Social democracy: its history and its future

The political scientist Eunice Goes explains to Robin Wilson the vicissitudes of social democracy historically and addresses its contemporary challenges.

Robin Wilson: Your new book, Social Democracy, is a sobering account of social democracy since its emergence, charting a steadily diminishing political ambition—a fading of the red flag, if you like—over time. In your telling, in the latter 19th century, social democracy forsook the ill-defined ‘revolution’ of Marx and Engels for a parliamentary road to socialism. In the early 20th century, it demarcated itself from purportedly radical yet authoritarian alternatives. In the later 20th century, it accommodated to neoliberal capitalism. And in this century, it became disorientated by the ‘polycrisis’. Why do you think there was this steady trajectory, rather than more back-and-forth—more moments of social democratic achievement to record, such as the universal welfare states established in the Nordic countries in the middle of the last century?

Eunice Goes: That was the result of different things operating at the same time—and there was a bit of back and forth, which was not so steady. There was always an element of contingency and reacting to events as they emerged. But the first factor that drove this social democratic backsliding—if we can talk about it in those terms—has to do with when theory gets into contact with the messy reality of politics. And this is something we all experience in our lives: before we parent, we read about how to look after children and then, once our children are presented before us, we are faced with completely new sets of situations and have to improvise.

In the late 19th century one thing was the theory of social democracy, the way the theorists imagined a socialist society. Then they got on to start to implement that social-democratic society but reality is always different from the theory. And the first adaptation had to do with the electoral ground on which they were going to bring their vision to fruition. They very quickly saw—and Marx and Engels were the first to argue it—that parliamentary democracy and universal suffrage offered them an incredible tool to bring that vision of society about. But again, how they imagined their electorate, and in particular the working class or the supporters of the labour movement, was quite different from the voters they encountered on the ground. And so if the road to power was through elections—was through the parliamentary road—they had to adapt to these new voters.

These voters might have been quite sympathetic to the cause of social democracy—they might have been very supportive. But they were not militants and they were not dogmatic followers of theory. So if parties wanted to win elections, they needed to adjust to that reality. They also had to adjust to the fact that in many countries the industrial working class was not a majority. So if they wanted to be in power and to start to transform society, they needed to make proposals that offered something to those other voters.

Finally, the trajectory of social democracy was also one of struggle. They had to deal with a fairly hostile environment. It was not just the difficulty of winning elections—it was the difficulty of dealing with a series of institutions in the societies in which they were operating that were quite hostile to a socialist project: judicial systems, the law, the media, of course, mostly privately owned. So socialists had to fight, they had to deal with and adapt to those situations. This over 160 years of history has been one of struggle and one where social-democratic parties with the exception of Scandinavia have been mostly in opposition. Very few times have social-democratic parties governed in the countries in which they are operating.

One of the most interesting things about your book is the way you recast the split with what became the Third International communist tradition. You do stress that Marks and Engels favoured universal suffrage and a democratic republic as the ideal form of government, whereas Lenin was quite disdainful of the working class and was much in favour of substituting the party for the actually-existing working class, in all its variety and complexity as you say. But could in your view a different path have been taken at any time which would have won public consent to the political goals of social democracy, rather than these being diluted to secure electoral victories? I’m thinking perhaps particularly after the scond world war with the discrediting of fascism and the ‘free market’, which provided a Polanyian moment in which the liberal ideas of Keynes and Beveridge could thrive. In that context, could social democrats have done more to change the political weather rather than bend with the wind? Or do you think the electoral incentives to become catch-all Volksparteien and the constraints of economic orthodoxy underpinning the governance arrangements of what became the European Union were just too strong?

They could always have chosen a different path. One of the things I say in this book is that social-democratic parties, and social democracy as an ideology, were not solely at the mercy of events. This evolution was not just a reaction to the events they encountered on the ground: ‘Well, the world is much different from what we had imagined, so we have to accommodate the world as it is to bring just slight improvements.’ They could have made other choices, because in the end social-democratic parties—in fact any political agents—have options and there are always other options. They could have done more. And so many of the choices were essentially the result of the way in which social-democratic parties, their leaders and so on, interpreted the situations in which they found themselves and prioritised their social-democratic agendas. If there is a message of hope for social democracy as an ideology, it is the rediscovery of this political agency—the capacity to make a different choice and follow a different path.

