Social Europe

politics, economy and employment & labour

  • Projects
    • Corporate Taxation in a Globalised Era
    • US Election 2020
    • The Transformation of Work
    • The Coronavirus Crisis and the Welfare State
    • Just Transition
    • Artificial intelligence, work and society
    • What is inequality?
    • Europe 2025
    • The Crisis Of Globalisation
  • Audiovisual
    • Audio Podcast
    • Video Podcasts
    • Social Europe Talk Videos
  • Publications
    • Books
    • Dossiers
    • Occasional Papers
    • Research Essays
    • Brexit Paper Series
  • Shop
  • Membership
  • Ads
  • Newsletter

This time is different

by Branko Milanovic on 17th June 2019 @BrankoMilan

TwitterFacebookLinkedIn

Marx once wrote of the temptation, confronted with a new historical situation, to summon up the ‘borrowed language’ of the past. He’s still right, writes Branko Milanovic.

borrowed language

Branko Milanovic

Le hasard ne profite qu’aux esprits préparés (Chance favours only those who are primed)

Louis Pasteur

Several days ago, as I went through my ‘library’, I noticed Georges Sorel’s Reflections on Violence, which I had bought and read a quarter of a century ago. I went through my book notes and parts of the text without any particular intention—rather as a way to remind myself of Sorel’s bizarre but prescient intellectual cocktail of arrogant nationalism or Marxism (as the case may be), contempt for ‘petty-bourgeois’ values and praise of violence.

Reflections … was published in 1907 and represents, as many have noted, a somewhat eerie prospectus of the succeeding European century, dominated alternatively by between-national and between-class wars. But rereading Sorel in 2019 suggested to me another take—how different, despite what many argue, is today’s world from the one described by him, which was to last for almost a century.

Get our latest articles straight to your inbox!

"Social Europe publishes thought-provoking articles on the big political and economic issues of our time analysed from a European viewpoint. Indispensable reading!"

Polly Toynbee

Columnist for The Guardian

Thank you very much for your interest! Now please check your email to confirm your subscription.

There was an error submitting your subscription. Please try again.

Powered by ConvertKit

There are three main movers in Sorel: class struggle, led by an organised proletariat and its trade unions; national struggle, driven by the mutually-incompatible objectives of nationalistic elites; and the use of violence as a legitimate political tool often required to precipitate the desired—but in any event historically-preordained—developments. Within that matrix, one can comfortably situate fascism (as indeed Mussolini acknowledged) or Soviet communism, as the encomium to Lenin penned by Sorel in 1918 illustrates.

While many among today’s ‘anti-populist’ critics are fond of making comparisons of populist movements from Hungary to Sweden with fascism, perusing Sorel’s book clearly shows how different the worlds of yesterday and today are.

Politically salient

Consider each of Sorel’s three key themes. Class struggle has all but disappeared from contemporary developed societies. People indeed continue to differ by their positions in the system of production, as Marxists say, but this is no longer as politically salient a cleavage as once it was.

Trade unions and the general strike (the ideas for which Sorel is best known) are in long-term decline. Unions have problems organising dispersed workers and are strongest in state-owned sectors such as health and education—not in privately-owned parts of the economy where they were originally constituted to defend workers’ rights. And ‘general strike’ has all but gone from the political vocabulary.

I spent some time this year in Barcelona and witnessed many days of so-called strikes and even one general strike (vaga general). But it soon dawned on me that their role is purely ritualistic: very few people follow them, disruptions are minimal and the effects are probably nil. The role of strikes, as with religious festivals, is to encourage participation in a ritual without expecting any return in real life. (This naturally provides a better fit for a religion than for a workers’ or civic movement.)

Nationalism is indeed alive. But unlike fascist (and Sorel’s) nationalisms, today’s nationalism in the European Union is not pitting the ruling class of one major power against another but the national ‘malcontents’ against their own urban elites and migrants. It is a pernicious ideology but its level of threat and danger is far less than in the early 20th century.


