Adaptation is Europe’s New Political Mantra
The change in Europe’s political stance comes not as a surprise after Darwin’s theory of natural selection made clear that species capable of adaptation will be the ones able to survive. The rulers of Europe today seem to be queuing in front of Marx’s door in order to prepare a strategy that will ensure their political survival. It is indeed the rightist’s taking course in the opposite direction. With most countries such as France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden etc. being governed by centre-right parties, the right-wing seems dominant throughout the continent and the left-wing parties now otiose, perhaps left in isolation to decay.
The currents of today’s Europe show the importance of ideology diminishing and practical notions of victory in the electoral processes of utmost significance. This is so because the right-winger’s are choosing all that which works for them, amidst leftist policies, and incorporating it in to their manifesto in an ideologically pliant manner that prevents those who try to revert to centrist ideas from being able to do so.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s re-election campaign in 2017 presented a very different picture and her rightist party, like all others, now in harmony with the idea of having a welfare state spoke of market regulation and state intervention along with more benefits for the workers such as minimum wages and no reductions in social security proceeds. Although Merkel’s Christian Democratic Party (CDU) formed a government in alliance with the completely business minded Free Democrats, her party’s new agenda for change remained sturdy.
The representatives of the left might be losing all strength and vigor but the ideology remains intact. “Marx’s view of society is purely economical and nothing is independent of it, with a change in resources or the control of resources, society changes”… “although the prices of the factors of production are more or less fixed, labour is one factor whose price is made to fluctuate simply because a human element is involved and it might be made to work more than it is paid for, such is the exploitation of the capitalist system”. Much of the reform Europe’s right is perhaps focused upon is economical and related to the working classes. In other words, the proletariat is being appeased so that the right may create more vote banks and retain power; the new pragmatic strategy.
Sarkozy of France has left racial divides behind by appointing a Senegalese born Frenchwoman and some others from former French colonies in Africa into his cabinet. He still maintains the Old Right stance against crime and illegal immigrants but has relaxed restrictions for skilled ones along with providing financial assistance to low wage earners. The reason for the reference to the term ‘Old Right’ comes from the fact that almost all of Europe’s right-wing parties upon having changed their agenda are now in a new phase of their development as they become the ‘New Right’. This new mode of addressing these politically oriented groups has its roots in the analysis of Nietzsche and Heidegger both of whom have greatly influenced the New Right’s meta-politics and philosophy and so have the ideas of Guenon about the “reign of quantity”. With such ideas behind the New Rights, their foundation seems to be having some sort of ideological support.
Sweden’s Reinfeldt too changing the name of his party from the ‘Moderate Party’ to the ‘New Moderates’ with respect to the mainstream thought of his country’s masses changed the entire profile of this party from being a pro-business, anti-welfare rightist one to a party with not only a new name but the willingness to protect the welfare state and be a worker’s party. As a result, the New Moderates swept the Swedish general elections in 2006 because the public backed them through and through although the Social Democrats had ruled Sweden for more than sixty years.
The British Tories seem to have taken way by accepting homosexuals and making environmental issues a prime concern. David Cameron, leader of the Conservative Party in the United Kingdom now also a New Right leader calls it “progressive conservatism”. With full preparations to lead as the major party in the next general elections against the popular Labour Party, the Conservatives with Cameron also aim to make life better for the working class as assumed by his promises of taxing the rich British and his appreciation of Sweden’s public education system.
Perhaps these leaders have learnt from the past that revitalizing conservatism as were the attempts in the last decade would lead to not much fruit; coming back to somewhat the same policies of their predecessors like Schroeder and Blair or of the Europe that had been quite left-centered since almost always. Rightist leaders like Germany’s Merkel or her Swedish and French counterparts are ready to continue such a practice of a mixture of left-right policies for as long as they may stay in power; their motives seem quite clear but prove to a great extent the relevance and influence of the leftist ideology, greatly needed to aid the survival of the New Right. The former has proven to be a sine qua non for the functioning of Europe as the continents history unfolds and this sudden shift in the other direction doesn’t seem to be doing so well without its predecessors help.
The far-left socialist parties are the ones resisting change and have remained ideologically committed unlike their counterparts, in supporting previous ways and designs, which to many seem to be those of yore making it all the more easier for Merkel, Sarkozy, Cameron and their ilk. However, the left sees all that is going on but has proved to be quite helpless in averting the right’s rise to power; a faction fitting in quite decently in Europe, as of now. The ideology of Thatcherism dominant in its own days didn’t have much influence outside Britain, the basic tenets of which are not being pursued by the descendants who simply wish to govern in a manner that keeps various sections of society pacified, for that will, in turn, guarantee their own days in the corridors of power.
As is the instinct of survival in all living species the basis of progress and the fundamental reason why Natural Selection favours a particular species over others, the right-wing parties are doing much the same by adapting to their local environment; one of the most basic tenets of evolution. With life arising by mutation as per the evolutionary theory, ideologies exist in their own place but the new-rightist cult in Europe is a modification of the previous version, tantamount to the human thumb in evolutionary history. With the right evolving to form a more organized and complex network of its own in order to satisfy the law “survival of the fittest” doesn’t eliminate the opposing factions but in fact, leads to competition as species strive to gain dominance over each other; a fight in which generally either one of the warring two wins but who, that remains to be a tale only time shall unfold.
References:
- Albers, Detlev. A Left Wing Godesberg- the SPD’s new Hamburg Party Programme. Social-Europe. <http://www.social-europe.eu/fileadmin/user_upload/Authors/Albers_3-2.pdf>
- Cameron. Guardian. A new politics: We need a massive, radical redistribution of power. <http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/may/25/david-cameron-a-new-politics>
- MacShane, Denis. The Right-Wing Resurrection. <http://www.newsweek.com/id/135285/page/1>
- McClosky, Herbert, and Dennis Chong. Similarities and Differences between Left-Wing and Right-Wing Radicals. <http://www.jstor.org/pss/193697>
- Muller-Rommel, Ferdinand. The new challengers: greens and right-wing populist parties in Western Europe. <http://www.leuphana.de/fileadmin/user_upload/PERSONALPAGES/Fakultaet_1/Mueller-Rommel_Ferdinand/files/00012926.pdf>
