Spectre On The Left

The right wing in Europe is on the rise. In France, Marine Le Pen's Front National will possibly score its best results in the upcoming elections to the European Parliament; the True Finns achieved almost 20 percent two years ago and Denmark's Folkeparti 12 percent; Golden Dawn is now the third strongest force in Greece. In Germany – aside from the NPD, which is relevant at most on a regional level – a right-wing populist party has emerged, the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), even if its development is unclear from a substantive and organisational point of view.

On 22 October 2013, Theo Sommer, the former editor of Die Zeit, spoke in that newspaper of a 'spectre' haunting Europe, indicating the rapid rise of populist and nationalist extreme right parties. In the sentence to which Sommer was alluding, Marx and Engels described a situation in which the rulers – the governments, the church, the police – were allied in the smear campaign against 'communism' in decrying all possible 'left opposition parties'. In the intense defensive battle, the two founders of Marxism saw confirmation of the potential of these counterforces to really come together and overthrow the dominant structures. This is often forgotten when the metaphor is applied to the new spectres of our time.

During a speech, Florian Philippot, one of the vice-presidents of the Front National, asked the public: 'Do you really know that they are all talking about you? That you are at the centre of their attention? That the political class is obsessed with you? For they see you as France's biggest problem, you – the Front National and Marine Le Pen!' (quoted from Die Zeit, 17 October 2013). From the fears of the established parties, he drew the hope that the future belongs to the right.

Do the right-wing parties in Europe pose a threat? In contrast to Jobbik in Hungary, most of these parties do not involve neo-Nazis. They eschew a 'National Socialist' foundation myth and the glorification of former fascist 'leaders' – except when the goal is to provoke reactions to convince people of the existence of an alleged 'domination of political correctness' in public debate. Their strategies build on those of the 'New Right', which seek a refounding of right-wing movements. They consciously draw on left terms and concepts – clearly their self-designation is meant as an answer to the 'New Left' – and are initiating a kind of Kulturkampf. They appeal to ethno-pluralism, that is, to the preservation of the ethnic consistence of populations. In this conception, racism becomes a kind of 'self-defence of the people'; the cause of racism is supposed to be the 'foreigners'. At the same time, the right-wing parties espouse 'national selfdetermination' in Kurdistan, the Basque country and in similar conflicts. At present, ethno-pluralism is presented as 'resistance to globalisation', immigrants and refugees are combated from the point of view of 'self-defense'.

The new right's intellectuals

The New Right refers to thinkers of the 'Conservative Revolution' such as Carl Schmitt, the German expert in constitutional law, and Oswald Spengler, and to theorists of neoliberalism such as Friedrich von Hayek. The latter is usually portrayed as a liberal, but his campaign against social planning and 'socialism' – and by this he meant any variety of Keynesian policy – also comprised central features of democracy. Thus he proposed a bicameral system in which the legislating upper house is composed of people who have 'already proven themselves in everyday life', can only be elected by people over 45 years of age, and remain in office 15 years without being re-electable – thus removing the incentive to try and win the population's approval. He favoured a 'liberal dictatorship'; in this light he viewed the elected government of Salvador Allende in the early 1970s in Chile as a totalitarian dictatorship. Neoliberalism – even its violent implementation in Chile as the realisation of 'freedom' – and right-wing politics go together. The AfD in Germany lives at this intersection – for example, already several years ago, Konrad Adam, a member of its steering committee and a former columnist for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, considered the possibility of denying suffrage to 'inactive' people and 'pension recipients'. It is still unclear in which direction – marketradicalism or right-wing populism – AfD will develop. But both directions are dangerous.

Many of the right-wing populist parties of the 1980s were trailblazers of neoliberalism in the fight against the welfare state and social democracy. They aimed for the 'liberation of the economy', 'de-nationalisation' (Front National), a 'radical deregulation of the framework of competition' (FPÖ) and 'liberalist federalism' (Lega Nord). In the 1990s the constellation changed; social democratic parties largely abandoned the defence of the welfare state and – as Gerhard Schröder did in the FRG and Tony Blair in Great Britain – conceived their policies within a neoliberal framework. They changed from the welfare state to 'workfare', which means that transfer payments are tied to compulsory labour. In Germany, the introduction of the Hartz Laws not only worsened the condition of the unemployed but reached deep into the middle stratum to endanger the living standard of employees, greatly accelerating the threat of social decline as a result of unemployment. The labour regimes themselves are changing – stress has increased, the spread of leased temporary work is making people insecure and the raising of the pensionable age to 67 and over means a de facto pension cut for older people who are pushed out of factories and offices. The low-wage sector is being expanded to become the largest sector in industrialised countries.

It became possible to formulate a 'neoliberal narrative', which could win over new sections of the population. Many people were slow to realise what this would mean on the social level. At first it seemed as if it would only affect the 'others', the unemployed and precariously employed. At the same time, there was hardly any political force that made the costs of neoliberalism and globalisation a subject of discussion, and thus a large gap in political representation arose. There was no spectre in sight that challenged power; the rulers had too little to fear.

