Social Democracy in Latin America
Petras, James
Social democracy originated in the struggle between labor and capital in 19th century Europe. In its inception its goal was to organize the working class to eliminate class society....
...business interests and, in some cases, were brought to power with U.S...
...on the contrary, in many areas it is growing and will continue to grow, given the conditions existing in Latin America and the limited options from which the masses have to choose...
...Nevertheless, the Swedish social democrats remain part of the IS and accept the limits of reform defined by the capitalist system...
...S**PS and MID are competing for recognition by SI...
...Contacts were also established with groups and individuals from Brazil, Bolivia, Ecuador and Uruguay...
...In the Dominican Republic the Guzman regime, elected by a mass popular landslide, has been increasingly hostile to the demands from the working class and even from its own trade union members-pursuing the same capitalist development policies of its predecessor...
...These elections and appointments reflect the rivalry within the IS between the more reformoriented Swedish section-supporting Sule, Pefa Gomez and Manley-and the more capitaloriented German section-favoring Barrios and Oduber...
...It is also crucially dependent on the objective interests -economic, political and ideological-that have operated within the European context to generate an interest in Latin American social democracy...
...While the Europeans have been able to work well with the incumbent military regimes, they have not felt altogether comfortable with them for several reasons: 1) The military have long-standing previous ties with U.S...
...SOCIAL DEMOCRACY'S FLUCTUATING FORTUNES In the recent experiences of JanlFeb 1980 Latin American social democracy, a particular pattern has recurred with considerable frequency...
...With the overseas expansion of European capital since the end of World War II, European social democracy has allied itself with capital against revolution everywhere...
...On the other hand, this burgeoning popular movement has little interest in the regional organizational vehicles floated by the U.S: AFL-CIO...
...This organizing drive met with tremendous success-29 Latin American organizations were represented at the IS Congress in November 1978, including the Puerto Rican Independence Party and Nicaragua's Sandinista Front...
...NEW ORIENTATIONS For many years social democracy was rather dormant in Latin America...
...In contrast, the orientation of Swedish social democracy less directly reflects its ties to capital...
...Moreover, its ideological influence has spread beyond its formal membership, as indicated by the renewed emphasis on popular front coalition's stage theories of revolution and "classless democracy" found in the political pronouncements of Latin American political leaders and intellectuals...
...No effort is made to alter the fundamental property, class and state relations that perpetuate inequalities...
...The very factors that facilitated victory in opposition-the alliance with capital, the agitation for "classless democracy" and the welfare capitalist model-are the same factors that prevent comprehensive and consequential change once the social democrats have secured power...
...Thus, a "vast space" exists in Latin America for European social democracy...
...2) the Europeans are wary of the instability of these regimes and do not want to put all their eggs in one basket...
...In a word, social democracy ceased its struggle for the overthrow of capitalism and became, instead, part of the capitalist state...
...But the most striking evidence of the social democratic advance is the fact that they now control the governments of the Dominican Republic and Jamaica and participate in mixed Juntas in El Salvador and Nicaragua...
...secondly, Swedish trade unions-especially the metalworkers-are anxious to prevent the flight of Swedish capital to lowwage areas and hence, are interested in the working conditions of Swedish capital's Latin American employees...
...Latin America has been experiencing relatively high levels of industrial growth accompanied by the expansion of commercial agriculture, processes that have greatly increased the absolute, if not the relative, size of the wagelabor force and its concentration...
...The recent effort to extend the influence of social democracy in Latin America began in April 1976...
...Its looser linkage with capital allows the Swedish Party a greater tactical flexibility in dealing with new radical and leftist forces in Latin America and thus, allows it to penetrate areas which its German counterparts would find more difficult...
...trade unions and liberal political groups have little appeal in Latin America...
...furthermore, sharp divisions between the political leadership administering the state and the mass-based organizational apparatus have led to protracted internal struggles and occasional splits to the right and left...
...and 3)European labor movements have directly experienced fascist and dictatorial movements and are less sanguine than their counterparts in the AFL-CIO about supporting such movements in Latin America...
...Beyond their narrow electoral and civil liberties commitments, the social democrats have little to offer...
