Lula’s victory in Brazil was among several wins by leftist leaders in 2022 (Photo: AP)4 min read . Updated: 29 Dec 2022,
:Pankaj Mishra
Pundits reviewing 2022 are heaving a palpable sigh of relief
Pundits reviewing 2022 are heaving a palpable sigh of relief. This was the year, or so the consensus goes, when far-right strongmen such as Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro were enfeebled, China stumbled and the ‘West’ made a comeback, at least against Vladimir Putin’s Russia. Such assessments, nostalgic for a lost ‘liberal international order’, ignore a more widespread development: how a general discontent with the old order, exacerbated by the pandemic, is fuelling a revival of the Left in South America, Europe and Australasia. It’s most clear in Latin American countries long tormented by extremes of poverty and inequality. Returning to power in Brazil in October, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva heads a long victory parade by leftists in the region. In June, Colombia elected its first leftist president in Gustavo Petro. Gabriel Boric became in December 2021 the most left-wing president of Chile since Salvador Allende. Bolivian President Luis Arce came to power in 2020. In 2019 in Argentina, Alberto Fernández defeated a right-wing incumbent. A year earlier, Mexico’s Andrés Manuel López Obrador won in a landslide.
Australia, New Zealand and many European countries provide additional context for why so many voters are turning to social-democratic (and in some cases avowedly socialist) leaders. In the simplest terms, the benefits of globalization are shrinking, and, as essentials such as energy and food soar in cost, voters expect more social protections. This is why centre-left parties, from Jacinda Ardern’s Labour in New Zealand to Pedro Sanchez’s Socialist Workers’ Party in Spain, share an emphasis on improved wages, better job security and more public goods.
This is a move back from goals like privatization and marketization that since the 1980s have been pursued by not only right-wing but also centre-left and even some socialist parties in the UK, France, Germany, Sweden and elsewhere. Public opinion has shifted; the ideological hegemony of the so-called ‘third way’ of Bill Clinton, Tony Blair and others now survives mostly in small bubbles.
Another preserve is Britain’s Labour Party, whose Blairite leader Keir Starmer and supporters in the media find themselves out of step with overwhelming public support for striking public-sector workers. Today’s cannier social democrats such as German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Portugal’s Socialist President Antonio Costa work with the insight that the neglect of the welfare state, the shredding of social security nets and the rise of inequality—in part, consequences of the ‘third way’ that were experienced painfully during the pandemic—were what pushed many voters to the far Right. To get them back, leaders have to recreate some part of the old compact between the social-democratic left and the weak, the insulted and the injured. That said, too much should not be read into close relations between Germany’s Scholz, Spain’s Sanchez and Portugal’s Costa, or in the Socialist International conference in Madrid in November, presided over by Sanchez and attended by several heads of state.
Leftists today are very far from the clear and confident consensus that in the 1970s united such leaders as Willy Brandt, Olof Palme, Bruno Kreisky and François Mitterrand, and extended deep into governments and political movements in Asia, Africa and Latin America. For one, electorates have fractured, probably irrevocably, and most social democrats and socialists today come to power in coalition governments with narrow margins of victory. They have little scope for structural transformations and the new alliances they create are precarious. While winning back alienated working classes, they cannot afford to lose the progressive and professional middle classes in metropolitan areas, as well as young activists seeking climate and gender justice.
But this dilemma is not unsolvable. As inflation peaks amid the unending crises of a pandemic and war in Ukraine, fear of the future will make many more people than before look to governments for social and economic security. And politicians who respond to this widespread longing for reassurance are likely to do better than those still going on about how free markets will unleash entrepreneurial spirits and turbocharge growth. For example, after lagging behind for years, Spain’s ruling party has in recent months overtaken the right-wing party in opinion polls with a programme of public spending funded by tax hikes on banks, utility companies and large fortunes.
In reaction, a cornered right is likely to become even more intransigently radical, ramping up culture wars. Those celebrating the return of the West in 2022 ought to turn their focus to what’s likely to be the main event of 2023: how, after years of ideological confusion and stalemate, the real battle for hearts and minds will be led by a freshly reconstructed left.