You mentioned that in the postwar period perhaps they could have done something else. The postwar period was actually very challenging for social democracy because, with the exception of Britain right after the second world war, where it won a landslide victory but very shortly afterwards was in opposition, and with the exception of Scandinavian countries, social-democratic parties were in opposition until the late 1960s, the 1970s. And they tended to come to power at moments of a big crisis of capitalism, very challenging times to be in power. They were also struggling in an environment in which the centre-right parties were making very similar proposals to the ones of social democracy. So the postwar consensus that is very often mentioned as a ‘social-democratic’ consensus was in reality a liberal/Christian-democrat/cold-war consensus. And we saw with the United States that it needed to demonstrate to the citizens of Europe that capitalism was a viable economic and political system that would deliver general wellbeing to everyone.

So the social and economic policies that were implemented in that era were extremely congenial to social-democratic ideas. They were not necessarily invented by social democrats: they were the result of a dialogue between different traditions. And perhaps it is from this dialogue between different progressive traditions that sometimes you can find or rediscover the social-democratic path that will lead to a renewal of the tradition.

The 1970s, curiously, is one of the most interesting periods in social democracy. This was a period of great economic instability. This was essentially the period of the collapse of the Bretton Woods system, the collapse of Keynesianism too. But there was a moment where you had a whole range of social-democratic leaders: Willy Brandt in Germany, Bruno Kreisky in Austria, Olof Palme in Sweden. There were also a whole range of politicians working in the European Commission and the socialist parliamentarians in the European Parliament who were trying to carve out a different road to Europe. And they were doing it in a way that was not naïve. They were essentially seeing what was happening in terms of global trade. And they felt that if social democracy was going to survive, they needed to prepare workers and citizens for this movement. The only way for social democrats to offer a countervailing power to the power of capital was through economic democracy—by empowering workers, by ensuring workers had a say in the way that they work and in the way economies are governed, so they are involved in corporate governance. And this agenda was pursued with great seriousness by these social-democratic leaders.

But then there was a change of leadership and, again, decisions were taken that accepted that the Keynesian consensus was over and that now the only way to go was through fiscal orthodoxy. We had James Callaghan in the United Kingdom saying that Keynesianism had run its course and, crucially, in Germany Helmut Schmidt replaced Willi Brandt and imposed an ordoliberal path on Europe. That was an extremely consequential decision. Throughout the 80s and 90s, social-democratic parties across the whole European continent pretty much accepted this path and thought they could achieve social-democratic goals through the free market by creating something called the ‘knowledge economy’, whereby workers would be equipped with skills and would be able to fight in the competitive market. But in the meantime all the social-democratic ideas and policies that could have contributed to the emancipation of workers and voters in general were somehow abandoned. And what we’ve seen, especially in the 21st century, has been the rise of insecure work, of precarity, of inequality. So to a large extent we are back to the same level of inequality and unbridled capitalism which Marx and Engels described and amid which the social-democratic parties of the 19th century tried to come up with a project that would diminish its power.

In the book you challenge the idea that only a ‘third way’ option for social democracy, as you’ve just referred to, was or indeed is viable electorally. You’ve pointed to the evidence from research supported by the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung which shows that votes lost by social-democratic parties in recent years have largely gone to more radical parties on the left and to the greens—not, as some thought, to the resurgent populist right. Yet you do not support as an alternative a left populism, as advocated by Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe. So what would you say is the broad platform social democrats should advocate on issues such as inequality or economic democracy, if they are not simply to ‘muddle through’ (as you suggest they shouldn’t) but are to reinvest in ‘goals and values’ (as you suggest they should)?

There’s been an emerging agenda since the global financial crisis that focuses on inequality and to a certain extent is almost going back to basics, because the socialist project is a project of human emancipation. So the purpose is to create a society where human beings, workers are free to pursue the lives that they want but it is a life living communally—human beings are mostly social. And the greatest obstacle to the emancipation of human beings was capitalism—that was essentially the diagnosis of Marx and Engels. So that is why the pursuit of the socialist dream always had as a condition the destruction of capitalism. Very quickly, social democrats realised that that was not possible but they tried to tame it and they believed that capitalism was also highly adaptable. Those were some of the conclusions they reached at the beginning of the 20th century and, to a large extent, it was that tamed capitalism that delivered the 30 years of social mobility, economic growth and so on [of the postwar period]. So we have got again to a moment where we have rising inequality, rising insecurity that is felt in a variety of ways in all areas of life. And many social democrats have realised that they’ve conceded too much power to the market and they need to rediscover a different role for the state. It will be along those lines that social democrats can try to carve out a new agenda.