...Efforts to reform capital that conflict with the conditions for its profitable accumulation lead to capital flight and consequent economic stagnation...
...While one should not exaggerate the conflicts among the European social democrats, it is important to note their different nuances in approach...
...Large-scale, long-term investments and trade agreements require close working relations with governmental and nongovernmental political leaders to facilitate contracts and licensing agreements, tax and labor arrangements, etc...
...Compiled by Tom Paul Delaney nent and to lay the basis for expanding contacts...
...In opposition to right-wing military or civilian regimes the social democratic movements have been able to gather broad support and even, in a number of cases, to take control of the government...
...In Jamaica the Manley government began with a radical reform program to nationalize foreign enterprises, redistribute income and mobilize the masses...
...This shift is clearly evident in the efforts to win over major elements of the Sandinista Movement in Nicaraguaespecially the Terceristas-and in the ties with the Brazilian Labor Party and the New Jewel Movement in Grenada, among others...
...Hence there exists a strong pressure within labor and the Left to limit economic relations with the dictatorial Right...
...the struggle for reforms as building blocks of the socialist revolution became an end in itself...
...However, as the movement evolved its organizations became increasingly bureaucratized despite considerable working-class membership...
...RIPE FOR REFORMISM Although Latin America's exiled opposition leadership acted as a crucial conductor for European social democracy, the latter's deep and widespread influence in Latin America's political life is one outcome of the particular development process that has characterized the region...
...Operating through its party and other organizations, European social democracy has developed a solid and growing base among the nationalist, populist, as well as laborbased parties in Latin America, ten of which are now members of the IS...
...membership in the IS would allow Latin American oppositionists to draw on European support in periods of "emergency"-the threat of economic sanctions, diplomatic pressure and political isolation by European social democratic governments could stay the hand of repression...
...This external material support and, presumably, the arguments put forth by the Europeans convinced some of the exiles that the future lay with the evolutionary rather than with the revolutionary path of the past...
...Historically linked to U.S...
...And it is the social democrats who have been best able to capitalize on these struggles...
...Meetings between party leaders and prospective and actual members have proliferated along with funding for research, leadership training, political 36 organizing and even guerrilla warfare (Nicaragua...
...Many of its militants were physically destroyed and its activities continue to be severely circumscribed, limiting its ability to reach out in a public fashion to the vast new strata in motion...
...Yet social democracy is not dead...
...First of all, Swedish multinational capital is less prominent and dynamic...
...These practices lead to divisions within the parties, further weaken their organizational capacity and inevitably lead to the party's electoral demise...
...Economic growth, then, has presupposed the NACLA Reportupdate * update . update . update existence of autocratic states that have sought to muzzle labor via pseudo-representative, statecontrolled "corporatist" organs as well as outright repression...
...Moreover, much of the mass opposition has as its immediate preoccupation the recovery of living standards and elementary political rights-demands which are not incompatible with the program and leadership of consequential social democrats...
...and in 1914, on the eve of the First World War, the social democratic parties abandoned proletarian internationalism in favor of alliances with their national bourgeoisies...
...On the one hand, because the severe state repression which preceded and accompanied the economic growth process was especially directed at the revolutionary Left, the latter was, and is, not in a position to give leadership to the growing mass discontent...
...FORGING LINKS WITH LATIN AMERICA In the past few years, Latin America has witnessed a veritable explosion of activity by the European social democratic parties and the Socialist (Second) International (IS...
...assistance, thus lessening European access and influence...
...Parties describing themselves as "social democratic," such as the American Popular Revolutionary Alliance (APRA) in Peru and Democratic Action (AD) in Venezuela, had turned into conservative bureaucratic apparatuses linked to foreign and domestic business groups and promoting policies that had little to do with their populist-nationalist rhetoric...
...In addition, Manley, Oduber of Costa Rica, Gonzalo Barrios of Venezuela and Sule of Chile were named vice-presidents of the International...
...however, it has turned into a regime whose economic and social policies are dictated by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), policies which have reduced the living standards of wage workers by 20-30...
...The ideological attraction of European social democracy consisted in its willingness to countenance movements which professed "socialist" goals, criticized U.S...
...At that time, a special working group on Latin America was established through Swedish initiative...
