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Europe Where the Right and Left Converge
Historian Perry Anderson is one of the luminaries of the so-called Western Marxists, that is, Marxist theoreticians who were based in Western and Central Europe, rather than the Soviet Union. He’s now a professor of history and sociology at UCLA. He used to be the editor of the New Left Review. This pedigree, I should think, would be sufficient for most on Ricochet to consider calling in an exorcist.
But I’m going to ask you to read him anyway. Just one essay, actually. It’s a piece about the EU in Le Monde Diplomatique, titled “Why the System Will Still Win,” in which he predicts that the European center will hold and the EU will survive. This is an outcome that as a revolutionary he deplores, of course.
What struck me reading it was how similar his arguments against the EU, and against Europe’s center-right and center-left parties and coalitions, are to those I’ve heard here on Ricochet — another forum where many (not all) of our members seem devoutly to hope “the system” will lose, too.
In some places, he uses a different vocabulary than Americans on the right would use. But I’m not sure he’s meaningfully describing different concepts. For example, he relies heavily on the word “neoliberalism,” which he defines this as “deregulated financial flows, privatised services and escalating social inequality.” But I don’t think this definition succeeds in distinguishing “neoliberalism” from “capitalism.” The word, it seems to me, has simply taken the place of “capitalism” in the Left’s vocabulary because after the fall of the Soviet Union, it sounded antiquated — and clueless — to say that one was “against capitalism.”
When you read what he’s written, mentally replace the word “neoliberalism” in every case with “capitalism.” I’m curious to know where, and how, his analysis substantively differs from yours. I stress that I’m asking in good faith, and I hope you’ll read his article in the same spirit, with an open mind.
The whole article won’t take long to read, but I’ll point out some of the passages that struck me:
The term ‘anti-systemic movements’ was commonly used 25 years ago to characterise forces on the left in revolt against capitalism. Today, it has not lost relevance in the West, but its meaning has changed. The movements of revolt that have multiplied over the past decade no longer rebel against capitalism, but neoliberalism — deregulated financial flows, privatised services and escalating social inequality, that specific variant of the reign of capital set in place in Europe and America since the 1980s. The resultant economic and political order has been accepted all but indistinguishably by governments of the centre-right and centre-left, in accordance with the central tenet of la pensée unique, Margaret Thatcher’s dictum that ‘there is no alternative’. Two kinds of movement are now arrayed against this system; the established order stigmatises them, whether from the right or left, as the menace of populism.
These “movements of revolt” in Europe, I’ll add parenthetically, now receive financial and political support from both Russia and the United States. For example, the largest donors to Geert Wilders’ campaign, by far, were Americans.
Also parenthetically, while he’s right to say that financial deregulation and privatisation were policies championed by Margaret Thatcher, many people overestimate the extent of financial deregulation she championed, wrongly associating the kind of reforms she advocated with those that led to the 2007 financial crisis. As I argued in this piece for the Washington Post, that’s a myth.
Like many on Ricochet, Anderson holds the European Union to be an unaccountable, massive bureaucracy that robs national parliaments of their sovereignty and subordinates them to Germany’s will.
From monetary union (1990) to the Stability Pact (1997), then the Single Market Act (2011), the powers of national parliaments were voided in a supranational structure of bureaucratic authority shielded from popular will, just as the ultraliberal economist Friedrich Hayek had prophesied. With this machinery in place, draconian austerity could be imposed on helpless electorates, under the joint direction of the Commission and a reunified Germany, now the most powerful state in the union, where leading thinkers candidly announce its vocation as continental hegemon. Externally, over the same period, the EU and its members ceased to play any significant role in the world at variance with US directives, becoming the advance guard of neo-cold war policies towards Russia set by the US and paid for by Europe.
So it is no surprise that the ever more oligarchic cast of the EU, defying popular will in successive referendums and embedding budgetary diktats in constitutional law, should have generated so many movements of protest against it.
He reviews these forces in broad outline: In pre-enlargement Western Europe, protest movements of the far-right predominate. In post-enlargement Western Europe — Spain, Greece, and Ireland — protest movements of the far-left predominate. Italy has both.
He takes it as given that pooled sovereignty and the Continent’s domination by a peaceful, democratic Germany are undesirable. These are both points that I think need to be argued, not assumed; and I think they’re both wrong. But it’s his article, not mine, and I know many on Ricochet take his side of this argument.
