The deep rift between the leadership of the Social Democratic Party and left socialists of various red hues has seldom been seen so clearly as when the party presented its election plan, and the think tank Katalys presented its major project on class. Editor-in-chief Anna Herdy predicts a bright future for the broader left – in the workers’ movement 2.0.
It’s almost a
little ironic. Two important institutions in the workers’ movement wrote two
different stories within a day of each other. On the one hand, the trade-union
think tank Katalys launched the important project Klass i Sverige (Class
in Sweden) which, under the leadership of sociology professor Göran Therborn,
is an attempt to chisel out a new class analysis, and through the initiative of
Daniel Suhonen, head of Katalys, to put issues of class on the political
agenda. On the other, Social Democratic Party Secretary-General Lena Rådström
Baastad and election manager John Zanchi presented what would be the Social
Democrats’ election plan – one that has completely abandoned the wage earners’
perspective and the social portion of its own movement.
Katalys
and the Social Democratic leadership are thus reading reality in two completely
different ways, laying bare the now enormous rift between a socialist left and
the leadership of the Social Democratic Party. This election year, the think
tank will above all try to highlight class conflicts on the Swedish labor
market, talk about the living conditions of the working class as a consequence
of the constantly increasing clefts, and look for (and, it is hoped, find) the
issues that will mobilize the working class to vote for equality and justice in
the election this fall. The Social Democratic leadership, on the other hand,
that they are “confident in the idea that we are in a position where we can
continue to govern after the election” (Expressen, January 30, 2018).
Quite clearly. The plan is to win 700,000 “changeable votes” over to “their”
side of the bloc border – 300,000 of them from the far-right Sweden Democrats (SvenskaDagbladet, January 30, 2018).
They will do this
primarily by talking about what their party’s own surveys show voters are most
interested in right now: namely, crime but also “jobs”, healthcare,
integration, troubles in the suburbs and gang criminality. That is, more of the
same fluffy signal words about order in State finances, “better” welfare,
“faster” integration and “everyone who can work, will.” These are not
insignificant questions – but the party has already shown that they do not intend
to fill them with any content worthy of a workers’ party.
The criticism was
not long in coming. Tobias Baudin, President of Kommunal (the Swedish Municipal
Workers’ Union), said that the Social Democrats had forgotten welfare workers;
Daniel Suhonen, head of the think tank Katalys, said the election plan was a
“plan for losers.”
The fact that
this conflict exists inside the Social Democratic Party is a positive
development for the party leadership. When internal conflicts can be shown
openly (regardless of whether they concern nuclear agreements, the right to
strike, or the election plan) it strengthens the image of a broad
social-democratic party where it appears that debate is lively and everyone has
a place – or that the left of the party is being kept in check, depending on
who you ask. But this liveliness of debate is only a mirage. What used to be
the political subject of social democracy – the working class – is now gone and
has not appeared in communications or the creation of public opinion in many
years. The Party leadership has abandoned its inheritance and its most loyal
electoral base, which is why the LO (Swedish Trade Union Confederation)
collective is losing votes to the Sweden Democrats. Katalys, which describes
the problems of social democracy clearly in its latest report, wants to mould
public opinion in relation to the Social Democratic Party, but there is a
drawback: the Social Democratic Party doesn’t want to listen. Instead, they
show – with all the clarity that could be desired – that there is an imaginary
middle they now believe remains.
In an interview
in this week’s number of Flamman, sociology professor Göran Therborn
presents the interesting idea of an extraparliamentary left movement that
places demands on the Social Democratic Party, the Left Party, and the Green
Party, and how he hopes the Klass i Sverige project can contribute to
that. It is an uplifting thought, because what’s needed is not just mobilizing
the working class to the polls, but a working class organizing itself in a
movement that is able to change the premises of the political debate – and
above all, political reality. The Social Democratic Party has left its core
voters without a social context, and are no longer interested in organizing the
working class within itself. To be honest, the Left party is not (yet) terribly
good at that. Even if the membership is the largest since the 1980s, the party
does not yet constitute a first choice for the working class. Instead of
talking generally about crime, unemployment and integration, the left socialist
alternative must recognize and meet the class conflicts on every given
occasion. It must see people who are afraid that their children will become
gang members, improve security on the labor market, and reckon with a pension
system that mires people in poverty.
Don’t get me wrong: the point is not to say “working
class” as many times as possible. The point is to build something for the
working class to believe in. To make the conditions of the working class the
center of political debate.