Left-wing populism is an interesting phenomenon because it is so different from social democracy—not only because of the different project it assumes but also because it is predicated on an idea of charismatic leadership, which is not necessarily democratic. And the future path for social democracy, if social democrats are keen on keeping this tradition alive, lies in focusing on deepening democracy at all levels, politically, economically and socially. So a greater involvement of citizens in public life but also focusing on economic democracy to deliver that emancipation—freeing people to pursue other things in life other than just work. Work should be creative but people should also be free to have different roles in their own communities, to spend time with their families, to create works of art, to be creative in their own lives. That was essentially the socialist aspiration, which still has a lot of resonance. It is an ideal to which many people can aspire.

The other thing I would contribute to the renewal of that agenda is a focus on trying to change the political narratives by fostering different forms of communication, perhaps thinking of different ways of dealing with the mainstream media, which have been so hostile to the social-democratic project. Without that will—it’s again the whole issue around agency—to pursue a different conversation where you’re making different arguments, there is no way that social democracy can survive another 160 years.

I want to home in on the social democratic parties themselves, because you concur with Peter Mair’s thesis that they (though not only they) have over decades become ‘hollowed out’ by the atrophy of organic relationships to what in France they would call the popular classes, moving into a mediatised world of competition with rival elites for insertion into government. Inasmuch as social-democratic parties have been renewed since the 1960s, a major factor has been social movements which have extended the social-democratic focus on workers’ rights, to which you just referred, to the rights of citizens more broadly, including to gender equality, sexual freedom and above all to a liveable planet—part of that broader philosophy of emancipation you talk about. And I wonder whether the public sphere of civil-society organisations, including reviving trade unions, might in your view provide more refreshment and renewal for social democratic parties today?

Oh they do. Civil society, and in particular trade unions, does provide a very strong anchoring for social-democratic parties. We saw that, for instance, with the Labour Party in the United Kingdom, where the disappearance of trade unions from people’s lives hollowed out entire communities. And what prevailed was an individualistic culture, where essentially people believed that they were on their own and they needed to adopt that dog-eat-dog, competitive mentality to survive in contemporary situations. We forget the trade unions are not just very useful organisations to ensure that workers are paid adequate wages and are working in just conditions. Trade unions also offer a culture, an anchorage, activities—they’ve politicised the working class. There were workers at the beginning of the 20th century who were barely literate, had very few years of schooling, who were extremely politicised. What we’ve seen in the last four decades or so has been a depoliticisation—not only of the working class but of voters in general. I encounter so many university students and graduates who are not politicised at all, because they are not involved in political organisations and trade unions which offer them a way of understanding the world. Those civil-society organisations that can mediate the relationship of citizens with the state can offer them a sense that they are not alone.

That’s essentially what the labour movement brought: workers were able to participate in those big marches to fight for universal suffrage and many other very important political campaigns because they felt they were not alone. There was solidarity and, through the links of solidarity, they were able to be the countervailing force to the market. Neoliberals understood that very well in the 1980s. They knew that the only way to weaken and destroy the Keynesian project was by weakening trade unions and they were very successful in the pursuit of that goal.

So a revival of social-democratic parties will need to include very strong trade unions. Interestingly, trade unions are also changing. They are much more feminised. They are also much more ethnically diverse, because the workforce has also changed. In the United Kingdom, the number of trade unions now led by women is very, very large and we see that in other European countries. This is a very good sign, because old trade unions were not always the defenders of progressive values. They were often against gender equality. They were often against allowing workers from ethnic minorities to access certain jobs and so on. But all of that has changed. Trade unions have modernised and they can become really important agents of, and standard-bearers for, the social-democratic parties.

As in Donald Sassoon’s history of social democracy, you identify the political tradition with the party seeking to advance it. Yet given there’s now a much more pluralist liberal left than in the past, with social-democratic parties not monopolising progressive wisdom, how in your view should they cope with this environment, which is unlikely to go away? How can they relate to parties which are both rivals for progressive support and potential governing coalition partners, as in some of the most successful progressive administrations in recent years, such as the ‘red-red-green’ cases in Portugal and earlier in Norway? Or will, on the other hand, other parties simply occupy the social-democratic space, which is a scenario you suggest might be possible, as in the way that Syriza has taken over from PASOK in Greece?

That’s a really tricky question. In the 19th century, actually, the social democratic movement was very, very plural because across Europe there were other intellectual traditions that contributed to the success of social democracy. In Britain, for instance, liberalism was an ally of the movement in the mid-19th century. In France, republicanism and secular voices were extremely important too. In Spain, anarchist movements and so on were extremely important and very influential for the evolution of social democracy. That plurality was somehow there, but of course the left likes to have a lot of fights amongst itself. So that is why it is quite difficult.