All the significant movements of the far-right, he correctly notes, save Germany’s AfD, predate the economic crisis. Some have roots that date to the 1970s or earlier. But they grew in influence, he argues — and Syriza, M5S, Podemos and Momentum were born — as a direct result of the global financial crisis. This, in his view, is a reaction to “the structure of the neoliberal system,” which finds “its starkest, most concentrated expression in today’s EU,”
with its order founded on the reduction and privatisation of public services; the abrogation of democratic control and representation; and deregulation of the factors of production. All three are present at national level in Europe, as elsewhere, but they are of a higher degree of intensity at EU level, as the torture of Greece, trampling of referendums and scale of human trafficking attest. In the political arena, they are the overriding issues of popular concern, driving protests against the system over austerity, sovereignty and immigration. Anti-systemic movements are differentiated by the weight they attach to each — to which colour in the neoliberal palette they direct most hostility.
Movements of the far-right, he argues, now predominate because if their focus on immigration. But as he notes, and I agree, “this is typically linked (in France, Denmark, Sweden and Finland) not to denunciation but to defence of the welfare state; it is claimed the arrival of immigrants undermines this.”
In some countries, he argues, particularly France, the far-right has another advantage over the far-left:
The single currency and central bank, designed at Maastricht, have made the imposition of austerity and denial of popular sovereignty into a single system. Movements of the left may attack these as vehemently as any movement of the right, if not more so. But the solutions they propose are less radical. On the right, the FN and the Lega have clear remedies to the strains of the single currency and immigration: exit the euro and stop the influx. On the left, with isolated exceptions, no such unambiguous demands have ever been made. At best, the substitutes are technical adjustments to the single currency, too complicated to have much popular purchase, and vague, embarrassed allusions to quotas; neither is as readily intelligible to voters as the straightforward propositions of the right.
Now, what I think I detect in his tone is a reluctant admiration of the far-right: They’re the only ones, he seems to be saying, who are really willing to tear the whole system down and to use whatever levers need to be used to do it. We’ve seen a lot of this, historically: the far-left has always been vulnerable to co-option by the far-right; the segment of the population that for temperamental or socioeconomic reasons is drawn to revolution tends to be drawn by the group that promises it more convincingly, rather than the one that’s ideologically most pure. Modern nationalism was one of the earliest leftist ideologies; it emerged in the French Revolution. National Socialism was called National Socialism because that’s what it was. And so forth.
But to Anderson’s dismay — and to my relief — he concludes that anti-systemic parties have no hope of succeeding in Europe:
Polls now post record levels of voter disaffection with the EU. But, right or left, the electoral weight of anti-systemic movements remains limited. In the last European elections, the three most successful results for the right — UKIP, the FN and the Danish People’s Party — were around 25% of the vote. In national elections, the average figure across western Europe for all such right and left forces combined is about 15%. That percentage of the electorate poses little threat to the system; 25% can represent a headache, but the ‘populist danger’ of media alarm remains to date very modest.
I hope so, although I worry he may be wrong.
Now, he attributes the lack of enthusiasm for anti-systemic movements (or in more traditional vocabulary, the Revolution), to the widespread fear (justified, in my view) that it would make things much worse, economically:
The socio-economic status quo is widely detested. But it is regularly ratified at the polls with the re-election of parties responsible for it, because of fears that to upset the status, alarming markets, would bring worse misery.
He seems to dismiss this fear of “alarming markets” as a form of cowardice, whereas I see it as common sense. His seem to be standard far-left assumptions: the capitalist (or neoliberal) system should be destroyed; “the markets” and their judgments are bad things, rather than the only tool humanity’s ever successfully employed, ever, anywhere, to achieve First World standards of living; and the preference of most Europeans for “less misery” is somehow vaguely contemptible, given that it’s at odds with Revolution.
I’ll let you read his explanation for Brexit, which he believes will be the last success of the anti-systemic movement in Europe.
He then proceeds to write a paragraph that might have been written by a member of Ricochet:
Trump’s victory has thrown the European political class, centre-right and centre-left united, into outraged dismay. Breaking established conventions on immigration is bad enough. … [But] Trump’s lack of inhibition in these matters does not directly affect the union. What does, and is cause for far more serious concern, is his rejection of the ideology of free movement of the factors of production, and, even more so, his apparently cavalier disregard for NATO and his comments about a less belligerent attitude to Russia.
Whether Brexit or Trump succeed in tearing down the capitalist system that he so deplores, he writes, remains to be seen. But he concludes there’s little hope of revolution in the rest of Europe:
The established order is far from beaten … and, as Greece has shown, is capable of absorbing and neutralising revolts from whatever direction with impressive speed. Among the antibodies it has already generated are yuppie simulacra of populist breakthroughs (Albert Rivera in Spain, Emmanuel Macron in France), inveighing against the deadlocks and corruptions of the present, and promising a cleaner and more dynamic politics of the future, beyond the decaying parties.
