the Lodo Alfano and slipping out of Papin .....
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CRITICAL SOCIAL EUROPE WITHOUT LEFT
The reasons for the decline in an essay by Ernst Hillebrand, a student of "Stitfung Ebert (SPD), published by the British magazine Prospect
Ernst Hillebrand, Prospect, March 2008,
The center-left parties in Western Europe are en route. In recent years, lost power in several countries, even those where they had governato relativamente bene. Il centro-sinistra rischia seriamente di perdere in Italia (come poi è effettivamente successo, ndt) ed è in netta difficoltà in Gran Bretagna. Quattro delle cinque nazioni nordiche, le patrie della socialdemocrazia per eccellenza, hanno ora governi conservatori. La tedesca Spd è al governo come junior partner della coalizione di Angela Merkel, ma è insidiata alla propria sinistra da una nuova formazione; in Francia, i socialisti sono in crisi. Siamo di fronte ad una normale oscillazione del pendolo dell’alternanza o a qualcosa di più profondo, e grave, per il centro-sinistra europeo?
E’ azzardato trarre conclusioni generalizzate dall’esperienza di ogni singolo Paese. However, one point seems clear. The ongoing developments signal the end of a political cycle-ideological centrist project, known as the Third Way in Britain and Germany as the Neue Mitte, has reached its conclusion. It was detailed especially in Britain, borrowing ideas from Clinton, but has had some influence in Europe.
A project that has allowed the center-left to apply for accreditation as a political force in Europe in the second half of the nineties. The expectations of voters and the global economic and political conditions had changed significantly since the mid-eighties and the center-left forces have proved able to intercept the new mood. The various facets of the project had in common a few key points: a combination of economic and fiscal policies neo-liberal, stressed the centrality of the role of the state, exemplified especially in welfare systems and insistence on a cultural conception of liberal- progressive that would witness the continuation of a vision of bottom-oriented "progress." The reforms of the labor market and the reorganization of the welfare state was accompanied by the acceptance of rules imposed by the European Union in terms of deregulation and competition (in some countries in the nineties were a period of privatization). The center-left forces presented themselves as competent, middle-class managers of the new capitalism. Simultaneously, a large weight was assigned to education, a new social reform instead of redistributive fiscal policies. The idea was that investing in education would have been possible, over time, to respond effectively to issues of social justice, employment and competitiveness.
Since the mid nineties onwards, this strategy has allowed the center-left in Europe to win and to govern more or less effectively. Today, however, the liberal appeal is dwindling, as many issues have assumed a degree of complexity is too high to be resolved according to the technocratic recipes. Consider just a few examples:
el'europeizzazione globalization have negatively impacted on the economic situation of European workers. The governments of the Third Way have done little to change this state of affairs. The proportionate share of wages and salaries compared to the total wealth produced by a country in the EU has declined over the last twenty five years, having increased from 72.1 to 68.4% of the total. In parallel, the share of those employed increased from 61.2% in the mid-nineties to 64.5 today. This means that a larger number of workers have to share a relatively less conspicuous wealth. The value of the Gini index, which indicates the income inequality, has grown in most of Western Europe since the eighties. Consequently, the promise of technocratic reformers, who set out to protect the positions of the "ordinary citizen" better than any other party, has lost credibility.
At the same time, the main center-left parties in continental Europe have not kept their promise to build a more integrated economic and social space in the heart of the Old Continent. An area which should have been granted just citizens. The result is that today are swelling the ranks of the euro-skeptics, and not only in the Netherlands or France, where the referendum was rejected the first draft Constitutional Treaty Ue. Non siamo di fronte ad una risposta irrazionale: se l’Unione Europea ha creato una vasta area di pace e stabilità politica, ha invece fallito nel promuovere la crescita economica e non ha evitato l’aumento della disoccupazione.
