After social democracy, what?

What has become of European social democracy? It is shocking that Spain is one of its last strongholds. What is the reason for this generalized decline that is giving life to the expansion of the far-right and which finds no compensation in the space to the left of socialists, who are still experiencing this situation with even more bewilderment? Are we to understand that the role of social democracy was one of counterbalance during industrial capitalism, within the framework of European democracies of the last century, and that now it cannot find its place in the new financial and digital capitalism? It is evident that the meaning of words and things changes, and that the mutation of the criteria of truth and virtue that shape each moment has an impact on the ways a society organizes itself. But the role of social democracy was fundamental, and its weakness is noticeable. And what is disturbing is that, while social democracy fades, blatant forms of authoritarian impulses are gaining ground everywhere, with a clear shift towards right-wing radicalization that exponentially propagates neo-fascist impulses.

Parties to the left of social democracy also do not find a place. Even in Spain, where socialists are still holding on, they are struggling. European communism, as an ideology, has not survived the fall of the Berlin Wall. But what is significant is that attempts to open up space on the left beyond institutional communism have also failed; probably because they did not achieve sufficient differentiation to avoid being dragged down by the collapse of the Soviet edifice. The new times produced experiences with dazzling media impacts, as in the Spanish case with Podemos, Pablo Iglesias and company, but exhibitionist impulses and rivalries between unbridled egos – expressions of a real lack of project – generated accelerated leaderships that exploded amidst the spectacle of the psychopathology of small differences.

Between a society articulated around the factory in which the owners and the workers had a place where they met and the current dispersion there is an abyss. But what is evident is that the void left by the left is being occupied by the extreme right. An unequivocal sign that democracy is in danger. Who can restore or assume the role of social democracy? What must be done if we want to consolidate a system of checks and balances that allows us to sustain the updating of democracy before we lose it in the hands of post-democratic authoritarianism, without knowing why?