Welcome back to the David Pakman show. It's great to welcome to the program today. Sheri
Berman, who's a professor of Political Science Barnard College
at Columbia University. Most recent book is democracy and dictatorship in Europe from
the, and I hope I'm pronouncing it correctly, the NCCN regime to the present day. Is that
how it's said? That's perfect. Good. Okay. Uh, all right, so let's, so let's jump right
into it. We've been talking a lot about, um, social democracy in the context of what are
the differences between that and democratic socialism. How does this compare to different
types of capitalism? And one of the interesting areas of this is that much of sort of modern
social democracy, socially democratic thought stems from uh, early 20th century Sweden and
the Social Democratic Party. And if we look today at Europe and what's going on, that
model has actually changed significantly with the rise in right wing nationalism in Europe
and a lot of other changes that are taking place. So how would you, if someone just says
to you, you know, Sherry, how has the state of social democracy changed over the last
Hundred Years in Europe? How would you generally characterize it?
Well, so there's lots of different ways to answer that question, which is never a good
answer to a question. I mean, as far as the sort of status of parties that call themselves
social democratic or would be seen as kind of center left, we have seen a dramatic decline
in support for these parties over the late 20th and early 21st century. So one way to
tell this story is to talk about the rise of these parties electorally, politically
during the early 20th century. There sort of greatest electoral success after the Second
World War and then a decline that again has set in over the last decades. Um, the other
way to tell the story is by focusing less on how many votes they get and more on their
ideas and how powerful those ideas have been. The traditionally or those sort of distinctive
social democratic view is one that accepts capitalism, but as wary of it and believes
that it is necessary for the democratic state to intervene in markets and in the economic
sphere in general to sort of protect citizens from the most destructive and destabilizing
consequences of markets.
And again, if we're going to look at it that way, then one could say I'm starting in the
20th. The beginning of the 20th century Social Democrats within left started fighting for
this view against folks further to the left Marxist Communists, Democratic Socialists,
um, only in Scandinavia and particularly in Sweden where these kinds of social democratic
use able to triumph on the left during the interwar period. But after the Second World
War, these type of use come to dominate mainstream center left and social democratic parties
as well as by the way most other parties in Europe on the center and center. Right. So
this basic social democratic view that it was the task of democratic states to control
capitalism to or rather to tame capitalism, to protect citizens. This was basically accepted
across the board in Europe after the Second World War. But by the end of the 20th century,
this consensus begins to fray and in fact becomes largely replaced by a more neo liberal
consensus which rains, uh, you know, sort of up through, I would say the financial and
euro crisis. And now we're back again to an era when that consensus, that more neoliberal
consensus is being questioned. And we're again debating some fundamental questions about
the relationship between democracy and capitalism, the correct role and scope for markets, things
of that nature.
Is there a, let me rephrase it a different way. Are there places in Europe where, uh,
uh, as as an, as a sort of idea labeled as social democracy, many of those ideas are
just sort of mainstream and as such, it's not as important that they be labeled in that
way. So when you look at, for example, the healthcare systems of many European countries,
the debate over, well it's the Social Democrats who want one type of system and they're pushing
against everybody else who wants to sort of more American type system, aren't a lot of
those, um, uh, institutions now just kind of part of the baseline. And as such, there
are no longer labeled as socially democratic.
So I mean, that is absolutely correct. Unlike in the United States, citizens in Europe since
1945 have come to take for granted a whole range of social protections that we are still
fighting over here in the United States. And you mentioned the most obvious ones, universal
healthcare, free education, a whole variety of other social protections that we do not
have as a matter of citizenship here in the u s in that sense, a sort of social democratic
view of the relationship between states and markets still reigns. But these kinds of systems
have come under stress in Europe. Um, and they have been changed and they have changed
fairly dramatically over the past decade. So while you still have a very extensive welfare
state, for example, in Europe and while in places like Sweden, you know, you still have
high levels of government spending, everybody expects healthcare, pensions, education, et
Cetera to be given. As a matter of course, you have seen significant privatization of
many of these policies. You've seen rising inequality and you've seen some deterioration
around the edge in the kinds of commitments states have made to citizens. So yes, um,
no. In Europe it is generally accepted that, um, you know, welfare states you are a good
thing and that governments do need to provide social protection for citizens. But there
has been an erosion of many of these policies and more importantly, perhaps many of the
principles upon which they were predicated after the Second World War.
