NDP needs more than a fresh face
Socialism is back in fashion. The NDP and its next leader should take notice
Democratic socialism … embraces the proposition that wealth is created by those who work for a living and not by those who control capital.
With the selection of a new leader in a few weeks, the federal New Democratic Party will place a fresh face in its shop window.
This is far from enough, however. The NDP needs a radical makeover.
The greatest virtue and vice of the NDP have the same source. The party is solid and enduring. For more than 80 years, Canadian social democrats have sought a more equitable social order, no mean achievement on a continent notable for constant motion, a continent that bestows its laurels on those who have made it, often at the expense of others. It’s not that Canadian social democrats are immune to the tides of historical change. There are, however, times when social democrats perceive the onset of new historical forces much too slowly. At such moments, a capacity for endurance becomes a barrier to change, so much so that the very solidity of the party threatens its survival. This is such a moment. For decades the NDP and its predecessor, the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF), expressed the view that capitalism was an inherently exploitative system and that the alternative to it was democratic socialism. The initial program of the CCF, the Regina Manifesto, did not mince words. It declared that “no CCF government will rest content until capitalism has been eradicated.” Over the long term, the idea was that socialists would strive to place the ownership and control of large enterprises in the hands of the community at large or more directly in the hands of those who work for such enterprises.
In fits and starts over the last half century, however, the NDP has migrated away from its socialist origins on a journey to the political centre. Indeed, at a convention in 2013, the party went so far as to drop the word “socialist” from its statement of principles. The NDP was announcing to Canadians that it would be satisfied with making the present order of things fairer without changing it fundamentally.
The dropping of socialism came at a time that was particularly unpropitious, even ironic. During the last few years, socialism has been coming back into fashion, especially among the young in Europe and, most remarkably, in the United States. Today the capitalist system of wealth creation and distribution is regarded by many millions of people around the world as a failed system. The reason for this is not obscure. Those who have presided over the present global division of labour have enriched themselves more lavishly than any class of rulers in the history of the world.
The generation of millennials, who are aged 20 to 35, are grappling with the effects of inequality. The analysis of Thomas Piketty in his groundbreaking book “Capital in the Twenty-first Century” exposes the emergence of a deeply unequal capitalism in the advanced countries that is more reminiscent of the late Victorian and Edwardian age and the 1920s than it is of the post-Second World War decades. Other studies have shown that in terms of employment and income, the young face the clear prospect of ending up worse off than their parents.
A major political consequence of the crisis of the system is the rise in both Europe and North America of right-wing extremism. Racist, xenophobic, anti-immigrant, the signal triumphs of the extreme right to date have come in the vote in the United Kingdom in favour of Brexit and, even more importantly, in the election of Donald Trump as president of the United States.
Democratic socialism is the authentic alternative to exclusionist populism. It embraces the proposition that wealth is created by those who work for a living and not by those who control capital.
At a time when the division of wealth and power grows ever more unequal, the NDP needs to shift to a more radical position. It has been decades since the NDP encouraged basic thought about remaking Canadian society from the bottom up. Let that begin by taking democratic socialism out of the attic and putting it front and centre. From that can come a set of policies to create a Canada that is egalitarian, green and sovereign.
James Laxer is a professor of political science at York University. In 1971, as the candidate of the Waffle group in the party, he ran second in a field of five candidates for the federal leadership of the NDP. He is the author of “The NDP Needs A Radical Makeover” on Kindle and Kobo.