The Demise of Social Democrats?
jussi....@faf.mil.fi
wrote on the eve of the presidential elections back in January 2006:
Hm. Alright, yesterday we saw the results of the parliamentary
elections, and I think that I'm entitled to declare that I had the
right hunch already a year ago. The right-wing National Coalition just
racked up the greatest victory ever in the history of the party,
becoming the second-largest party in the parliament, gaining ten seats
and raising its representation to a respectable fifty seats. The
Centre lost ground, and barely managed to hold on to its position as
the largest party, with fifty-_one_ seats.
And the Social Democrats lost. For the first time since 1962, when
their ranks were divided by the split of the socialist opposition, the
SDP has dropped to the third place; and for the first time in the
history of independent Finland, the Social Democrats have lost to
_both_ non-socialist bourgeois parties simultaneously. The shift is to
the right.
This is hardly a surprise. As I said, the open meddling of the trade
unions in the presidential elections was already considered irritating
by many (yours truly included) and in the recent parliamentary
elections, the same happened again. The famous advertisements of the
labour unions - including the famous shelved advertisement which,
perhaps inadvertedly, managed to present a typical Finnish employer as
a disgusting, morbidly obese glutton who oppresses his workers and
eats baby seals and pandas for dinner - may have managed to activate
the ranks of those who would have voted for the SDP anyway... but
simultaneously alienated pretty much everyone else (once again, yours
truly included).
The SDP ads were equally self-defeating. And advertisement where the
employers are spending their coffee break by throwing darts at the
worker? Um? When a majority of Finnish employers are normal, hard-
working people simply trying to keep their business together, somehow,
and who see themselves as being in the same boat with their employees,
this appears as a very ham-handed propaganda. Somehow, the SDP decided
that the right way to run an election campaign was to attempt reviving
the late-19th/early 20th century class antagonisms instead of
addressing the real, 21st century questions. Really, _what were these
people thinking_?
Nota Bene: class divisions, and latent antagonisms, obviously do exist
in the present-day Finnish society. However, they are not of the kind
that would benefit the traditional left-wing parties. The one party
that managed to cash in with the new post-modern class divisions were
the so-called "True Finns", who also racked up a respectable electoral
victory. Their populism was, if not perhaps appropriate or even
justified, nonetheless of the _succesful_ kind.
Also, there was the inheritance tax. The continuous references by the
SDP leader Eero Heinäluoma to "magnificent inheritances" and the
necessity to tax them were completely out of sync with reality. These
days, a majority of the inheritances are left by ordinary, normal,
hard-working Finnish people to their offsprings. To these people, the
inheritance tax really _is_ just a "death tax", an attempt by the
government to cash in on other people's misfortune. The traditional,
ideologically-driven left-wing fears of the re-birth of hereditary
wealth and new, privileged money aristocracy did not strike a chord
with these voters... nor with the reality.
(As a personal note, my father died when I was ten. I didn't inherit
anything - the widow gets it all - but for some strange reason, the
government decided to slap a tax also on me and my brothers. Since I
was the youngest, I was taxed the least, but for a ten-year old, the
sum was still quite substantial, well over thousand Finnish marks. My
mother requested the authorities to grant an extension allowing me to
pay the taxes retroactively later on when I'd be old enough to
actually be in working life and earn some money. The bureaucracy
responded by granting me a generous nine-month's extension, after
which I was to pay the tax with 15% interest. The end result was that
my mother paid my taxes. Presumably you can guess how I responded to
the Social Democratic rhetoric on the inheritance tax in the recent
elections.)
So. As I said already back in the last year, the presidential
elections did make the Centre-Right government a realistic
possibility. The parliamentary elections yesterday made the Centre-
Right government the _only_ realistic possibility. Needless to say, a
change is obviously a very, very welcome thing.
But I'll go further. I predict that yesterday's defeat of the Social
Democrats was fatal, the first step marking their gradual fade-out as
a significant political force. As I pointed out in another thread on
the lack of youth interest in politics, the SDP is the one party that
suffers the most from overaging. Their rank and file and their
representatives are simply getting too old, and no new blood is coming
in. As the party intellectual Erkki Tuomioja noted yesterday, "the
youth today thinks that we're ridiculous".