La promessa “rivoluzione educativa” non può considerarsi certamente soddisfacente. La disoccupazione giovanile in Europa si attesta al 18.7%. Non ci sono stati progressi per quanto riguarda la mobilità sociale ed il tasso di scolarizzazione, riferito alla scuola superiore, non ha registrato significativi passi avanti nell’ultimo ventennio. Nel frattempo, l’inadeguato finanziamento degli alti gradi dell’istruzione ha inciso negativamente sulla qualità dei titoli degree achieved by reducing the marketability in the job market. Contrary to the technocratic rhetoric on high educational standards and the acquisition of skills, the majority of new jobs created does not cover certain sectors of the economy most qualified services. And it seems that the trend will change soon: the British government estimated that eighty percent of new jobs to be created by 2010, does not require possession of a university degree.
Meanwhile, new challenges have emerged which have found the center-left unprepared. First of all, immigration. Multiculturalism, the answer given by the progressive increase of migration in Europe, has proved inadequate. It has led to fragmented society, dotted ghettos inhabited by minorities, marginalized, and a resulting mix of frustration and mutual resentment between indigenous peoples and immigrants. Analysis that we can apply mainly to the people of Muslim culture, especially the second and third generation immigrants, who often experience a feeling of hostility towards Western societies, state of mind rather unknown to their parents, uncles and grandparents . For a long time the left has rejected a debate on the subject. Now, immigration is the issue with respect to which there is more distance between the center-left parties and the views expressed by reference to their traditional electorate.
passive posture taken by the left with its technocratic reform project, a social democratic version of Tina (there is no alternative, there is no alternative to globalization, ndt) Margaret Thatcher, can not satisfy the majority of the population, State expects a more proactive role. A request that displaces the New Left. In many countries, is becoming a new wave of nationalism, difficult to reconcile with the pro-European rhetoric and globalization of the establishment of the center-left.
There are clear signs of a creeping change in value systems delle società europee, che i progressisti semplicemente non riescono a cogliere. In alcuni Paesi lo zeitgeist, lo spirito dei tempi, sembra permeato, ancora una volta, di conservatorismo: i sondaggi indicano uno slittamento delle opinioni pubbliche verso i valori tradizionali. Il liberalismo socio-culturale ed il relativismo valoriale che hanno caratterizzato le “edonistiche” società occidentali nelle ultime decadi (e che i governi di centro-sinistra hanno esibito orgogliosamente come marchi della loro azione riformatrice) vengono ormai considerati inefficaci e disfunzionali. L’umore generale è stato invece colto dalla destra: Nicolas Sarkozy ha speso parte della sua vittoriosa campagna presidenziale a fare i conti con l’eredità del sessantotto; negli Stati Uniti, i Repubblicani hanno costruito le loro affermazioni nelle elezioni del 2000 e del 2004 sul recupero dei “valori.”
Il risultato di queste problematiche e contraddizioni è stato che quasi ovunque i Partiti di centro-sinistra si sono alienati il consenso di una quota significativa della loro base elettorale, poiché hanno smesso di parlare un linguaggio da essa comprensibile e non ha più condiviso le sue preoccupazioni. Le forze di centro-sinistra sono organizzativamente assenti dalle aree più problematiche delle città europee. Questo spazio lasciato vuoto è stato occupato con successo dai movimenti populistici della nuova destra e, in alcuni casi (come la Germania), dalle forze della New Left. Parties who prove that they deal with daily problems of people, which the major formations, especially those on the left, seem to have forgotten to do. The right-wing populist movements so they get good results in France, Italy, Switzerland, Austria, Belgium and the Netherlands. It 's true, their fortunes are often alternate: the Front National is not able for example to repeat the success of last year's French presidential elections 2002. But the overall consensus of the extreme right is more widespread today than in the sixties and seventies.
The center-left appears lost in front of the decline of their technocratic planning. During a study conducted by the Foundation Jean Jaures, a French resident in bainleus said: "We are not the apolitical, rather it is the politicians who are becoming more apathetic."
The center-left needs a renewed political and ideological project that allows him to return to win. To use an ancient language, must be able to move "far left" on issues of social justice (without falling back into old-statism of the seventies) and more "right" on issues relating to culture and identity. What is needed is a discourse that confines itself to meet the ambitions of the people, one of the strengths of the Third Way, but that also takes account of his fears and uncertainties. A political speech to end the implicit stigmatization of certain groups, "the losers of globalization", "the defenders of vested interests," and recognizing that the decline of manual labor and the working class gave the marginalization of a significant minority population.
