Vad bör göras?

Den norske radikale fackföreningsmannen Asbjørn Wahls artikel, "Labor & Austerity in Europe", i januarinumret av Monthly review är läsvärd. På slutet kommer han in på den brännande frågan om vad som bör göras åt den deprimerande politiska situationen i dagens Europa:

"The immediate task is to meet the confrontational attacks from capitalists and their political servants, to wage the defensive fight against the massive attacks on wages, pensions, and public services. In the long term, however, this will not be enough, as the Scottish Socialist Murray Smith so rightly points out:

In whatever scenario there is a structural weakness of the workers’ movement, which gives the advantage to the government and the ruling class. The weakness is political and lies in the absence of a credible, visible political alternative to neo-liberalism. Such a political alternative is not a pre-condition for resisting attacks in the short term, perhaps even winning battles. But at a certain point the absence of a coherent alternative has a demobilizing effect. This problem predates the present crisis, but the crisis has made it a much more urgent question. What is necessary is the perspective of a governmental alternative incarnated by political forces that have a credible possibility of winning the support of the majority of the population, not necessarily immediately, but as a perspective. Such a political programme would involve organizing the production of goods and services to meet the needs of the population, democratically decided. That means breaking the stranglehold of finance on the economy, creating a publicly owned financial sector, re-nationalizing public services, a progressive taxation system, measures that challenge property rights.

The vision of an alternative development of society is important, then, to provide inspiration and direction for the ongoing struggle against the crisis and social regression. It is uncertain, however, that a lack of alternatives is the main problem. There are a great many elements for an alternative developmental model. The alternative to privatization is not to privatize. The alternative to increased competition is more collaboration. The alternative to bureaucracy and control from above is democratization and participation from below. Alternatives to increasing inequalities and poverty are redistribution, progressive taxation, and free, universal welfare benefits. The alternative to the destructive speculation economy is socialization of the bank and credit institutions, the introduction of capital controls, and the prohibition of dealing with suspect financial instruments. The list can be made much longer than this.

Rather than a lack of alternatives, it may also be a question of the ability and will to carry out the mobilization and make use of the resources that are necessary to enforce them. Here, it is important for there to be a political showdown with the ideological legacy of the social pact—that deep-rooted social partnership ideology and belief in social dialogue as the best way of resolving social problems for the benefit of all, as the expression goes."

Det handlar alltså  för att använda mer traditionella vänsterformuleringar -  om en defensiv kamp mot kapitalets offensiv, om att utforma ett politiskt alternativ till nyliberalismen, och om att ideologiskt kritisera den socialdemokratiska klassamerbetspolitiken. Jag tolkar Wahl som att han menar att alla dessa tre ingredienser i är lika viktiga.

Men det andra inslaget av de tre, utformandet av ett politiskt program, kräver väl tillkomsten av åtminstone ett nytt politiskt parti som kan ta itu med uppgiften? Var har vi initiativtagarna?