So, um, in any election, there is always what we would call some level of defection, people
who in a primary vote on one side and a nut voting for in the general election for someone
from a different party there. There's the affection of all kinds, but we have some data
specifically that 12% of Bernie Primary voters in 2016 ended up voting for Donald Trump.
Now they were, you can argue balanced out by some, uh, you know, ted Cruz voters who
ended up voting for Hillary Clinton. But to focus in specifically for the purposes of
our conversation on those 12%, is that a phenomenon that is also identifiable in Europe where
European Social Democrats and folks more aligned with the ideology of Bernie Sanders gets sort
of swept up in some of these populist right wing movements or in the nationalism and end
up supporting that or, or is that not a dynamic you've observed in Europe?
So the answer to your question again is yes and no. Okay. I mean, look at any, um, American
election, the candidate in the primaries, who, what the supporters of primary candidates
who lose some percentage of them always defect the other party. So the 12% of Bernie Sanders
voters who defected to Trump is not out of line with the number of Clinton supporters
who defected after Clinton lost to Obama. But the larger point that you raise is a very
important one. The defection of lower educated and working class white voters from the Democratic
Party to the Republican Party. And particularly to Trump in 2016 this is a broader phenomenon
that we have seen in Europe. In fact, in many European countries now it is not social democratic
parties, but right wing populous parties that are the largest working class parties in their
party systems. That is to say more workers, people in the working class support right
wing populist parties in many European countries, including France and Austria. Then they do
Social Democratic Party. So the broader phenomenon, right? Uh, folks defecting from the left,
particularly again among the working class and people with lower educational levels to
the populist. Right. This is a profoundly important and he stabilizing phenomenon that
you can see on both sides of the Atlantic.
Hmm. Um, in the book sort of related to this, one of the things we talk about our countries
in Europe that have formed, uh, I guess what we would call liberal Western democracies
and the last hundreds, several hundred years, and that at different points in time and for
different reasons, there's sort of a backsliding that happens towards autocracy towards authoritarianism.
Um, what are the more common reasons, if there are unifying, are common reasons that that
happens? Or are they really unique cases?
Well, there's lots of reasons why they happen and I think it is important given how worried
we are about the state of democracy today to point out that we still have more democracies
in the world today than ever before, and that we've had less backsliding after the wave
of democratization that began in the late 20th century with the collapse of the Soviet
Union. Then we have during previous democratic wave. So those would be waves in 1848 after
the first world war, after the Second World War. So overall the state of democracy is
still quite strong. But for countries that do backslid in places where democracy does
decay if not collapse, there are definitely some patterns that um, you know we should
be wary of because in the past they have led to again, significant problems with democracy,
social polarization, which of course is something we are constantly talking about here in the
u s this is very problematic because it makes democracy almost impossible to function.
People see their opponents is illegitimate rather than just as opponents. They find it
very difficult to compromise and bargain, which of course is what democracy requires.
Every political battle becomes zero sum and so it's very difficult to have well functioning
democracies and the kinds of situations where you have social polarization parties are pushed
further to the extreme, that kind of thing. In general, if we think about the sort of
period when democracy, quote unquote work best in the west, that is to say after the
Second World War when we got stable, well functioning democracies in western Europe
as well as obviously well functioning democracy here in the United States. We should also
remember that this was a period with very particular social and economic characteristics
as well. We had rising growth. Europe grew the fastest it's ever grown, um, in its entire
history in the 30 years after 1945 and along with that growth came incredible equalization
of incomes and wealth.
Um, again, greater equalization that had ever occurred before. And this is important because
it helped to diminish divisions in society and help to create the sense that the democratic
system could deliver for everyone. That the gains of one group did not come at the expense
of the others and that politicians and parties were responsive to the needs of their citizens.
Of course, we all know that this kind of, um, these kinds of developments changed dramatically
in the late 20th century when growth slowed, unemployment rose, particularly in Europe,
inequality skyrocketed in the United States in particular, but in almost all European
countries. Well, and we began to see, again, greater divisions within Western societies,
all of which were, um, accompanied by dramatic social and demographic change, which only
complicated the process of democratic politics, even more [inaudible].
Absolutely fascinating stuff. And I think anybody who has listened to our conversation
can tell that there is a lot to be gleaned from the history of Europe in terms of what,
uh, we are starting to see in some ways in the United States today. The book is democracy
and dictatorship in Europe from the onsie on regime to the present day. We've been speaking
with the books.
They're Barnard College Professor Sheri Berman. Sherri, really a pleasure having you on. Thank
you so much. I was really glad to have this conversation.