Pundits reviewing 2022 are heaving a palpable sigh of relief
Pundits reviewing 2022 are heaving a palpable sigh of relief. This was the year, or so the consensus goes, when far-right strongmen such as Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro were enfeebled, China stumbled and the ‘West’ made a comeback, at least against Vladimir Putin’s Russia. Such assessments, nostalgic for a lost ‘liberal international order’, ignore a more widespread development: how a general discontent with the old order, exacerbated by the pandemic, is fuelling a revival of the Left in South America, Europe and Australasia. It’s most clear in Latin American countries long tormented by extremes of poverty and inequality. Returning to power in Brazil in October, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva heads a long victory parade by leftists in the region. In June, Colombia elected its first leftist president in Gustavo Petro. Gabriel Boric became in December 2021 the most left-wing president of Chile since Salvador Allende. Bolivian President Luis Arce came to power in 2020. In 2019 in Argentina, Alberto Fernández defeated a right-wing incumbent. A year earlier, Mexico’s Andrés Manuel López Obrador won in a landslide.
Australia, New Zealand and many European countries provide additional context for why so many voters are turning to social-democratic (and in some cases avowedly socialist) leaders. In the simplest terms, the benefits of globalization are shrinking, and, as essentials such as energy and food soar in cost, voters expect more social protections. This is why centre-left parties, from Jacinda Ardern’s Labour in New Zealand to Pedro Sanchez’s Socialist Workers’ Party in Spain, share an emphasis on improved wages, better job security and more public goods.
This is a move back from goals like privatization and marketization that since the 1980s have been pursued by not only right-wing but also centre-left and even some socialist parties in the UK, France, Germany, Sweden and elsewhere. Public opinion has shifted; the ideological hegemony of the so-called ‘third way’ of Bill Clinton, Tony Blair and others now survives mostly in small bubbles.
Another preserve is Britain’s Labour Party, whose Blairite leader Keir Starmer and supporters in the media find themselves out of step with overwhelming public support for striking public-sector workers. Today’s cannier social democrats such as German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Portugal’s Socialist President Antonio Costa work with the insight that the neglect of the welfare state, the shredding of social security nets and the rise of inequality—in part, consequences of the ‘third way’ that were experienced painfully during the pandemic—were what pushed many voters to the far Right. To get them back, leaders have to recreate some part of the old compact between the social-democratic left and the weak, the insulted and the injured. That said, too much should not be read into close relations between Germany’s Scholz, Spain’s Sanchez and Portugal’s Costa, or in the Socialist International conference in Madrid in November, presided over by Sanchez and attended by several heads of state.
Leftists today are very far from the clear and confident consensus that in the 1970s united such leaders as Willy Brandt, Olof Palme, Bruno Kreisky and François Mitterrand, and extended deep into governments and political movements in Asia, Africa and Latin America. For one, electorates have fractured, probably irrevocably, and most social democrats and socialists today come to power in coalition governments with narrow margins of victory. They have little scope for structural transformations and the new alliances they create are precarious. While winning back alienated working classes, they cannot afford to lose the progressive and professional middle classes in metropolitan areas, as well as young activists seeking climate and gender justice.
But this dilemma is not unsolvable. As inflation peaks amid the unending crises of a pandemic and war in Ukraine, fear of the future will make many more people than before look to governments for social and economic security. And politicians who respond to this widespread longing for reassurance are likely to do better than those still going on about how free markets will unleash entrepreneurial spirits and turbocharge growth. For example, after lagging behind for years, Spain’s ruling party has in recent months overtaken the right-wing party in opinion polls with a programme of public spending funded by tax hikes on banks, utility companies and large fortunes.
In reaction, a cornered right is likely to become even more intransigently radical, ramping up culture wars. Those celebrating the return of the West in 2022 ought to turn their focus to what’s likely to be the main event of 2023: how, after years of ideological confusion and stalemate, the real battle for hearts and minds will be led by a freshly reconstructed left.
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