Also, their base is badly slanted. The traditional connection to the
labour unions was most likely one reason to yesterday's defeat. As it
is, the corporate structure of the trade unions has lost touch with
the realities of today's labour market, and organized labour is
becoming a thing of the past. And why is it that the labour union
leadership consists predominantly of middle-aged men? Sexism doesn't
win many points these days.
The alternative to the trade unionist wage-receiver's program is the
intellectual, academic salon socialism, embodied in Erkki Tuomioja.
Sadly, as Tuomioja himself declared, that sort of thing is, well,
ridiculous.
No new blood. An entrenched, bankrupt program. An ideological void. A
worldview centered on holding on to the past instead of going forward.
... yep, I'm pretty sure that absent some miracles, the permanent
downward slide has started. The SDP will be lucky if they can hold
their own in 2011, and by 2015, their representation in the parliament
is likely to drop to the level comparable to the National Coalition
during the '70s, with ca. 30-40 seats. I'm pretty sure that by this
time, the fusion of the SDP and the equally-withering Left-Wing
Alliance will be seriously considered, as the emergence of a unified
Left-Wing party will be seen as the only possible solution to restore
their political viability.
The Social Democrats can still muddle through and continue their
existence, and they will still be able to maintain a position which
will make courting their support an important consideration in the
parliamentary politics. But their old position as one of the leading
political parties will be lost, forever. And no, I don't think that
it's an exaggeration to draw this kind of a conclusion this early.
Cheers,
Jalonen
Jukka Raustia
> No new blood. An entrenched, bankrupt program. An ideological void. A
> worldview centered on holding on to the past instead of going forward.
...
> The Social Democrats can still muddle through and continue their
> existence, and they will still be able to maintain a position which
> will make courting their support an important consideration in the
> parliamentary politics. But their old position as one of the leading
> political parties will be lost, forever. And no, I don't think that
> it's an exaggeration to draw this kind of a conclusion this early.
Fair points, though I think this may be just temporary crisis for the
SDP. One must remember the incredible staying power the Center Party has
had despite virtual demise of its original supporters. In Britain the
Labour was in dire straits for some 18 years before its
re-emergence. Perhaps something similar will happen for the SDP.
When you are predicting downfall of SDP I think you don't take two things
into account.
First is the European dimension of party politics. It is possible that in
the future both voters and parties themselves will see national parties as
extensions of the European parliamentary groups. Already National Coalition is
trumpeting its co-operation with Cameron's Conservatives and Reinfeldt's
Moderaterna. ELDR connection of Center Party is pretty strong too. I am
fairly certain the new SDP leadership will make use of its PES connections
in a similar way. Possible re-emergence or downfall of SDP will not be
just an issue of Finnish politics but also connected with undercurrents of
the European politics.
Second possible factor might be americanization of Finnish politics. By
this I mean that the historical roots and positions of the parties will be
truly forgotten in a similar way that no one remembers what the Republican
or Democratic parties were originally founded for. I would argue Finland
might be a good candidate for this kind of process.
Jukka Raustia
jussi....@faf.mil.fi
> Fair points, though I think this may be just temporary crisis for the SDP. One
> must remember the incredible staying power the Center Party has had despite
> virtual demise of its original supporters.
Centre is a strange beast, and has undergone a series of
metamorphosis. On the other hand, I think that this was due to the
fact that even their old party program as an agrarian bloc was, deep
down, so _simplistic_ - emphasis on humanism, social conscience and
popular rule - that it was easy to re-adapt it to the new conditions.
Strangely enough, although it was founded on the basis of class
interests and the farmer's estate, it was also, from the get-go, a
popular party with the potential to become a "broad tent" somewhere
down the line (which is now).
I'm not sure if the Social Democrats fit the bill. Rather, they remind
me of the old Young Finns/Progressives/Liberals. We have an example of
once-dynamic, very influential middle-class party that eventually
faced a slow death... and today, we have another example of once-
dynamic, very influential class-based party, going downhill since
yesterday.
> In Britain the Labour was in dire straits for some 18 years before its
> re-emergence. Perhaps something similar will happen for the SDP.
Possibly, but this requires a Political Genius (TM). Who would it be?
>From the present-day cohort, I'm not really seeing any likely
candidates. As noted, new arrivals are getting scarce.