There are some obvious differences between his view of Europe and those I’ve seen here. He views Europe as the hellish apotheosis of capitalism, whereas many on Ricochet seem persuaded it’s an exemplar of a socialism no less horrifying than the Soviet Union.
It’s a lot closer to the first than the second. I saw the Soviet Union with my own eyes, and I live in Europe: Europe is nothing like the Soviet Union. Europe is tremendously capitalist and prosperous by comparison with most of the rest of the world. I think this is a good thing. There’s a lot of room for reform, but a revolution, anywhere in Europe, would be insane.
This, I’d say, is the difference between the conservative view and the populist or far-right view. My view: Revolutions never deliver on their promises and result in something far worse than what preceded them. (And if I thought that before, I think it twice as much since the Arab Spring.) Don’t tear down a fence until you know why it was built in the first place. In other words: It’s insane to dismiss as irrelevant the reasons the EU was built, and particularly to dismiss as irrelevant Europe’s history as the most bloodthirsty, aggressive and violent continent in human history. Changes to any political system, especially in an ecosystem as prone to war as Europe’s, should be made gradually and incrementally. If the EU is to be dismantled, it should be done as slowly as it was assembled.
Anderson concludes that the Left must become more radical if it’s to have any hope of destroying the system in Europe:
For anti-systemic movements of the left in Europe, the lesson of recent years is clear. If they are not to go on being outpaced by movements of the right, they cannot afford to be less radical in attacking the system, and must be more coherent in their opposition to it. That means facing the probability the EU is now so path-dependent as a neoliberal construction that reform of it is no longer seriously conceivable. It would have to be undone before anything better could be built, either by breaking out of the current EU, or by reconstructing Europe on another foundation, committing Maastricht to the flames. Unless there is a further, deeper economic crisis, there is little likelihood of either.
I don’t believe committing Maastricht (or anything, for that matter) “to the flames” is apt to result in “something better” being built. Ever.
I’d like to know — and again, I’m asking this in good faith, I’m genuinely curious: If you believe the destruction of the EU and the far-right have something to offer Europe, why? Have you lost faith in the kind of conservatism I describe, and if so, why? If you’ve lost confidence in capitalism, why? (I think many have, in the wake of the financial crisis, and not without cause.) Are the steps in your argument very different from Anderson’s? If so, where?
Published in General
Great, leftist wackos protested the WTO too, that doesn’t make the protest valid.
This I agree with.
You have proof they were leftist wackos? I don’t think you do because the EU is every leftist wackos wet dream.
The WTO protesters? The 1999 protests in Seattle were organized primarily by People’s Global Action, here is there statement of principles: https://www.nadir.org/nadir/initiativ/agp/cocha/principles.htm.
If you could provide links to reports of the anti-EEC protests surrounding the Treaty of Rome in 1957 it will easier to asses. First hand sources are usually the best.
I don’t think it’s true. The populist left and populist right hate each other, and there’s not a huge amount of solidarity among the populist right parties in Europe.
I think it’s more that populist America is finding common cause with European Nationalists. An odd development for self avowed Nationalists, one would think they wouldn’t much care what other countries do.
I think to call World War Two “long before that” is to minimize the utterly catastrophic, civilization-changing, indeed civilization-ending effect of the First and Second World Wars, the effects of which are still felt in everything people here do, think, see, and experience. The European integration project began soon after the end of the war, and was widely understood by the great statesmen of the era (Churchill, for example) to be Europe’s only hope.
It’s “a long time ago” for Americans, whose sense of time and history is quite different from pretty much anyone else’s in the world, given the newness of our country. It’s not a long time ago for Europe.
What violence in particular?
The EEC and the EU are very different things. If anything ditching the latter and keeping the former would be the best possible outcome.
Ah yes, the America hasn’t been around long enough to truly understand argument. The rationalization for a corrupt and utterly undemocratic system is you just can’t understand.
When I use the term “revolution?” I mean, basically, a fundamental change in political power or organizational structures that takes place in a relatively short period of time, especially when the population rises up in revolt against the current authorities. (Elections don’t count because while they do change the people who are in power, they don’t change the system of government.)
I’m sure you are aware of the jihadist attacks over the past few years in Paris specifically, France at large, and Europe in general.
Right, but as has been pointed out here – that’s globalist!!
Who, exactly, on the right believes this? Because Turkey being in NATO seemed to work fine for the fifty years before Erdogan.
