For those who hoped the biggest crisis of capitalism since the 1930s would lead to a new wave of left-wing politics, the three-and-a-half years since Lehman Brothers went under have been a depressing experience. The right dominate Europe. Neo-liberalism should have been left on the ropes by the financial catastrophe: instead, it was handed its greatest opportunity yet.
I was in Portugal last November, and leading businesspeople and economists were entirely candid that the crisis made it possible to introduce policies – such as privatization, the slashing of taxes on the wealthy, and the repealing of workers’ rights – that were not possible in normal times.
In hindsight, expecting an automatic boost for the left was always a bit optimistic. As the global economy tanked, there was no coherent left with a mass base that could have benefited from the aftermath. The ‘left’ – as traditionally understood – had been all but wiped out as a significant political force on a global scale: largely, because of the rise of the New Right, the acceleration of globalisation, and the triumphalism that followed the collapse of the Soviet bloc. Even leftists who abhorred Stalinist totalitarianism appeared discredited: after all, it was ‘The End of History’, as Francis Fukuyama put it. ‘It’s time to say: We’ve won, goodbye,’ as US neo-conservative Midge Decter put it in 1990, summing up the mood of the time.
But has the first round of France’s presidential election finally punctured the European right’s hegemony, bolstering the confidence of an embattled left? It’s an answer that needs a hell of a lot of caveats, that’s for sure.
For more: The end of Europe’s right-wing winter? | | Independent Notebook - A selection of Independent views - Blogs
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