(This article was originally written in 2000)
By James Laxer and Gerald Caplan
After 3 disastrous federal elections and the crumbling of its provincial base, can the NDP continue to survive? And does it matter? Our answers are: Not necessarily, and Yes!
There’s an interesting earlier parallel to today’s crisis on the left. John Diefenbaker's massive victory in the 1958 election left the CCF (the NDP’s predecessor) with a paltry eight MPs. The party seemed to face the choice of disappearing or revitalizing. Happily, what followed was one of the most creative periods in the history of Canadian social democracy---- three years of tough rethinking and reorganization that led to the founding of the NDP in 1961, with Tommy Douglas as its first leader.
Inspired and driven by David Lewis, Canadian social democracy was put through a wrenching period of debate about its values, program and structure. The new party soon found its feet. New Democrats often captured between 16 and 20% of the national vote while winning power in four provinces. Under the NDP banner, social democrats played a proud and indispensable role in launching Canadian social programs.
What is needed now is a comparable shaking up, a jolt of creative energy on the left. If that requires an entirely new political formation, so be it.
At the time the NDP was founded, all mainstream parties assumed that more money would be spent on social programs and that the state had a major role to play in achieving economic growth and full employment. In our market centred age, these notions have acquired an almost antique feel. Endless advice is proffered to social democrats to get on board and accept the supremacy of the market.
We ask a basic question. Does the case for a social democratic party still hold up, or is the very ideology outdated and irrelevant?
Social democracy is about greater equality among people and nations. Its case has always rested on the premise that left to its own devices, capitalism tends toward great extremes of wealth and power. Over the past decade, in both Canada and the United States, the unmistakable trend has been toward a growing gap between the rich and the rest of the population, as food banks and homelessness vividly attest. Looking at the world as a whole, it is evident that global capitalism promotes subsistence and poverty for the many and wealth and affluence for the few. The case for social democracy, we passionately believe, is as strong today as at any time in the past century.
This leads to the great mystery of the moment. In the face of these realities, the NDP has become largely irrelevant, even to those whose causes it champions. While more and more of those who protest the injustices of modern corporate capitalism see the political system itself as part of the problem, the NDP plays the political game for all its worth. It devotes itself to the world of 10-second sound bites, inter-party trashing, and elections based on little more than the need to win enough seats to retain official party status. Of course it’s right to fight against dismantling the health care system and other social programs. But social democrats need to operate on a much wider terrain, to develop an analysis and a strategy that go far beyond defending the modest gains of the past. The NDP must stop being Canada’s conservative party and become the vanguard of a broadened progressive vision for the new millennium.
The issues are surely clear enough. Social democrats need to evolve a program that advances the goals of equality, social justice and human rights at home and abroad. Globalization has vastly increased the power of transnational corporations while severely limiting the sovereignty of individual governments. Especially since last year’s demonstrations in Seattle against the WTO, a movement has grown up in many parts of the world to expose the democratic deficit that globalization has created. The NDP must proactively identify with the aspirations of this movement whose goal is to counter the weakening of citizen based democracies as a consequence of free trade pacts and institutions such as the IMF, the World Bank and the WTO.
Free market capitalism also imperils the very future of the planet. The voracious drive for more and more production on a global scale is simply not environmentally sustainable. Canada played a scandalous role in the recent failed talks to achieve a treaty to curb global warming. Canadian social democracy needs to forge an alliance between workers and environmentalists, the so-called red-green alliance that has helped bring social democrats to power in Germany and France.
Generational renewal is also key to the future of Canadian social democracy. Younger Canadians face life prospects that make their situation significantly different from that of baby boomers and seniors. Longer hours of work with decreasing security, rising tuition fees and indebtedness are the lot in life for too many young workers and students. Yet too many young people have written off the NDP as yesterday's institution, just another culprit dedicated to defending its place in the status quo. Turbulence can be expected if the doors are thrown wide open to the today's young activists. The NDP should welcome the turbulence.
Canadian social democrats, led by the NDP, must immediately launch an open-ended debate about the future. The party must not allow itself to be diverted by the tactical minutiae and silly games-playing of the House of Commons. Rather, the priority should be to organize conferences, to bring people together, to encourage vigorous debate on every aspect of political life. The internet makes this debate easier and more affordable. Let the renewal begin without preconceived notions about where it will lead. Let there be no sacred cows, no subject off-limit, no idea dismissed out of hand---including the need for a new party of the democratic left. If the debate fails to begin immediately, there may not be another chance.
