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Farewell, European left, I knew thee well
November 13, 2008
Vladimir Chizhov, Russia’s ambassador to the European Union, was having some fun this week at the expense of western countries as he mused about the impact of the financial crisis on world capitalism. “I’ve noticed an upsurge of interest in theoretical works by certain authors of the past, such as Karl Marx,” he said. “A German publishing house has just reprinted 2m copies of ‘Das Kapital’.”
Whether or not ’Das Kapital’ has anything useful to say about today’s turmoil, there is no doubt that the crisis is producing a shift in the European intellectual climate against classical free market liberalism and in favour of state interventionism and economic nationalism. The political and cultural soil for this shift was already rather fertile in France, Germany and Italy, though less so in young democracies such as the Czech Republic and Poland.
But if this is so, then why are political parties of the left in such poor shape across much of Europe? It’s the worst financial crisis since the early 1930s, the worst economic recession since the early 1990s, if not the 1970s - and where is the left?
In France, it is mired in internal disputes between Ségolène Royal and her enemies - disputes that seem incredibly petty, given the scale of the crisis in the world outside. President Nicolas Sarkozy’s popularity ratings, which crashed after his over-publicised romance with Carla Bruni, are going up.
In Germany, the Social Democrats are only just emerging from a miserable phase in which they were led by Kurt Beck, one of the least effective leaders in their post-1945 history. They do not look in great shape to displace Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats as Germany’s biggest party in next year’s federal elections. A poll this week gave the Social Democrats only 23 per cent, against 37 per cent for the Christian Democrats and their Bavarian allies.
In Italy, the centre-left opposition led by Walter Veltroni almost disappeared from public sight after losing this year’s election to Silvio Berlusconi. He is riding high on a programme of sorting out problems at Alitalia, Italy’s dysfunctional national airline, and cracking down on criminals and immigrants from outside western Europe.
It would be a rash person who predicted that the Labour party will hold on to power after the next UK election, even though Gordon Brown is recovering in the polls thanks to his recent performance during the financial crisis.
In short, the European left appears bereft of ideas and incapable of inspiring voters at a time when economic conditions ought to be working strongly in its favour.
After Barack Obama’s presidential election victory in the US last week, many commentators noted how difficult it was to imagine a black politician achieving a similar triumph in Europe. But I would ask another question. Where in Europe is the politician who will match Obama by raising the banner of modern centre-left values and winning an election?
The EU-Russia Summit meeting begins in Nice today and the FAZ has an editorial about it.
Is Tony Barber covering this summit in Nice? Will he report on it here?
P.S. A film of “Das Kapital” and Marx’s life is currently being made in Germany.
Posted by: J.J. | November 14th, 2008 at 8:12 am | Report this commentSir, you don’t have to look further than Britain to find such a banner raiser in a certain Mr. David Miliband. His Marxist scholar father… let’s not talk about that.
Posted by: Dave | November 14th, 2008 at 10:04 am | Report this commentThe European Left exists but not in the Socialist parties. They all follow and have as ideology, a ‘Blairite’ agenda , indistinguishable from the right wing capitalism which has according to President Bush led us to the present triumphant position. Untill such parties re-discover their socialism they are going nowhere.
Posted by: Scooter | November 14th, 2008 at 2:46 pm | Report this commentIn my opinion, when the World Markets just lost 20 trillion dollars from September 1 to November 13, 2008 ( and counting… ), its more a matter of who will have the….wisdom to break with the OLD Finance and Energy Formulas and who will bring in the NEW Growth and Jobs with NEW energy sources like solar and wind , new digital electric grids, new digital long-distance tele-medicine, new water desalination ,geothermal and transportation systems like electric plug-in cars , fuelcells and light trains , new pension formulas, who will break through to the new digital energy world ?
