balanced the budged.
While implementing the biggest income tax cut in the history of the republic.​

The current "conservative" administration...

Raised taxes.
Increased spending on virtually evereything that can in any way be linked to children (you have to speak that in a hysteric voice)
Killed the draft.
Killed nuclear power.
Spend us through the recession.
Got us the omg-biggest-budged-we're-all-going-to-die-deficit-of-all-times not once, not twice but thrice in a row.​

Plus virtually every debate the German public had 10 years ago is settled by now. Mostly due to the "conservatives" being somewhat reluctant to stand by their former positions anymore.

Gee, as a liberal i'm really uncomfortable over here. The "conservatives" are really pushing me and i'd appreciate it of you guys would organize some sort of relieve effort on my account. Please. ... Help.



Edit:
It's really amusing how Merkel is "helping" Sarkozy in the campaign.
Well, at least Europe's soon to be losers have really overcome all borders.

 

[Josu]

European Social Democracy is not failing. It's the social democratic parties that are failing.

100% agree.
As far as I know, a lot of parties that are supposed to in the social democratic wing are becoming liberal.

Saying that social democracy is failing is unfair as this parties are not leading social democratic politics, but liberal ones, which are favouring banks and big companies.

A clear example is the former Spanish gobernment, from PSOE, aparently a social democratic party, they gave banks a hugh ammount of money without conditions. The idea was that this way the cash would flow because banks would be able to give more credits. Today Spanish gobernment has a immense debt, it is harder to obtain a credit, and bank managers have raisen their salaries.

Yep, social democracy in its fullness

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

What's your take on all this?

Just ebb and flow of politics, coincidental.

Couple of years ago the left had the gov. The wing who's got the gov becomes unpopular by default. Then the other wing will take over. And they'll be unpopular after a while.