A new progressive Agenda

Political parties are strange compromises. Few of us agree with every stance taken by our chosen party, but so long as there is nothing glaringly unsupportable we accept that. It would be impractical – at least with current technology – for each possible combination of stances on issue to be represented by its own party, for then we’d have as many parties as there are people.

Over time, existing parties try to scramble together a coalition of voters to support an evolving cocktail of policies. Existing parties have great advantages over upstarts so there is some systemic inertia. But as major trends take effect and as existing parties respond in different ways, the landscape can alter.

What is the ideal number of credible parties in a democracy? In the Netherlands there are about ten, and the result is an ever-changing mix of coalitions and platforms that arguably reduces the influence of individual voters. But too few is just as dangerous as too many, especially when barriers to entry are largest. The two parties in the US continue to dominate despite appalling mismanagement of both for many years, with the results of the broken congress and warped debate that we now witness. As in so many matters, Germany seems to have it about right: counting CDU and CSU together, there are five credible parties plus something emerging on the far right. That plurality seems to enable enough shifting of alliances within broad enough platforms for democracy to be effective.

The times when the party landscape changes are usually both interesting and dangerous. In the UK, there were only two credible parties until about 1900, one slightly more progressive than the other but both reflecting the interests of very narrow electorate of the time. Then with wider emancipation and better education came the rise of Labour as the vehicle for the working class. The Liberal party evolved into something trying to tack between Labour and the Conservatives, and finally made it to coalition in 2010, a decision that resulted in electoral disaster in 2015.

The Economist wrote an essay about the decline of left-wing parties across Europe since about 1980. They put this down to several things, including the discrediting of communism, but also a sense that what these movements had been fighting for had been largely achieved, at least in Western Europe.

I dispute this claim. True, basic welfare has advanced since 100 years ago thanks to the progressive movements, but a lot remains to do be done, and economically things have swung back against working classes even as social progress has continued to advance. Full employment is no longer sustainable across much of Europe, while inequality becomes ever greater and security ever weaker. In the US, even basic goals such as fair holidays, equal pay or minimal maternity benefits remain out of reach.

A problem is that demographic trends have dispersed the working class constituency. Even one generation ago, most families had incomes based on work at a single firm with regular hours and often a trade union, or a pension from such a firm. So it made sense for progressive parties to focus on getting firms to offer fair terms and governments to enforce this and provide safety nets when that did not work. Hence the trade unions took an outsize role in politics, especially funding. Meanwhile, most families voted as a bloc and used class as a marker.

This has all changed. Family ties are fewer and class more fluid. Unions are often discredited and in any case are set up to fight for maintaining status for a diminishing minority rather than a broad coalition, so have become an inappropriate lead vehicle.

Blair and Clinton, to their credit, saw this looming problem. Their solution was to try to move closer to the centre by embracing free market logic, at least enough to avoid big business being antagonistic and to attract some business dollars. They succeeded in maintaining power, and used it to pursue a strong progressive social agenda and to make incremental gains in areas like health or education. But they allowed inequality to become entrenched, and they also took a safe, traditional line in foreign policy, and were careful to be sufficiently populist on things like immigration.

But there was a cost to their pragmatism. The market orthodoxy became stronger and its fundamental flaws were not addressed by new thinking. Meanwhile, the coalition of voters became strained by the wider scope of policy. In the UK, when power was lost so was discipline. The Scottish nationalists outflanked Labour on one side, and Jeremy Corbyn’s old-fashioned socialism is the result. In the US, The Democrats are holding together, at least compared to their rivals, but Bernie Sanders has exposed some cracks.

Meanwhile, the scope for a truly progressive agenda is out there, if only parties can free themselves from old dogmas and fear of donors. Justin Trudeau has shown the way in Canada, while some of the Sanders agenda shows that there is a pent-up demand for new thinking even in the US.

For me, the heart of this agenda must be about youth, optimism and technology. Current dominant thinking suggests that because pensioners vote and young people don’t, policies must favour the old. I am not so sure – what most old people want to most, as long as they are secure, is for a better world for their kids and grandkids. They would vote for youth if they thought it was credible.

So how about this for a manifesto? On education: pre-school for all, affordable college, smarter use of technology, more vocational and more choice. On cities: better mass transit and other infrastructure for clean livability, more housing so affordable. On economics: maximize competition, smart regulation of partial markets, progressive but not vindictive taxes, carbon and Tobin taxes, incentive to work, promote trade, help with transitions and mobility. On social issues: better childcare, flexible careers, higher mobility including immigrants, personal freedoms, transparency of information. In foreign policy: as ethical and multi-cultural as pragmatism and voter acceptability allows.

This is close to how Trudeau won power in Canada. To be fair, it is also close to the platform of the liberals in the UK so it does not win votes automatically. But I think it is sellable, since few young people would disagree with any of it, while enough older ones could be persuaded by the future-orientation.

What stops this emerging across Europe? We have to look at entrenched interest groups and public hot buttons. The interest group that is most challenged is the trade unions, especially teachers. This is the one to face head on, as a declining and discredited force. Sanders shows that funding is not an insuperable barrier in today’s connected world. Other groups should either be encouraged by the agenda or at least mollified.

The public hot buttons are harder, because progressive politicians have been weak at promoting multilateralism in recent years. People under forty are blind to prejudice and have a global outlook, so the constituency is there, but it is too easy for newspapers and bigots to promote scare stories of immigration and supra-national bodies. Winning this part of argument would take time. It is a shame that so few are trying to take such positions just now.

I’m probably just dreaming here. Many of us could just put together a list of everything we believe and hope that some party coalesces around those beliefs. Fair enough. But I do wonder if there is a rare opportunity coming up for a political realignment, and such things do require some courage. While so few care to promote openness and unions retain influence while clinging to outdated logic, there is a risk that any opportunity could be squandered. The alternative realignments, around protectionism, nationalism and continued greed, are not likely to take humanity very far forward.