The decline of social democratic parties

I was listening to Novara the other die and the guys were focusing on the decline of social democracy parties who has now moved over to becoming fully fledged capitalist parties as I’ve outlined before. This is a very interesting development which was an ideological shift since the fall of the Stalinist Soviet Union in 89 onwards. We see today that Pasoc in Greece formally a mass workers party now sitting on as low as 6 % washed up and seemingly finished in Greece. Also looking at Spain the Socialist party there is mired in scandal for many years now and has lost that base in fact you can look right across western Europe including Italy now with the coming to power of the grand coalition of left and right now with the PD who have been tarnished now for many years will now loose further support for joining this crisis coalition almost a national government if you like. Interestingly a piece I read in the Guardian the other day from an Italian commentator it is similar to the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie now looking to hold itself up and appear a credible government to protect the ruling class’s interests which of course they will hope to do. All this add’s to the question of what happens here back in Britain with the Labour party now a openly capitalist party of course no doubt will try and raise its dwindling support in hope and ride to power in 2015 if indeed it can manage it as I still do believe it is not being backed passionately rather it’s a reaction against the Tories they are the nearest lot to go for who can hurt the Tories not that this shows any great enthusiasm for the labour party. Much like in France with Francois Holland who last year rode to power on a wave of anti austerity to now fin himself as one of the most unpopular presidents France has ever had. Why is this? Well for a start France’s unemployment figures are shocking and continue to rise. Holland’s hope and optimism of tackling austerity has faded as he’s come up against the markets and has had to row back in his rhetoric and play ball with the rest of the EU and the IMF. This could be a glimpse into the future for the labour party who if they gain power in 2015 will almost be despite of themselves will soon end up disappointing many who have backed it there is no doubt about that. Labour is likely to carry out the cuts and be seen as a safe pair of hands for British capitalism. Ed Miliband is making al sorts of odd noises he wants to do this he wants to do that. But ultimately labour is wedded to the market system and the capitalist mode of production and has no ambition to change this. This will lead them to being dictated to by the markets any borrowing he tries will be hit heavy by the levels of our bond markets and this will spook young Ed to behaving and staying in line with austerity all be it at a slower pace perhaps . But what is clear from the mass numbers involved in these mass parties take the labour party in the 50’s had over a million members today you’ll be lucky if its 150 thousand who are actively members of a party in Britain this goes for the right to by the way there hasn’t been a surge of membership in right wing parties either this is a political party crisis as much as a crisis of social democracy. How this will develop its hard to tell clearly working class people and even middle class people are disenfranchised and have little option of who to vote for let alone to join so it leaves a big anti establishment feeling out there in the wider public it will be interesting to see how these parties react to this or will they like the others before like Pasoc end up beached smashed against the rocks finished for good replaced with another alternative party system or different structures entirely. We certainly live in interesting times.