Today right-wing populist parties are experiencing a boom in Europe, although with new focuses. They are using the gap in representation to portray themselves as representatives of wounded social interests and are tying their populism against globalisation, against Europe, and against the 'elites' and bureaucrats to racism, with a mobilisation against the poor in the individual countries and in Europe. They are presenting themselves as 'true workers' parties', which defend the interests of the employed. These parties are seizing on the fears growing out of social polarisation and displacing the confrontation away from the class question. They are apparently defending the 'middle', the 'normal people', the 'Volk' against those drawing 'income without performance': recipients of social welfare, asylum seekers, politicians, and executives. When they refer to the 'honest and hard-working people' they are also addressing those pushed by politics to the margins but addressing them as the 'middle'. However, their support does reach deep into the middle segments of society.

In the crisis, with the intensification of budget-cutting policies and the resultant social misery, opportunities for right-wing parties have grown. They exhibit a similar pattern of criticism of the EU: On the one hand, they mobilise against the Roma and others perceived as socially needy, and on the other, against the EU elites and bureaucrats. Distinguishing themselves from the upper strata and from the lowest, they give themselves the aura of resistance and of political alternative.

Fear and insecurity

With the swing of the Social Democrats towards neoliberalism, the general impression arises of the pointlessness of politics; the political as such has been delegitimised. This is completely realistic in view of the lack of alternatives to neoliberal policies within the party spectrum and the growing power of capital, which has deployed the threat of relocating plants abroad and virtually abolished enterprise taxes and forced the reduction of 'fringe benefits'. The perception of the ineffectiveness of politics is related to class position. It is strongest with those who have or earn the least and are most severely affected by social dismantlement and low wages. On the other hand, for those few – the rich, those with assets, and entrepreneurs – who see their interests addressed by the prevailing policies, the effectiveness of politics, despite all the neoliberal criticism of the (social) state, is evident – and all of them vote. Studies of this phenomenon call it 'asymmetrical demobilisation'. The right-wing populist parties give the impression that they are 'tackling what others ignore', and thus they form an anti-pole to the broad perception that politicians 'just talk but do nothing'. If nobody is sure of how to fight 'globalisation' in order to defend one's own social interests, they make an offer: racism, regionalisation, and nation.

It is nothing new that the right is trying to milk discontent and fear for its own purpose, on the one side, and the wish for a more just world, on the other. Historic fascism already tried to pilfer many of the left's cultural forms – songs, demands, and demonstrations – and use them under antithetical auspices, as occurred in German fascism, 'racialising' these forms and bringing them away from the class-political standpoint.

This makes their strategy no less dangerous and presents the left with a particular challenge: It cannot let itself be drawn into a competition for the pithiest slogans. At the centre of its politics must be the guiding principles of working out the causes of discontent and fear and struggling for solidaristic alternatives. These causes are the social polarisations, the privatisation of life risks, socialisation via competition and rivalry, the fact that our society is organised according to possibilities of realising profit, not according to a good life. Here the right-wing parties have no alternatives to offer. Never in any government participation by one of the right-wing populist parties – in Austria, the Netherlands, or Italy – was an alternative to neoliberal policy realised, that would have improved the living conditions for employees, pensioners, or the unemployed. On the contrary, their distancing from the poor has further impaired their social protections. This 'spectre' does endanger the established parties but not the economic order.

Don't copy the rhetoric

Nevertheless, the left must also speak a clear language and name its enemies and those responsible. To formulate no alternative to the prevailing (European) policy would also weaken the left. The deceptive commonalities and false boundaries of the right wing must be countered by those which point to the actual responsibilities and the true antagonism. When the AfD writes that 'the Greeks suffer, the Germans pay, and the banks are cashing in' – nothing is correct, except at the most that the banks are cashing in. 'The' Germans are by no means paying; many Greeks are suffering but not all. Above all, those 'below' are paying for the wealth of those 'on top', which has grown in the crisis. The privatisation of basic services in Germany as in Greece – to a much greater extent – exposes most people to existential danger, which could be avoided through a strengthening of the public sector. Left responses to right-wing populism cannot therefore simply seek to use a similar rhetoric to draw voters from the right to the left. All experience shows that this strengthens the right, not the left – it makes the right's positions look legitimate. Instead the left must shift the terrain on which the confrontation takes place – away from the populations pitted against each other and towards the issue of redistribution from top to bottom, towards the battle for better wages and a strengthening of the public realm. The EU institutions are undemocratic, the imposed budgetcutting policy disempowers parliaments, and the primacy of the economy is emptying out democracy – the left has to defend democracy and fight for its expansion. And if this cannot be achieved within capitalism the left has to direct its gaze towards alternatives to capitalism, towards its transformation. These issues ought to be at the centre of left politics. The left has to paint the 'spectre' of a new just world on the wall.