If the center-left wants to win again is closer to real life people. Must have the pragmatism to transcend its post-modern values \u200b\u200band post-national and instead give priority to the interests of the citizens who live in the flesh this (with their cultural background and their beliefs). Over the last hundred years the nation state has been the main instrument through which the left has pursued its political and social objectives, an instrument that has yet to find replacements. Many people hope that the nation state to act as the protector, and agent, and globalization.
The center-left must show the will to act even in the best interests of his constituents. In recent years, progressives have an interest limited to the 'soft' policy in the name of a liberal interpretation of individual rights and claims of various social groups, and have neglected the "hard politics", as if the issues escape from the economic and fiscal perimetro degli interessi della sinistra. In società caratterizzate dalla crescente disuguaglianza e dalla ridotta mobilità sociale, soprattutto per le classi medie e medio-basse, dipendenti dai sistemi di welfare, l’attuale fase di stallo non può continuare. (A tal proposito, è significativo che Roger Liddle, alleato di uno dei fondatori stessi del New Labour, Peter Mandelson, si sia recentemente espresso contro l’ineguaglianza. Mandelson, a metà degli anni novanta aveva auspicato che il New Labour smettesse di guardare con sospetto a coloro che si fossero arricchiti. Liddle, in un suo recente paper per il think tank Policy Network, ha proposto di istituire una commissione per monitorare i redditi più elevati ed una riforma of the taxation of inheritance and investment income.)
At the same time, you need to brush up a serious discussion related to the quality of life in the long run, which is not only environmental sustainability. The rapidity of social and economic changes, photographed by Zygmunt Bauman with the concept of liquid modernity, anxiety-induced feelings of uncertainty, even in the traditional middle class. E 'equally clear that a substantial portion of the populations of Western Europe the economic issue can be considered, for now at least, solved. So, too much emphasis on economic growth, unaccompanied by adequate attention to the quality of lifestyles and value of work / leisure, is likely to exert little attraction for the above groups. This means that, in his search for a new narrative, the left should avoid developing too negative an analysis of changes in recent years and their consequences for society and people's lives, after all, the new search next partners and among the winners among the losers of globalization.
As if the dilemmas were not enough, the left is facing another challenge: too right it is modernizing. It recently said goodbye, at least at the rhetorical level, neoliberal orthodoxy, groped to regain the center of the political space. This repositioning appears to be an implicit recognition of the success of the center-left nell'impiantare some of their own political project in Western societies. The "neo-centrism" of right-wing forces is apparent in various forms in various areas: in the U.S., the center features the race, at least on domestic issues, the presidential campaign of Republican candidate John McCain. Sweden's Fredrik Reinfeldt Conservatives have failed to defeat in 2006, the competent and experienced Social Democratic elite thanks to the promise to maintain the benefits of the Scandinavian welfare state. La Cdu tedesca ha mitigato alcune delle riforme del mercato del lavoro promosse dalla precedente maggioranza, guidata dall’Spd. In Gran Bretagna, il Partito Conservatore, sotto la guida di David Cameron, ha compiuto una decisa virata verso il centro. Cameron ha dichiarato la sua approvazione per gli investimenti nei servizi pubblici decisi dal governo laburista ed ha condiviso l’obbiettivo di ridurre la povertà infantile. Inoltre, ha corretto l’immagine “cattiva” dei Tories, assumendo una posizione favorevole rispetto alla causa ambientalista, al matrimonio tra omosessuali e in ordine ad altre questioni. In Francia, Nicolas Sarkozy ha condotto una campagna presidenziale attenta alla dignità del lavoro ed alla laicità della Republic, not forgetting to pay homage to some sacred figures of the French left as Jean Jaures and Victor Hugo. The strategy adopted by this conservatism is not to challenge the soft goals that the left proposes (a certain level of welfare and social solidarity, the right to education and respect for minorities) rather than the proposed means to achieve them.