By James Laxer and Gerald Caplan
After 3 disastrous federal elections and the crumbling of its provincial base, can the NDP continue to survive? And does it matter? Our answers are: Not necessarily, and Yes!
There’s an interesting earlier parallel to today’s crisis on the left. John Diefenbaker's massive victory in the 1958 election left the CCF (the NDP’s predecessor) with a paltry eight MPs. The party seemed to face the choice of disappearing or revitalizing. Happily, what followed was one of the most creative periods in the history of Canadian social democracy---- three years of tough rethinking and reorganization that led to the founding of the NDP in 1961, with Tommy Douglas as its first leader.
Inspired and driven by David Lewis, Canadian social democracy was put through a wrenching period of debate about its values, program and structure. The new party soon found its feet. New Democrats often captured between 16 and 20% of the national vote while winning power in four provinces. Under the NDP banner, social democrats played a proud and indispensable role in launching Canadian social programs.
What is needed now is a comparable shaking up, a jolt of creative energy on the left. If that requires an entirely new political formation, so be it.
At the time the NDP was founded, all mainstream parties assumed that more money would be spent on social programs and that the state had a major role to play in achieving economic growth and full employment. In our market centred age, these notions have acquired an almost antique feel. Endless advice is proffered to social democrats to get on board and accept the supremacy of the market.
We ask a basic question. Does the case for a social democratic party still hold up, or is the very ideology outdated and irrelevant?
Social democracy is about greater equality among people and nations. Its case has always rested on the premise that left to its own devices, capitalism tends toward great extremes of wealth and power. Over the past decade, in both Canada and the United States, the unmistakable trend has been toward a growing gap between the rich and the rest of the population, as food banks and homelessness vividly attest. Looking at the world as a whole, it is evident that global capitalism promotes subsistence and poverty for the many and wealth and affluence for the few. The case for social democracy, we passionately believe, is as strong today as at any time in the past century.
This leads to the great mystery of the moment. In the face of these realities, the NDP has become largely irrelevant, even to those whose causes it champions. While more and more of those who protest the injustices of modern corporate capitalism see the political system itself as part of the problem, the NDP plays the political game for all its worth. It devotes itself to the world of 10-second sound bites, inter-party trashing, and elections based on little more than the need to win enough seats to retain official party status. Of course it’s right to fight against dismantling the health care system and other social programs. But social democrats need to operate on a much wider terrain, to develop an analysis and a strategy that go far beyond defending the modest gains of the past. The NDP must stop being Canada’s conservative party and become the vanguard of a broadened progressive vision for the new millennium.
The issues are surely clear enough. Social democrats need to evolve a program that advances the goals of equality, social justice and human rights at home and abroad. Globalization has vastly increased the power of transnational corporations while severely limiting the sovereignty of individual governments. Especially since last year’s demonstrations in Seattle against the WTO, a movement has grown up in many parts of the world to expose the democratic deficit that globalization has created. The NDP must proactively identify with the aspirations of this movement whose goal is to counter the weakening of citizen based democracies as a consequence of free trade pacts and institutions such as the IMF, the World Bank and the WTO.
Free market capitalism also imperils the very future of the planet. The voracious drive for more and more production on a global scale is simply not environmentally sustainable. Canada played a scandalous role in the recent failed talks to achieve a treaty to curb global warming. Canadian social democracy needs to forge an alliance between workers and environmentalists, the so-called red-green alliance that has helped bring social democrats to power in Germany and France.
Generational renewal is also key to the future of Canadian social democracy. Younger Canadians face life prospects that make their situation significantly different from that of baby boomers and seniors. Longer hours of work with decreasing security, rising tuition fees and indebtedness are the lot in life for too many young workers and students. Yet too many young people have written off the NDP as yesterday's institution, just another culprit dedicated to defending its place in the status quo. Turbulence can be expected if the doors are thrown wide open to the today's young activists. The NDP should welcome the turbulence.
Canadian social democrats, led by the NDP, must immediately launch an open-ended debate about the future. The party must not allow itself to be diverted by the tactical minutiae and silly games-playing of the House of Commons. Rather, the priority should be to organize conferences, to bring people together, to encourage vigorous debate on every aspect of political life. The internet makes this debate easier and more affordable. Let the renewal begin without preconceived notions about where it will lead. Let there be no sacred cows, no subject off-limit, no idea dismissed out of hand---including the need for a new party of the democratic left. If the debate fails to begin immediately, there may not be another chance.
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