Reformist Social Democracy is No Longer on the Agenda

(Last week, Italian communist leader Fausto Bertinotto was elected leader of the new European left party created by 16 communist and socialist parties.

The following commentary by Bertinoti appeared in The Guardian (UK) August 11, 2003.)

Reformist social democracy is no longer on the agenda

By Fausto Bertinotti

The terrible events in Iraq marked the end of the post-war period - a period marked by the memory of the horrors of the Nazi-fascist war, when the world saw two opposing economic and social blocs pitted against each other and social struggles led to a growth of welfare benefits and the bargaining power of trade unions.

The liberal constitutions were born out of the victory
over Nazism and fascism. Now we are living in a new
phase, in which the space for reform has been closed.
As Giorgio Ruffolo (a minister in Italy’s former
centre-left government) wrote recently: "Through
globalisation, capitalism has won a historical battle:
it has defeated the reform-minded left, both in Europe
and America." The consequences are there for everyone
to see: reckless flexibility, extreme inequalities and
the end of safety nets.

The demise of reformism has changed both analyses and
prospects, bringing with it the difficulty of even
achieving partial results that can be woven into the
social fabric and provide cohesion. This is a problem
even when there are major social and public-opinion
movements.

In the past few months large numbers have taken to the
streets, part of a worldwide movement against the war.
But the war was waged anyway, without any price yet
paid by the forces that wanted it. In Italy there has
been a major movement around employment issues,
including industry-wide strikes and general strikes,
but the government still managed to pass dangerous laws
such as the Maroni decree (restricting pension rights).

There has been a mass mobilisation over unfair
dismissal rights. And yet we lost it. In France, after
major struggles, the Raffarin government is carrying on
its attack on the pension system. In Germany, for the
first time in 50 years, IG Metall ended a strike to
extend the 35-hour working week to the eastern regions
without achieving any result whatsoever.

Capitalist globalisation contains deeply regressive
elements that are leading to a real crisis of
civilisation. The only possible response is not
reformism, but rather a radical refoundation of
politics as a worldwide process and thus a
reconstruction of the agency of change: a redefinition
of the working class.

The right has won all over the world because it has
strategic hegemony. In the US the Bush administration
is based on military interventionism, extreme neo-
liberalism and religious fundamentalism. War is no
longer a one-off or exceptional event, it has become
structural and "never-ending".

The only possibility in the face of rightwing extremism
is to provide an alternative: of peace against war and
of a new model of society against neo-liberalism. This
does not mean either a detailed programme or unity
among existing political forces. Nor does it mean
defending democracy as it currently exists. Rather, it
means starting from the main resource available, which
is the movement against capitalist globalisation.

The anti-globalisation movement is the first movement
that represents a break with the 20th century and its
truths and myths. At present it is the main source of
politics for an alternative to the global right. When,
on February 15, 100 million people took to the streets,
the New York Times referred to it as a second "world
power", a power that in the name of peace opposed those
who wanted war.

It is no exaggeration to say that everything that has
happened in the past few years has had something to do
with this movement. It started from observation of the
impact of neo-liberalism, going on to trace its origins
and create an anti-capitalist culture. It has resisted
the progressive destruction of democracy that has led
one liberal, Ralf Dahrendorf, to refer to this as an "
ademocratic century", holding to account those bodies -
from the International Monetary Fund to the World Bank
– that have deprived people of democracy and
sovereignty.

It has countered the crisis of democracy with embryonic
new democratic institutions. It has challenged the
division of political labour among trade unions,
parties and cooperatives and shifted the focus of
political debate from institutions to social relations,
bringing feelings and everyday life back into the realm
of politics.

It has also tackled the theme of power, in terms not of
achieving and keeping it, but of transforming,
dissolving and reconstructing power through self-
government. And it has challenged the model of a party
leading the movement, proposing instead the notion of
networks and links among groups, associations, parties
and newspapers.

The problem now is how to build out of the anti-
globalisation movement a real democratic power able to
achieve its objectives. Its greatest limitation seems
to be the lack of a connection between the great issues
of globalisation, war and peace and the intermediate
dimension of employment and production relations. The
inability to build a concrete link between the fight
against globalisation and the fight against insecurity
and exploitation is a shortcoming.

An alternative European left can find its strategy only
within the anti-globalisation movement. The key issue
both for the movement and for us is the clash between
peace and war. The movement has identified the global
dimension of war and the fact that it is inbuilt in a
system which cannot do without it. It was this
conviction that turned the anti-globalisation movement
into the backbone of the peace movement.

Despite its remarkable strength, however, the movement
did not stop the war. So now the question is: how can
we build a force for peace and democracy capable of
having an impact on US policy? The same kind of
problems arise over social issues. Building the social
roots of the movement and the reform of left politics
are two sides of the same coin.

In Italy, the Refounded Communists, together with
others, tried to do this through the referendum on
extending employment protection to all workers. We were
defeated, but the referendum took its inspiration from
the movement, the idea of the struggle for equal rights
against job insecurity. This battle, however, has not
taken on a European dimension. The European trade
unions decided not to call a general strike against the
war, which would have also been a boost to the fight
against neo-liberalism.

Now there is the chance of re-opening a Europe-wide
battle over the welfare state. In the face of
converging government policies, only an organisation
fighting at European level can make its case.

Unless they move in this direction, the European anti-
capitalist leftwing parties risk disappearing in terms
of political representation; and within the anti-
globalisation movement there could develop a temptation
to flee from politics. The forces of the European left
cannot depend on social democracy. They must break away
with a radical, united initiative. Not only the
prospects of the left and the anti-globalisation
movement, but even the existence of Europe as an
autonomous entity, is at stake.

· Fausto Bertinotti is national secretary of Italy’s
Refounded Communist party (Rifondazione Comunista) and
a member of the Italian and European parliaments.

fausto.bertinotti@rifondazione.it

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1016107,00.html