On 2012-03-15, at 9:07 AM, Wojtek S wrote:
> Marv: "Here we disagree. I don't see very much to distinguish between
> the leadership, program, and social base of the US Democrats and the
> British European social democrats. They are all pro-capitalist liberal
> parties favouring Keynesian rather than "Austrian" management of their
> economies. "
>
> [WS:] I do not think this quite addresses my argument, so let me try
> to rephrase it. The DP-style social democrats is as far left as most
> of the US electorate will go, but it represents the slightly left-of
> the center point for most of the European electorate. In other words
> what passes for "socialism" in the US is a center-left position in
> Europe. There are many structural reasons for that, ranging from
> exceptionally well organized and class conscious business aristocracy
> to internal divisions within working/middle classes, and to the role
> that political patronage (aka "machine politics") played in tying
> labor interests to those of the business establishment.
You're right to point to the differences between European and American workers, though I would attribute the relative political backwardness of the latter more to the conservatizing effects of a) US imperialism, which both improved working class standards through much of the postwar period and fostered chauvinist and militarist tendencies within it, and b) the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow racism, which inhibited many white workers from making common cause with blacks and, more recently, with hispanic and other immigrants.
We shouldn't, though, exaggerate the gap between the American and European working class - that is, the white European working class, which similarly feels its living standards and culture threatened by immigrant workers from Muslim and Asian countries. The decline in its political consciousness is registered by movement of many white French workers from the PCF to the National Front, and the story is much the same across Europe. We should recall also that working class political consciousness was retarded, though not to the same degree as in the US, by nationalist and racist distortions in the heyday of the British, French, and other European empires.
> I do take your point that most social democratic parties are
> pro-capitalist liberal parties favouring Keynesianism and, I may add,
> generous social programs. I also fully agree with your point that
> this, far from being "treachery" by the leaders, more or less
> represents the position of the "median constituent" of these parties.
> As you may recall, I argued a similar position some time ago on this
> list (summarized here
> http://wsokol.blogspot.com/2012/01/day-after-neoliberalism.html) -
> that structural changes in the composition of the workforce and the
> expansion of "technostructure" (Galbraith's term) reduced the popular
> appeal of the "old'left" ideologies in favour of liberal and
> libertarian ones.
>
> Wojtek
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