Turkey being in NATO was instrumental in Cold War era soviet deterrence. This was a completely ahistorical observation.
It can be done in many ways, all of which are now under discussion in Europe, as they should be: one way is the obvious — cut back on the regulation. Another would be to carefully create a so-called two-speed, or multi-speed Europe, as many plans now under discussion here suggest.
The thing is, “exportation of sovereignty” is not seen by all Europeans as a bad thing; many (most, in fact) see it as “pooled sovereignty,” meaning they believe they’ll have more power and weight internationally as a group than they could independently. And this is hardly an inherently silly idea: If you’re Latvia, will you get a favorable trade deal with China, or be taken seriously in any way whatsoever? No, but if you’re a member of the EU, you will. I think Americans are so used to being part of a superpower that they discount how important this is. Europeans share quite a bit, in terms of values and culture. It makes a lot of sense for them to negotiate as one in a world that would otherwise be completely dominated by the US, China, India, and Russia (three of which are, also, federations, and the fourth of which certainly has autonomous regions).
As for regulatory micromanagement, some of it is excessive, but the euro zone has consistently been doing better and better on “ease of doing business” indices. People tend to forget (well, our Marxist friend Perry Anderson hasn’t forgotten) that joining the EU has meant converging toward less regulation and a more business-friendly climate in many countries. This accounts for some (not all) of the hostility toward it in countries where rent-seeking sectors have been forced to adjust.
That they share zero values with ourselves would be one.
That’s a pretty big “only thing.” I mean, we’ve gone to war over this more than once.
Why do you blame the EU for that? In every case I can think of, the jihadis were born in France.
You import a religion that is against free expression, free speech, and free will and put them in a free society and these are the results. Also from your statement you would think that not one EU illegal immigrant that has come to Europe in the past 2-3 years has committed any acts of terrorism when we know that isn’t true.
I think of the ease of movement of people across borders in the EU and the importation of radicalized ideologies this has brought.
Responding to @claire, I read his piece, and your commentary.
In my view the “far-right” has a few (but only a few) things to offer Europe: the destruction of the EU, a return to controlling immigration, and in the case of Geert Wilders, defense of free speech. As for “Destruction of the EU,” I agree with this sentence,
Of course I dislike the bureaucracy while he dislike the austerity, but still, why should the states give up their sovereignty? They can “pool” their sovereignty simply by negotiating together. They should act as a counterweight to the US, China, Russia, etc, by engaging in diplomatic statesmanship, not ceding lawmaking powers. I’m with Charles Cooke on this issue, who agreed (only on this issue) with a great speech by Tony Benn.
Comment addressing later questions incoming
I’ve lived in countries with corrupt and utterly undemocratic systems. No country in the EU could be described that way by any reasonable person. There’s not a single credible index of perceived corruption or democracy (however defined) that wouldn’t put the EU countries close to the top. Zimbabwe, this just ain’t.
Here are the rankings on the Economist’s Democracy Index, for example:
And on the Corruption Perception Index:
If this is “a corrupt and utterly undemocratic system,” we’re really out of words for countries like Guinea-Bissau and Kazakhstan.
What a system that gave England no say over its immigration policy. A system that gave the UK no say over its fisheries. An EU that has imported millions of refugees with no way of dealing with them. An EU that sent Greece into chaos and caused countless other bailouts due to its undemocratic fiscal irresponsibility etc.. That sounds like a great system to me.
Are you kidding me? Greece sent Greece into chaos.
And many people warned that the EU taking Greece into its membership would be a disaster but did they listen? Was their need for prestige so great that they ignored the advice?
You seem to be under the impression that Greece did not enter the EU of its own free will.
I’m not. I’m saying the unelected Czars at the EU made a mistake in the first place by bringing Greece into the EU.
I appreciate the “Chesterton’s fencepost” quip about careful before pulling down things, but there’s another Chesterton quote that’s pertinent:
I’m not for making rash changes, but I am for making changes toward limited government, the rule of law, free markets, general liberty, etc. I’ve lost no faith in capitalism, but I see the EU as an impediment to limited government and free markets, not an enabler of it. The free trade that the EU enables could be accomplished through treaties, and the institutions necessary (like the WTO) could be made accountable to the national parliaments, not the reverse. The “free movement,” while a worthwhile ideal, isn’t a good short-term policy outside of tourism, due to the huge differences in wages and welfare states between the member nations. Immigration also requires assimilation to be a long-term benefit to a country, and assimilation takes time. I’m more optimistic than most about the ability of European nations to assimilate, but they will need time.