Whats behind the downfall of social democracy?
Even Labours politicians dont know what their partys purpose is. As MPs got nervous ahead of this most recent byelection, anonymous Labour figures complained to their favoured journalists that Keir Starmer has no strategy. Most of those who secretly want Starmer to go blame his failures, or those of his aides. So the debate centres on who should replace Starmer, or which policies must change. The problem is none of themleft or righthave any answers either. Left wing MPs cant agree whether to back a challenge by deputy leader Angela Rayner, who has already turned her back on them. And the right begrudgingly accepts Starmer must stay. Labours crisis is bigger than its leader. The malaise is the symptom of a sickness every Labour-type party in Europe is suffering. The voters Labour lost in Hartlepool and Batley and Spen are only the latest in a much longer term collapse in its support among working class people. Except for 2015 and 2017, the number of people voting Labour has fallen in every general election since 1997. Left Labour activists rightly say this is the legacy of their partys plunge to the right under Tony Blair, his invasion of Iraq and the abandonment of the working class. But whats telling is this same disintegration has happened to similar parties throughout Europe, and all at the same time. Labour-typeor social democraticparties have declined, collapsed or been almost entirely wiped out. These are parties with real claims to represent working class people, often through their links to trade union leaders. Many used to at least pay lip service to socialism. In reality what they offered was something differentto manage the system with promises of improvements for working class people. Union leaders founded or supported these parties to do in politics what they did in the workplace. That is to mediate between workers and their bosses, without the need to organise strikes. This meant they could usually be sure of support from substantial numbers of working class people, even when they didnt win elections. These parties were far from socialist. In government they would often fail to deliver the reforms they promised, and even turn on their working class voters when bankers demanded it. They were always caught between having to manage the bosses system whilst trying to improve it for working class people. Managing the system always came first. But they used to at least promise to do it differently to the Tories. Now, managing the system means a commitment to unrestrained, free market policiesa method of running capitalism known as neoliberalism. The neoliberal consensus is that almost every mainstream party in every government agrees this is how the system should run. Social democratic parties have lost what made them seem different. This began towards the end of the 1970s. In response to an economic crisis, bosses demanded privatisations, lower wages and minimal government spending. It was driven through with an assault on trade unions. Margaret Thatchers Tory government in Britain pioneered this. But even after she was forced out by working class revolt against her hated poll tax, bosses demanded whatever government followed would continue the project. Tony Blair responded by reinventing Labour as an explicitly pro-business party. Labour governments from 1997 onwards pushed through privatisations and slashed public sector wages and jobs. Blair went to war alongside the US in Iraq. And Labour haemorrhaged votes and members because of it. Similar things happened in social democratic parties all over Europe. The case of the German SPD is almost identical. Gerhard Schroeders SPD government was elected a year after Blairs Labour government in Britain. It also began an immediate programme of cutsfollowed by a massive assault on the welfare state. Its Agenda 2010 programme slashed unemployment benefits and introduced charges in the health service. As a result, at least 130,000 SPD members quit the party and its vote halved between 1998 and 2010. In other countries, the collapse of social democracy was even more dramatic. The financial crash of 2007 was the tipping point for many. The fate of Greeces social democratic party is probably the most symbolic. So much so it even gave its name to this processPasokification. Bowing to the explicit demands of European banks, Pasok pushed through some of the harshest austerity measures in Europe. These included tens of thousands of public sector sackings and swingeing pensions cuts. Unemployment reached nearly 25 percent. Pasok collapsed almost entirely. Having got 42 percent of the vote in 2009, it was booted out in 2012 with just 12 percent. It was once one of the dominant parties in Greece. Its now folded into a lash-up of struggling centre left parties that between them have just 22 MPs. Its a similar story in France. The Labour-type Socialist Party won parliamentary and presidential elections with its leader Francois Hollande. He promised a change from the hated and corrupt Tory president Nicolas Sarkozy and a softer, fairer austerity. Hollande soon abandoned that and in 2014 launched a programme of tens of billions of pounds worth of public spending cuts and tax cuts for businesses. He followed it up with a sweeping assault on workplace rights that sparked a revolt of strikes and protests on the streets. These confrontations with workers added another side to social democratic parties crisis. It wasnt just working class people who became bitter at the parties theyd ended up fighting againstit was union leaders too. The parties union leaders had founded or supported to defend their interests were now attacking them. The pressure to defend their membersand their positionssometimes led them to lead strikes against governments where social democratic parties were in office. Labours attacks on workers while in governmentand its refusal to support them in strikes against the Toriesled even right wing union leaders to criticise it openly. Some union leaders began talking about breaking with their social democratic parties. Some even did just that. Mostly they avoided any final break or major confrontation, trying and mostly succeeding to contain strikes in favour of negotiations. But this strained relationship between social democratic parties and their most significant backers contributed to the erosion of their support among union activists. This collapse in support for mainstream partiesleft and righthas created openings for other parties. In far too many places, right wing and racist parties have made the running. But in other cases the left made headway too  The most obvious examples are the onceradical left wing party Syriza in Greece, which was elected to government in 2015, and Podemos in Spain, which joined a coalition. They both grew as explicit alternatives to the social democratic parties. Jeremy Corbyns leadership of the Labour Party represented the same anger at the partys old leadersand hope for a better politics. But unlike Syriza in Greece, Corbyn helped to sustain Britains social democratic party. Socialists and Corbyns supporters often point out that his leadership temporarily reversed Labours decline. His general election campaign in 2017 was the first time Labour increased its share of the vote in 20 years. But another way of looking at it is that Corbyns leadership simply delayed Labours crisis. Corbyn never managed to get over the pressure to convince his MPs and bosses that he could be allowed to run a government. His attempts to do that led to his downfall. Syriza and Podemos could never square this circle either. In government, Syriza repeated Pasoks performance and implemented austerity demanded by bankers. Podemos joined a coalition with the social democratic party it once claimed to be replacing. Social democratic partiesand their supposed left wing alternativesare all in crisis because none of them can deliver the reforms they promise within a system that demands constant attacks on working class people. Overcoming that takes more than a change of leadership. It needs an organisation and a fight based on challenging the system, not working for reforms within it.