The State, it is argued, is not the appropriate instrument for achieving those goals because it is too expensive and cumbersome. Better to resort to the market, private initiatives, voluntary efforts. It looks like the conservative version of the slogan with which the SPD challenged Helmut Kohl in 1998: "We do not intend change everything, we just want to improve much of what has been done. "Such a strategic approach proves fruitful for the conservatism of the past, especially in a country like Britain, where there is a remarkable convergence of values \u200b\u200bamong voters of different policy guidelines, at least in the economic and social issues. The authors of the research, 2007-08 British Social Attitudes, observe that in the eighties there was a sharp contrast between the Tory and Labour voters. Opposition that has now been reduced significantly.
The counter-offensive of the center-left will have to necessarily focus on several fronts, but the role of the state is an unavoidable issue. If there is a difference between New Left and New Right, it affects the vision of the role that the state will have in the future in the delivery of social services, the provision of public goods and creating opportunities for individual and collective unequal society. In a period of uncertainty, the idea of \u200b\u200ba strong and effective should theoretically appear more attractive to a system in which the provision of public goods would be delegated to the charity or commercial sector. But we are talking about a state that is shown before receptive to citizens' demands and that is refractory to innovation in service delivery, the old bureaucratic apparatus inert public not allow certain consents to the left to recover.
After Mitterrand Era, Lionel Jospin gave a list of the achievements of the French left. E 'urgent that the European left is devoted to such an operation in relation to the reforms developed in recent decades under his technocratic project. We must determine what to keep and what to discard as ineffective and decrepit. It 'time, again, a serious exercise in revisionism.
(translation by Fabio Lucchini)
Ernst Hillebrand is a political scientist. E 'director of the Paris office of the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, the largest and oldest German partisan foundation which has close links with the Social Democratic Party (SPD)
Date: 2009-06-08
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Fallen in battle Luigi Pintor
I feel a great deal of difficulty writing of Enrico Berlinguer.
's not just sadness.
hear what happened as a political tragedy.
It is as if this man of integrity, which I have always felt an instinctive friendship reciprocated somehow I felt, had fallen victim to too much effort.
Fallen in battle is a nasty rhetorical expression, eppure è così. Come segretario del Partito comunista, ma io credo anche come persona, come coscienza politica e morale, Berlinguer aveva avvertito che la democrazia italiana sta correndo grandi rischi, che molti valori essenziali che abbiamo cercato di affermare nella società nazionale in questi decenni sono stati minacciati.
E ha trovato, negli ultimi tempi, lui per sua natura così prudente, accenti estremi per esprimere questo convincimento, e suscitare energie capaci di rovesciare l’andamento delle cose.
È tragico, e sembra quasi un ammonimento per noi, che si sia spezzato sotto questa tensione.
Egli appartiene a una generazione che, incontrandosi con il movimento operaio negli anni della seconda guerra mondiale, did much more than a political choice as it can be understood today, he identified with a cause and made an ideal way of being.
If it was not easy for anyone, in recent decades, withstand the storms that have hit the communist universe without getting lost and confused, what should be the side of intelligence and sensitivity to one that has become a leader without realizing it?
Shy and frail, are two definitions of Berlinguer you read the newspapers today and easily associate with his image and yet it has helped millions of people to orient themselves in a fight that has become increasingly difficult.
Based on the Unity of the June 13, 1984 June 10, 2009
Giovanni Di Fronzo at 12:42 on 12 June
Berlinguer's story .. is made of ups and downs.
However it is still one of the best politicians in history and the Republic.
Especially in the 'latter part of his life he gave her best and traced a path that was never followed it was then in fact, that after the disagreements of the seventies, he went into greater connection with the movement and gave a face conflict the party in social work (remember his pickets at Mirafiori).
E 'exactly there, and not by the government, which must start now the' work of the radical left: social conflict!
In the same year, he had the vision of 'see the 'agony of democrazioa and to make the moral question a political issue.
Everything is so terribly true today!
He died on the most beautiful, with dire effects for the left and the Italian democracy, effects that are unfolding today.
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