Socialism Slammed in Europe

This wasn't the way it was supposed to go down.  With the world wide financial crisis eating away at the foundations of  free markets, Socialism was supposed to begin it's long awaited revival.  Instead, in the recent EU elections, center-right to far right parties triumphed across the old country.  See Map of Blue Europe.

From the London Times:

Centre-left parties across Europe were bereft and bewildered today after voters deserted them for extremists and fringe groups or stayed at home in the lowest-ever turnout for elections to the European Parliament.

The biggest faction in the parliament will be the Centre Right after strong performances from Nicolas Sarkozy's UMP, Angela Merkel's CDU and Donald Tusk's Civic Democrats in Poland.

Left-of-centre governments and oppositions were not judged to be offering answers to the economic downturn and suffered badly not only in Britain but in France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Netherlands, Hungary, Bulgaria and Portugal.

That is obviously correct: what ever is wrong with the current world economy, it is nothing that the Left knows how to fix. 

The disturbing part of the story is the relative success of anti-immigrant parties. 

Anti-immigrant parties gained MEPs in Austria, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Romania and the UK. Extremist right-wing parties lost ground in Belgium, Bulgaria and France but still won seats.

To be sure, uncontrolled immigration to Europe might need to be controlled a bit, and other policies modified.  But there is no doubt that the anti-immigrant parties are tinged with racism.  The old idea that Europe is more racially progressive that the U.S. was always wrong, but we may be about to see how wrong it was. 

Comments

[Erik]

KB:
Hmmm.....Europe has had democratic socialist governments in power for nearly 100 years. Not certain what socialism you are talking about?
The right fringe parties are truly something to worry about.
Enjoy your vacation,
Erik

[George Mason]

What is more important is what recently occurred in California (shades of 1978). European countries are finally facing up to the failure of the welfare state, and the ensuing loss of their industrial base, and are beginning to dismantle it, piece by piece. Canada is finally facing up to the limitations of there medical system and, in some provinces, allowing private medical practice. In the other provinces there is fierce debate over the future of the system. To witness the failure of socialized medicine visit any American medical clinic within 100 miles of the Canadian border and ask all Canadians in the waiting room to raise their hands.

[KB]

Erik:

Yes, and for the last twenty they have been steadily reducing their footprint, selling off state industries, etc. Or at least all of those governments have tried.

George:

Thanks for the note. I certainly agree that socialized medicine is no panacea.

[Drew]

First, the centre-right parties that did so well? They, nearly without exception, aren't planning to abandon things like state funded health care, generous retirement packages, pro-family legislation to help families with children, and other social responsibility programmes. Many are to the left of mainstream US democrats in that respect. Their success has a lot to do with rejecting the recent malaise and irresponsibility of the Left, not of a change in philosophy regarding the proper role of the state as to responsibility for the less privileged members of society.

Second, the success of the far-right parties is not as horrible as it might seem. Much of their success has to do with people looking for a protest vote (especially an anti-Lisbon vote). Although Europe's more recent troubles with how to deal with an increasing Islamic population is a real issue, fascism not on the march (at least not yet).

[Erik]

KB,

I think that you aren't going back far enough. What we are seeing is the unravelling of the Reagan-Thatcher neo-liberal consensus that has dominated western economic thinking. The post-war social democratic model has it's advantages--strong social safety net, equality, social peace, etc. Of course, the Anglo-American model has lower unemployment and possibly more opportunities for the entrepreneurial class.

e2

[KB]

Drew:

Thanks for the comment. To be sure, the "center-right" parties aren't going to seriously reform the sclerotic welfare states that are burdening their economic growth. But that isn't the point. Neither are they going to turn back to a more vigorous socialism. The latter is what a lot of radicals were hoping.

I hope you are right about the 'protest vote' interpretation of the far-right parties. But I don't see anyone offering a serious solution to the immigration problem in Europe.

[A Conservative Teacher]

That crowd looks rather young, doesn't it? It reminds me of the tea parties i go to- the crowd is either college kids or retired workers.

[KB]

In Europe, young and unemployed are almost synonyms.