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There is now a growing recognition among socialists that political and economic action for workers’ rights has to be developed on an international scale, and that such action must sensibly direct its activities at the level of the EC. Dennis MacShane has outlined a number of areas for labour movement activity in Europe for the 1990s, paying particular attention to the struggle for a shorter working year and on environmental protection (MacShane, 1990). Lambert has pointed out that a number of ‘new politics’ parties in Europe already frame their programmes in terms of the need for European-wide policies (Lambert, 1991). Picciotto has called for the ‘building of a new internationalism which can combine the strengths of class politics and popular social movements’ (Picciotto, 1991, p.59) Within social-democracy, there has been a call for a European-wide Socialist Party by Ken Coates, the Nottingham MEP (Coates, 1990; 1991), which has drawn stern opposition from Neil Kinnock on the grounds that such a party would be premature. The new leader of the German Social Democrats, Bjorn Engholm, has commented that ‘at every party Congress in Europe we talk about global interdependencies in terms of the economy, the environment and other issues, yet our social-democratic parties are organised in a classically national manner’. He also notes how ‘ludicrous’ it is that the European Parliament has less power than did the Reichstag before the First World War (Engholm, 1991, p.8). Achille Occhetto, leader of the Italian Party of the Democratic Left, has urged the development of socialist politics for the new ‘European nation’ and believes it will ‘capture the imagination of the young’ (The Guardian, January 25, 1990). Eric Heffer indicated a rethink on the traditionally anti-European British Left when he wrote that he was convinced ‘that a point has been reached where socialism must be rescued from its imprisonment within national boundaries’ (The Guardian, November 4, 1990).
Politically, this implies nothing less than a reversal of the trend of the past 120 years, since the disintegration of the First International and the rise of socialist/ labour parties based in and sucked into the arena of the nation state. It is also clear that ‘economic’ demands have to be widened to encompass the priorities of the new social movements (see Gorz, 1989, part 3 & Appendix), in a coalition of forces seeking widespread democratisation of all areas of life, eventually leading to a new, much more radical, Social Charter mark two. The Swedish experience appears to confirm Marx’s observation in On the Jewish Question that ‘politics has become the serf of financial power’ (Marx and Engels, 1975, p.171). Both Marx and Engels pointed out that what they termed ‘communism’ was possible only on an international scale (Marx and Engels, 1975, p.53; Marx and Engels, 1976, p.352), although the squirming footnotes of the editors of the Marx-Engels Collected Works try to suggest that they did not really mean what they said. Socialist movements of various sorts have come to power in nation-states and all of them have had to contend with the hostile power of the world economy. But if Europe becomes the world economic hegemony of the 21st Century, the exercise of political power will perhaps be less vulnerable than in the old nation states.
Lawrence Wilde, "The Politics of Transition: The Swedish Case", Capital and Class, Summer 1992
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