The parties that built the welfare state, the
Liberals, Socialists and Social Democrats, have always been the
champions of losers, but the fulfillment of the welfare state in its
original design in the 1960s left these parties suddenly with less of a
cause. For a while they survived as the parties of technocrats, the
managers of the welfare state, but this was not enough. To stop a
slow decline over the past generation or two these parties have
persuaded most of the rest of the political spectrum in Europe to
expand the definition of those entitled to social support, so that no loser,
of whatever kind, is let down. Even nominally conservative parties
have been persuaded to join this bandwagon. This change coincided
with the great influx of immigration from non-European cultures. The
old leftist adage that «it is society's obligation to support those
who cannot support themselves» was now applied to a changing kind of
society where a large portion of the social support recipients were
illiteral immigrants.
Nevertheless, there are always sceptics who ask, who
are the losers? Excessively liberal and ill-defined categories of
social benefit recipients can create considerable social friction. In
some cases these categories appear to be more or less based on a
self-declared status. Ordinary citizens react to this state of
affairs with anything ranging from mild irritation to political
opposition to violent demonstrations. The danger to democracy is that
government leaders are not easily able to judge the strength of the
reactions, leaving them to simmer over a long time. Here is
dangerously fertile ground, not merely for populism, but for fascism.
Fascism feeds on lingering discontent, because such
unresolved conditions can lead increasing numbers of people to the
conclusion that parliamentary democracy cannot solve
society's problems, and that more drastic policies are therefore needed. This is what happened when fascism first emerged in Europe.
Today fascist movements are again growing in many parts of Europe,
and many analysts are asking themselves why. In my view the answer is
near at hand. Many European governments have been calling on their
citizens to sacrifice their economic interests for the greater good
of their nation, at the same time that little or no improvement seems
to come out of it. Just as in the 1920s and 1930s, perceived
outsiders (not Jews this time, but gypsies/Roma people, illegal immigrants, drug addicts and “drifters”) are blamed for the bad
times, and the government is blamed for coddling them. The situation is superficially similar, yet starkly different in Western and Eastern Europe. In the East, from Greece to Romania to Ukraine and Russia, the problems are unlikely to be solved by simple measures. In Western Europe, however, my view is
that if governments could pay some more attention to their citizenry, the
danger of fascism can be reduced.
I am fully aware of treading on dangerous ground
here, but the issue cannot be shoved under the rug. The Norwegian
mass murderer of 2011 tried to justify his actions by pointing to
ineffectual immigration policies. While this argument is both
disgraceful and disgusting given the context and the many victims, we need to recognize that ordinary
citizens in European countries are calling for a tougher policy line
on social benefits, crime and cultural issues. Their calls should not
go unheeded simply by appealing to our generosity and our disgust of
fascism.
¡
