How the Left Can Rise Again

But the low poll numbers of the social democrats show that policy-wonking is not enough. Brown, like other European social democrats, cannot find the populist and personalized politics that comes naturally to his conservative rival, David Cameron, or to the likes of Sarkozy or Berlusconi. The past success of the left rested on leaders like Brandt and González, who were willing to defy conventional wisdom—that the left should stay on the left—and instead build a coalition with business interests. Both were seen as too pro-NATO, in parties still infected with anti-Americanism. Today's social democrats must also be brave enough to speak truth to the power—in their own party. They must acknowledge that their parties still claim to speak for the working class but have become small university-educated elites, composed of full-time professional politicians. They must recognize there is no longer a classic industrial working class defined by Marxist-trained party officials, and that the trade unions have hollowed out yet still claim grandfather rights as the main ally of social-democratic parties. Most trade unionists are employed in the public sector, so when they demand more pay, they are in effect saying fellow workers should pay more in taxes to cover their raises. Social democrats must begin crafting policies with the new proletariat in mind: immigrant, female, part time and in competition for better-paid unskilled work with the nativist, white working class. While social democrats like to proclaim their internationalism, the white working class in Europe does not like foreign workers, resents the left's multiculturalism and hates globalization.

The left must embrace the goal of strong economic growth, which allows room for both immigrant workers on low pay and a fair deal for the middle class. But it is business, not the state, that creates jobs—even if it is the state that shapes social justice. Social democracy without full or nearly full employment ends up as a bitter battle over shrinking revenue. Even in today's antibusiness, antibanking climate, social democracy has to learn to become pro-business.

Explaining why open trade, a.k.a. globalization, is good for European social democracy is a task most on the left shrink from. It is easier for them to go misty-eyed about Venezuela under the red beret of Hugo Chávez. The latest fashion is to admire China as a successful market economy run by the left, with little notice of Chinese gulags or the harassment of democracy activists. Like those who admired Stalin for building socialism in the 1930s, many of today's social democrats tend to admire the wrong people for the wrong reasons, undermining their standing with mainstream voters. They campaigned against the Iraq War, and saw voters reject the war's opponents, like Gerhard Schröder, and reelect leaders like Blair or Berlusconi, who fought to remove Saddam Hussein and let Iraqis hold elections.

It's not hopeless for the left. Europe's leaders may be nominally conservative, but they are following quite orthodox social-democratic, mixed-economy models. The state is back and it is being run by the right, but no rightist party has a clear majority either. Sarkozy has to govern by bringing in smart socialists like Bernard Kouchner, Immigration Minister Eric Besson and anti-poverty czar Martin Hirsch. In Germany and the Netherlands, social democrats are in an uneasy coalition with the center-right. In Britain, Tory leader David Cameron dare not call for tax and public-spending cuts because recentering the conservatives means adopting much of social-democratic policy.

The dawn of the left could start in the Nordic states, long the leading innovators on the social-democratic model. In Sweden, Denmark and Finland, younger women are being pushed into party leadership and are serious about winning power, not just making protest speeches. In Denmark, a young mother of two, Helle Thorning-Schmidt, has been pushing her party back into position to win after the nation's prime minister quit to become NATO secretary-general. As a woman who is a former researcher at the European Parliament, fluent in three languages and married to a British citizen, Thorning-Schmidt represents the new face of the social democrats. They must reoccupy the center, either alone or in alliance with the powerful centrist parties—the Liberal Democrats in Britain, the Democratic Movement in France, the Free Democrats in Germany—to defeat the ruling right-wingers. They must forge coalitions for progressive and reformist politics with parties that dislike the pro-rich economics, the moralizing against single moms and, often, foreigners, as well as the Euro-skeptic nationalism on offer from European conservatives.

Social democracy broke away from classical liberalism more than a century ago because liberals were protecting narrow middle-class interests at the expense of workers and a wider, more generous vision. Reforging that coalition is the best way back to power. But this time, social democracy has to acknowledge that history may not be on its side unless it sloughs off old skins; puts economic growth first and redistribution second; and learns that if the left treats as enemies the business community, goods made overseas and workers with another passport, it may please its militants but will continue to be rejected by voters.

MacShane is a Labour M.P. and former Minister for Europe in Britain.

© 2009