Europa ,Pr.Obama and all the G-20 have an amazing opportunity to find “that SMART balance” between “excessive regulation and interference in free enterprise businesses ” and with ” Growth and Jobs” , which is what the G-20 must push and achieve : JOBS , JOBS AND MORE JOBS !
take the case of : a) UBS where we find 20.000 USA taxpayers hiding 20 billion dollars from the IRS according to the media and to avoid taxes , b) the rating agencies giving AAA ratings to distressed and repossessed mortgages packages and derivatives-swaps from them , what created the channels for these toxic waste to infect thousands of banks,insurances,trading centers,pension plans and private investors, etc., the cancer…c) take the IMF, which just a few months ago, the neocons in the op-ed pages of the WSJ were asking : why not close down that useless organization? d) and take the politicians in Washington D.C. and Brussels who are going by the rules of the old guard, the old neocons and the warmongers among others, and insist on more conflicts with Russia, with Venezuela, with the Taliban ( who the EU-Nato and the USA were arming to the teeth just a few years ago to fight the “evil” soviet empire in Afghanistan )….take all that and some will agree that we need a new… EVERYTHING !
so in my opinion it’s not a matter of a new President in the USA only ( a half white and half black President that is ) , after all, we don’t know if P.Obama and VP.Biden will have the ….wisdom to break really through with the Old and start the New Energy Evolution : just this week the Oil Lobby, their Hedge-Funds and the Middle East Oil producers have put into action a “Oil Price Slow Down”( discreetedly of course ): they are terrified that the gentile europeans and americans will really switch their economies to Solar, Wind, Electric-Hybrid Plug-ins, Fuel-cells, Geothermal sites and Synthetic Jet-Fuel, etc., they are so afraid that we will “do it” this time, that they are willing to lose a trillion dollars with FABRICATED low-oil-prices for 3 to 6 months to calm the waters and make the gentile americans and europeans go back to the old ways: Oil Dependency and Servitude… still the Wall Street traders ( and other darlings in Zug -Switzerland ) got their futures at 180 dollars a barrel , so we know which way is going…
We need and we want a new way, new electric-hybrid plug-ins, fuelcells, solar and wind farms everywhere, geothermal sites were possible, new home grown jet fuel, clean from CO2 coal-to-liquids,tide turbines, algae-seaweed and jatropha to diesel, we want the new jobs, the new ideas, the new solutions into action !
P.Obama and VP Biden still must stay clear of neocons to supervise the “Tarp Bail -Out” program like Barofsky, experts in security like Steinberg, Pentagon insiders like Edelman and others, State advisers like Glassman and Kramer, instead we need people like US Att. Patrick Fitzgerald in the A.G.’s office, we need and want a whole new formula, a digital energy formula for these times, maybe even with 1 trillion dollars for the IMF and with all kinds of checks so that no one can do tricks, and keeping the neocons very far away from the White House and from Brussels.
Posted by: financialtools1@gmail.com | November 14th, 2008 at 10:45 pm | Report this commentWow! Tony Barber and other posters have become so soft in the head under Euro-Socialism they don’t know their capitalists from their Marxists!
The G-20 meetings, and bankrupt Browns bank hand outs are zero t do with capitalism. They are very simply huge public expenditures poured into bankrupt business (a socialist specialty) to no effect (ie. a toal waste of money).
Capitalism does not need “saving” by big spending political clowns. Recession and failure is part of capitalism, it cannot be “cured” by public spending. Brown and the G-20 are not saving the planet from recession, they are running up huge debts to spend, spend, spend which will achieve zero, zero, zero.
50% of Americans DO NOT support the US Govts’ (Democrats) bailouts. Because they know throwing their good money at bad loans, over-extended credit and badly rn business does not solve anything. Bad business does not need public support, it needs to fail.
Tony Barber is so confused he thinks a Socialist spending like Emelda Marcos on a shopping orgy, and playing God to save the “markets” (some bankrupt business) is capitalism. No Mr Barber it’s still socialism no matter how good the PR is.
Posted by: JPM, Zenium | November 16th, 2008 at 8:16 pm | Report this comment