In contrast to other European countries, Germany had no successful right-wing populist party at the beginning of the first decade of this millennium. The Deutsche Volksunion and the NPD had only regional significance; they did not succeed in casting off the reek of atavistic politics and their connection to violence and right-wing terrorism. Traditionally, the established parties (especially the CSU) have tried to drain the spectrum to its right by absorbing the contents and demands of these parties, for example in the current agitation against 'poverty immigration' to the EU. With the party DIE LINKE a new political force has been established that has made an issue of the social and economic costs of neoliberalism, the crisis and the workfare regime and has gained a hearing in parliament and in the public arena – more strongly than its predecessor parties PDS and WASG could. 'Good morning, spectre!', Rainer Rilling and Christoph Spehr wrote in 2005: 'The spectre of a new hard-hitting party project to the left of the SPD and Greens has awoken and is haunting Europe'. The social protest of the movement against the Hartz Laws, which exposed the cracks in neoliberalism's hegemony, now had a political expression. The founding of the party DIE LINKE was met with a broad and significant popular response. It seldom enough occurs in history that left forces find a way to come together instead of dividing. The symbolism of this party was able to bring together its two source parties, West and East, as well as, for example, people from the trade unions, from the women's and ecology movements, and left intellectuals to create something new that was more than the sum of its parts.

For the first time, the opportunity for a common left project emerged.

DIE LINKE put a brake on the right-wing instrumentalisation of the social dislocations resulting from the Agenda 2010 policies. It stood in the way of the attempt to use the 'suffering and rage around the experienced exclusions and humiliations once again for the denigration of others – immigrants or poor people. It was the megaphone for movements and for resistance and functioned to drive forward and systematise the movements – naturally not alone but with other centres of organisation and self-organisation', as the Party Development Paper describes it.

Break up hegemonies

The problem that the rulers are not being combatively confronted with the enormous social costs of neoliberalism has not, however, been resolved with the emergence of this organisation. It is true that there is now the possibility of lending expression to discontent through the election of a left party. However, there are also parties to the left of social democracy in other European countries, and this alone has not been able to halt the rise of the right there. It is precisely in Germany that experiences of forcing political and social progress through collective protest and resistance are thin on the ground. There is little trust in the SPD and the unions and little practice in dealing with one's own power and little confidence in what can be accomplished with it. The ruling bloc appears immovable; feelings of powerlessness are widespread.

Experience of successful action and political effectiveness need to be appropriated first. This is only possible in real confrontations. DIE LINKE must understand that contributing to such experiences is one of its tasks. We cannot give people confidence that 'we will fix things' simply because we will deliver convincing speeches in parliament. We could not fulfil this hope – nor does it even correspond to our understanding of politics. Hegemony is not changed first and foremost in parliament. However, changed relations of forces can represent themselves there, and parliamentary work can be a useful resource in regard to inquiries, research, and access to the media – all of which are very important areas in the winning of hegemony.

However, without a change in the social relations of force no real successes can be obtained in parliament. For the ruling bloc, lack of left representation protects its hegemony – even if this does not occur through assent but because alternatives are made unthinkable. Many people share left demands, but they do not believe that they can be realised. The Party Development Paper concludes: 'Against this, DIE LINKE has to demonstrate its use value concretely and do it repeatedly. In so doing it stands by the side of people, not on a pulpit over it. We cannot just contend the connections behind the issues; they must also become an object of educational and discussion processes in which it becomes possible for people to produce common interests […]'.

DIE LINKE has to instigate confrontations and must be present in social movements, trade unions, municipalities, and organise itself and others. When the struggle against the privatisation of the local hospital or for the re-municipalisation of water is successful, one's view of the world changes. Whoever has participated in a successful strike knows how quickly what seems like an unalterable constraint turns out to be alterable. Also in terms of Europe DIE LINKE has to strengthen the counterforces from below. A Europe of solidarity can only be constructed from below, with the movements and citizens' initiatives, trade unions, social associations, and left parties coordinating their work. Local resistance is important; we have to set more in motion, precisely in Germany. In this, internationalism and transnational solidarity must be a given for left parties, trade unions, and all progressive forces and be translated into concepts and practical politics.

Left parties can become bearers of Europe-wide campaigns whose goal is to struggle against positions that see the essential contradiction as lying in the enmity between nations and peoples, and make clear that the contradiction instead is between above and below. Their opportunities are perhaps better than we think when we are mesmerised by the rise of right-wing parties. SYRIZA, Izquierda Unida, the Italian "Tsipras List", and the many activists participating in the first European general strike of 2012, the huge social mobilisation and networks of solidarity in the European South etc. – maybe there soon will be a left spectre again that haunts Europe.

This is the abridged version of his contribution to the 19th International Rosa Luxemburg Conference on 11 January 2014.