The idea of alliances or dialogues with other left-wing forces is the way forward, especially because party systems and electorates are highly fragmented. We are dealing now with much more polarised societies, with many more political parties competing for elections. To a certain extent that competition is the sign of a healthy polity, so the idea is to pursue competition and co-operation simultaneously. In a sense political parties should keep their identities and fight elections independently, because they’re also pursuing different types of electorates. In Germany, for instance, the SPD is mostly supported by older voters; younger voters tend to vote for other parties. It’s the same in Portugal: while the average voter is over 55, young voters are voting for either parties of the radical left or new parties of the centre-right but not for the mainstream parties of the right or left. So there are different electorates that they need to pursue, but they should maintain a constructive dialogue that can then allow for the formation of a quasi-coalition agreement or some form of understanding whenever they are close to forming a government.

Interestingly, you mentioned Portugal. The socialists suffered a few weeks ago a very important electoral defeat. They’d been in power since 2015, so nine years in power. And the most stable and fruitful period of their governance was when they were governing with the parties of the radical left. The other time where they had almost a majority overall, they had to go to early elections and they lost. So there are some lessons to be learned there. There’s the case of Syriza and the case also of what we’re seeing in France, where the Socialist Party is practically non-existent. We have Jean-Luc Mélenchon [of La France insoumise] dominating the discourse on the left together with the greens. The socialists are practically barely there. That shows what happens when social-democratic parties are completely hollowed out. They shifted so much to the right that their voters completely deserted them.

So these are the lessons. Open dialogues, conversations with other progressive forces will keep social-democratic parties intellectually and ideologically honest. So they can say they are competent but at the same time principled—because when they become obsessed with budgetary surpluses they are accountants and no longer the standard-bearers of a tradition that wanted to emancipate workers.

Finally, in today’s globalised as well as individualised world, from equality to ecology the goals of social democracy require multi-level governance to reign in corporate power, especially at the European and the global scales. Is social democracy capable of gearing itself up to that level and to making persuasive arguments that the collective-action dilemmas the world faces make such global governance imperative? And can it win the argument for treaty changes in the EU, given the ways ordoliberalism is still embedded in a Europe crying out for public investment on an unprecedented scale, especially to effect a just green transition?

They can. Do they want to? The capacity is there. Interestingly, in recent months in conversations with socialist MPs and MEPs across Europe, one thing that struck me is that these younger generations, those MPs and MEPs who are in their 30s—we’re talking about politicians who were politicised very strongly by the global financial crisis and the eurozone crisis—they seem to be very ready to fight that fight. They have an understanding of the world that seems very congenial to the social-democratic project. They seem very concentrated and committed to reform capitalism. They’ve been working very hard to tackle the big problem of today—labour insecurity—and they’ve been doing the necessary work in the European institutions. They’re also fighting all the causes like defending the right to abortion, as we saw in recent days in the European Parliament.

So there’s a whole new generation of European social-democratic leaders and politicians who have that kind of understanding and they also understand that those decisions are being taken no longer only in the national arena but in a multinational arena. That’s essentially how politics happens and social democracy in Europe will not be able to flourish without big changes in the European Union and in particular, as you alluded to, within the eurozone.

Now the circumstances are very hostile to that social-democratic project because the right dominates and, as to the European Parliament elections in June, the estimates are that parties of the radical right and of the far right are going to make big gains and social democrats are going to lose some seats. So that is going to make things even more difficult for those social-democratic voices to make a different argument. Within the national governments of Europe, the scenarios are also not very optimistic. The SPD is extremely unpopular in Germany. The only socialist or social-democratic bastion at the moment in Europe is Spain, because even in Scandinavia the kind of social democracy that is practised there is highly questionable, in particular in the areas of immigration and human rights.

But we live in a highly volatile period. It is highly unlikely that the promises of the right to tackle immigration, in a way that violates international conventions and is very inhumane, are going to placate voters across Europe. So in these volatile times, social democrats will have the chance to make different proposals and try to bring them to fruition. And perhaps they should lose the fear of losing the argument, because things are already very, very bad as they are. If they can make a different argument and show that the solutions that have been proposed by their rivals are not really delivering, maybe there is a time for that comeback. I have some hope in this younger generation of social-democratic MEPs and MPs.

As Franklin Roosevelt famously said in some similarly difficult times, ‘The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.’