September 21, 2010
WHEN hISTORY DIES IT TAKES pOLITICS WITH IT:
Social democracy is dying - even in Sweden: The Swedish elections confirm that even in every leftist’s idea of political paradise, labourism is on its last legs. (Nathalie Rothschild , 9/21/10, spiked)
The problem in Sweden is not an irrational attachment to old-style politics, either amongst the apparently over-nostalgic Social Democrats or the allegedly fascistic Sweden Democrats. No, the problem is the broader abandonment of politics itself, as evidenced by the uniform movement towards the evermore crowded centre of the political spectrum and the forming of alliances, which has helped soften the edges around the parties and even out any final remaining differences between them; after all, coalition-building necessitates compromise and the presentation of a unified front. The New Moderates, the Centrist Party, the Liberal Party and the Christian Democrats formed an alliance ahead of the previous election in 2006, and this year the left followed suit, with the Social Democrats teaming up with the Left Party and the Green Party. Clearly, the Social Democrats realised that the days of getting more than 40 per cent of the vote are long gone, so they called the smaller parties for help.In 2006, the New Moderates’ strategy was to assure the Swedish people that they were not the conservatives they used to be. Their promise has been to deliver a better welfare state, not to slash it. As The Economist pointed out, ‘even on the right, voters and politicians favour consensus, equality and expansive public services’. Sweden remains a big-state society, even if the centre-right coalition is slightly more keen on privatisation of public services and tax cuts than the Social Democrats.
On the big issues – jobs, welfare, education, the environment, immigration and integration – the arguments have been around how to achieve the same, already decided-upon goals, rather than kickstarting a serious battle over what goals Sweden should aspire to.
While the election results show a more even distribution of votes than ever, the first re-election of a conservative prime minister, and a surge in support for previously marginal parties – the greens and the Sweden Democrats – the Social Democrats’ leader Mona Sahlin was also right to say that there were no winners. She might have added that the biggest loser was Politics with a capital P.
Sure, there are still enough First and Second Way diehards left to lose elections for their respective parties, but the consensus in favor of a comprehensive social welfare net (the Second), funded to the greatest extent practicable by free market mechanisms (the First) is so powerfully entrenched in the vast middle of the electorate that there really isn't a debate anymore. Thus has Politics been replaced by mere politics.