We need your help! Please support our cause.


As you may know, Social Europe is an independent publisher. We aren't backed by a large publishing house, big advertising partners or a multi-million euro enterprise. For the longevity of Social Europe we depend on our loyal readers - we depend on you. Thank you very much for your support!

Become a Social Europe Member

The function of present-day nationalism is not to justify the French going to war with the Germans but the police protecting the borders of France against African migrants. It does not call for wars but protection of ‘values’. It is defensive, not offensive. It is a nationalism of ‘losers’, not—as Vilfredo Pareto put it in the same period as Sorel—of ‘lions’.

(This is at least the case for various western European nationalisms, very different from their fascist predecessors. It is not however to exclude conflict among the three nuclear superpowers—the United States, China and Russia—all currently undergoing a wave of more or less martial nationalism.)

The third element is violence. There is no similarity between European violence before World War I—and, even more so, the violence between the wars—and today’s Europe. Other than a dozen victims of the French gilets jaunes movement, due to disproportionate use of violence by police and traffic accidents, and innocent bystanders killed in decentralised acts of rage (terrorism), not a single individual was killed for political reasons in Catalonia’s drive for independence, Greek economic meltdown, political perturbances in Italy, Germany, Poland, Hungary, the Nordic countries and so on.

The political system has shown extraordinary flexibility and sturdiness. Violence as a legitimate political instrument has lost its value in advanced European countries. (Again, this might not hold for other countries and regions.)

Deep societal changes

We thus see that the facile comparisons of today’s European politics with those of the early part of the 20th century are mistaken. Our unease with today’s developments stems from the ‘unknown’ we face as the political space undergoes a reconfiguration which is, in turn, a reflection of deep societal changes: the decline of the working class and trade unions, the quasi-disappearance of religion from public life, the rise of globalisation, the commodification of our private life and the emergence of environmental consciousness.

I think that the standard left-right cleavage, which goes back to the French revolution, is no longer as operative as it used to be. The new cleavages might oppose those who benefit from openness to those who are left out—the neoliberal urban bourgeoisie against people attached to national ways of life. But this is not equivalent to the conflict between fascists, communists and liberals.

These are indeed new politics and using old and inappropriate terms—mostly in order to tar political opponents with the fascist brush—makes no sense. It simply does not adequately describe our political life. Those who talk lightly of fascism should study the ideology and practice of really-existing fascism—and try to find better labels for our complex political world.

This article is a joint publication by Social Europe and IPS-Journal

TwitterFacebookLinkedIn
Home ・ Politics ・ This time is different

Filed Under: Politics

About Branko Milanovic

Branko Milanovic is a Serbian-American economist. A development and inequality specialist, he is visiting presidential professor at the Graduate Center of City University of New York (CUNY) and an affiliated senior scholar at the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS). He was formerly lead economist in the World Bank's research department.

Partner Ads

Most Popular Posts

sovereignty Brexit and the misunderstanding of sovereignty Peter Verovšek
globalisation of labour,deglobalisation The first global event in the history of humankind Branko Milanovic
centre-left, Democratic Party The Biden victory and the future of the centre-left EJ Dionne Jr
Covid 19 vaccine Designing vaccines for people, not profits Mariana Mazzucato, Henry Lishi Li and Els Torreele
EU recovery package,Next Generation EU Light in the tunnel or oncoming train? Adam Tooze

Other Social Europe Publications

US election 2020
Corporate taxation in a globalised era
The transformation of work
The coronavirus crisis and the welfare state
Whither Social Rights in (Post-)Brexit Europe?

Social Europe Publishing book

With a pandemic raging, for those countries most affected by Brexit the end of the transition could not come at a worse time. Yet, might the UK's withdrawal be a blessing in disguise? With its biggest veto player gone, might the European Pillar of Social Rights take centre stage? This book brings together leading experts in European politics and policy to examine social citizenship rights across the European continent in the wake of Brexit. Will member states see an enhanced social Europe or a race to the bottom?