While at it, I'd place a small bet that by the next presidential
elections, the Social Democratic candidate - whoever it may be - will
not stand a chance. With Halonen out of the picture and Tuomioja just
too old, they'll have no folks with experience in international
politics. So, the next president will be a non-socialist, most likely
from the Centre Party.
Best guess, whoever will be the foreign minister in the upcoming
cabinet will get the nomination as the presidential candidate for the
party, and will win the presidency. I think that this assignment in
the next government will go to the Centre, and I think that the person
who will hold it will be Paula Lehtomäki.
Too weird? Hey, I had this vision just this morning.
The European angle, as well as the "Broad Tent"-argument which I
already briefly mentioned above, are good points, and I'll get back to
those later on.
Cheers,
Jalonen
KM
jussi....@faf.mil.fi wrote:
> Also, their base is badly slanted. The traditional connection to the
> labour unions was most likely one reason to yesterday's defeat. As it
> is, the corporate structure of the trade unions has lost touch with
> the realities of today's labour market, and organized labour is
> becoming a thing of the past. And why is it that the labour union
> leadership consists predominantly of middle-aged men? Sexism doesn't
> win many points these days.
I'm not familiar enough with Finnish politics to comment on that
specifically, but your comments seem to be referring to a shift that
will have consequences for social democratic parties around the world:
the shifting of the first world's workforce away from industry and
into services. In 1989, Finland's service sector workforce outnumbered
its industrial workforce by two-to-one. By 2005, it was approaching
three-to-one. In the same time frame, agriculture's share of the
labour force was nearly cut in half. For any party that has continued
to define itself as agrarian or union-oriented, that's bound to have a
profound impact.
There is a documentary online, called "Eight People Sipping Wine in
Kettering", which examines another profound change in politics: the
rise of individualism, and the growing tendency for voting behaviour
to be driven by self-interest (and, I would add, personalities) rather
than by group identity. Could it be that Finnish social democrats look
down on the idea of appealing directly to peoples' self-interest as
though it were a sort of political sacrilege, as did the British
Labour Party prior to Tony Blair and the U.S. Democrats prior to Bill
Clinton?
jussi....@faf.mil.fi
On 19 maalis, 15:24, Jukka Raustia <jraus...@paju.oulu.fi> wrote:
> First is the European dimension of party politics. It is possible that in
> the future both voters and parties themselves will see national parties as
> extensions of the European parliamentary groups. [...] I am fairly certain the
> new SDP leadership will make use of its PES connections in a similar way.
Just to get back to this: would the European connection really help at
all in the internal politics of the country?
I may be simplistic, but I think that one of the reasons why the
socialist parties are still doing so well in certain European
countries is because in these countries there still remains _so much
to be done_ even on those fields where we already regard progress as
self-evident. Moreover, in those other countries, "dynamic
conservatism" and a genuinely reformist Right is still something of an
unknown phenomenon, so consequently, the socialist parties are the
only ones that have managed to emerge as the parties for progress and
reform.
For example, take the recent Spanish equality legislation package,
enacted by a socialist government. A great step forward... but
something that folks in Finland would look on as a thing of yesterday.
Been there, done that, and everyone has always adhered to those ideas,
all across the political field.
Am I incorrect in assuming that when compared to their European
brethren, the Finnish social democrats may be so far ahead of the
curve that they are losing their raison d'être? In the new labour
market, their potential to exist as a wage-receivers' party is
becoming limited; and in a society where there's a strong consensus on
the existing reform and progress all across the political field, they
cannot cash in by monopolizing the position of a reformist party for
themselves... especially since most of those burning things have been
done already.
And I'm pretty damn sure that an academic, intellectual Left-Wing
party of salon socialists has zero chances of existence in the
atmosphere of this country.
So, could my predicted fate of the Finnish socialist democrats also
reveal the eventual future of _all_ socialist parties on this
Continent? This country is just getting there first, once again.
As for the "broad-tent"-possibility, hm. I already mentioned why I
think that the SDP is an unlikely candidate for that, given that their
original class-based character may make that impossible. On the other
hand, some political fusions, split-ups and evolutions... well,
anything is possible. We might even end up with a "National Green
Party" or "Social Liberal Party" or whatever.
Cheers,
Jalonen