'This book correctly emphasises the need to place the future of social rights in Europe front and centre in the post-Brexit debate, to move on from the economistic bias that has obscured our vision of a progressive social Europe.' Michael D Higgins, president of Ireland


MORE INFO

Hans Böckler Stiftung Advertisement

Renewing labour relations in the German meat industry: an end to 'organised irresponsibility'?

Over the course of 2020, repeated outbreaks of Covid-19 in a number of large German meat-processing plants led to renewed public concern about the longstanding labour abuses in this industry. New legislation providing for enhanced inspection on health and safety, together with a ban on contract work and limitations on the use of temporary agency employees, holds out the prospect of a profound change in employment practices and labour relations in the meat industry. Changes in the law are not sufficient, on their own, to ensure decent working conditions, however. There is also a need to re-establish the previously high level of collective-bargaining coverage in the industry, underpinned by an industry-wide collective agreement extended by law to cover the entire sector.


FREE DOWNLOAD

ETUI advertisement

ETUI/ETUC (online) conference Towards a new socio-ecological contract 3-5 February 2021

The need to effectively tackle global warming puts under pressure the existing industrial relations models in Europe. A viable world of labour requires a new sustainability paradigm: economic, social and environmental.

The required paradigm shift implies large-scale economic and societal change and serious deliberation. All workers need to be actively involved and nobody should be left behind. Massive societal coalitions will have to be built for a shared vision to emerge and for a just transition, with fairly distributed costs, to be supported. But this is also an opportunity to redefine our societal goals and how they relate to the current focus on (green) growth.

What targets or objectives should be set and how might they be reached? How can we create a sustainable European growth model? How can we reverse the trend towards growing inequalities? What kind of Green New Deal is a realistic and feasible prospect for Europe? What elements of justice, solidarity and equity constitute a fair and sustainable social foundation? What are the roles of the market, the state, industry and civil society? And what role can trade unions play to build a sustainable future that addresses all of these dimensions?


FOR PROGRAMME CLICK HERE

Confirmed speakers include: Ursula von der Leyen, Mariana Mazzucato, Nicolas Schmit, Dominique Meda, Tim Jackson, Juliet Schor, Frans Timmermans and many more.


TO REGISTER CLICK HERE

Eurofound advertisement

Industrial relations: developments 2015-2019

Eurofound has monitored and analysed developments in industrial relations systems at EU level and in EU member states for over 40 years. This new flagship report provides an overview of developments in industrial relations and social dialogue in the years immediately prior to the Covid-19 outbreak. Findings are placed in the context of the key developments in EU policy affecting employment, working conditions and social policy, and linked to the work done by social partners—as well as public authorities—at European and national levels.


CLICK FOR MORE INFO

Foundation for European Progressive Studies Advertisement

Read FEPS Covid Response Papers

In this moment, more than ever, policy-making requires support and ideas to design further responses that can meet the scale of the problem. FEPS contributes to this reflection with policy ideas, analysis of the different proposals and open reflections with the new FEPS Covid Response Papers series and the FEPS Covid Response Webinars. The latest FEPS Covid Response Paper by the Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz, 'Recovering from the pandemic: an appraisal of lessons learned', provides an overview of the failures and successes in dealing with Covid-19 and its economic aftermath. Among the authors: Lodewijk Asscher, László Andor, Estrella Durá, Daniela Gabor, Amandine Crespy, Alberto Botta, Francesco Corti, and many more.


CLICK HERE

About Social Europe

Our Mission

Article Submission

Legal Disclosure

Privacy Policy

Copyright

Social Europe ISSN 2628-7641

Find Social Europe Content

Search Social Europe

Project Archive

Politics Archive

Economy Archive

Society Archive

Ecology Archive

.EU Web Awards