...This economic growth has been propelled by large-scale inflows of overseas capital which demand, as a condition of investment, an environment where class conflict is well contained...
...Two social democratic parties have recently won elections in the Caribbean-the Jamaican People's National Party (PNP) and the Revolutionary Dominican Party (PRD) of the Dominican Republic...
...In March 1978, Mario Soares-the Socialist leader responsible for containing Portugal's mass revolutionary upsurge of the mid-70s and known within the IS as "the German's man"--headed a delegation to Mexico, the Dominican Republic, 38 Venezuela, Jamaica and Costa Rica...
...Recent history suggests that social democracy in Latin America, as a social reform movement capable of sustaining popular support, has been a dismal failure...
...THE EUROPEAN IMPERATIVES The increasing intervention of European social democracy in Latin America is not only determined by factors internal to that region...
...The growth of overseas European expansion, especially in certain areas of Latin America, is one of the salient characteristics of inter-imperialist rivalry in recent years...
...imperialism and opposed the extreme right-wing dictatorships dominant in the region, but which avoided the label of "communist subversion...
...Furthermore, the issues that are being contested in Latin America involve a combined political and trade union struggle which exceeds the narrow boundaries defined by the business unionist JanlFeb 1980 leadership of the AFL-CIO...
...However, the exploitative conditions accompanying capitalist expansion and the lack of political autonomy of the workers' movement became the basis for new struggles...
...Moreover, because of their dependence on private capital-both foreign and domestic-they are limited with respect to the incomes policies they can pursue...
...it was headed by Michael Manley of Jamaica with Peria Gomez of the Dominican Republic NACLA Reportupdate * update * update . update as secretary...
...The PSD's National Director, Mario Solorzano Martinez' also participates on the International Committee for Latin America and the Caribbean...
...Operating as a left oppositionist with western legitimacy seemed to provide the necessary protection for exiles returning to mass organizing...
...a meeting was held in Caracas under the sponsorship of Venezuela's AD (then the governing party), to discuss the new opportunities developing on the conti37update * update update * update Full Member Parties Argentina Barbados Chile Costa Rica Dominican Republic El Salvador Jamaica Consultative Parties Paraguay MEMBERSHIP OF THE SOCIALIST INTERNATIONAL (Latin American and Caribbean Countries) Partido Socialista Popular (PSP)/Popular Socialist Party Barbados Labour Party (BLP) Partido Radical (PR)lRadical Party Partido de Liberaci6n Nacional (PLN)lNational Liberation Party Partido Revolucionario Dominicano (PRD)lDominican Revolutionary Party Movimiento Nacionalista Revolucionario (MNR)lNational Revolutionary Movement People's National Party (PNP) Partido Febrerista Revolucionario (PFR)lFebrerista Revolutionary Party Venezuela Acci6n Democrdtica (AD)IDemocratic Action Movimiento Electoral del Pueblo (MEP)lPeople's Electoral Movement Parties Informally Linked to the Socialist International* Argentina Uni6n Civica Radical (UCR)lRadical Civic Union Movimiento Peronista Montonero (MPM)IMontonero Peronist Movement Bolivia Movimiento Nacionalista Revolucionario de Izquierda (MNRI)l Nationalist Revolutionary Movement of the Left Brazil Partido Trabalhista Brasileiro (PTB)lBrazilian Labor Party Chile Partido Socialista-Movimiento de Acci6n Socialista (PS-MAS/Socialist PartySocialist Action Movement Ecuador Partido de lzquierda Democratico (PID)/Left Democratic Party Grenada New Jewel Movement (NJM) Guatemala Frente Unido de la Revolution (FUR)lUnited Revolutionary Front** Partido Socialista Democratico (PSD)/Democratic Socialist Party Mexico Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI)llnstitutional Revolutionary Party Nicaragua Frente Sandinista de Liberacibn Nacional (FSLN)lSandinist National Liberation Front Panama Partido Revolucionario Democratico (PRD)lDemocratic Revolutionary Party Partido Socialdemocrata (PS)lSocial Democratic Party*** Movimiento Independiente Democratico (MID)iDemocratic Independent Movement * * * Peru Alianza Popular Revolucionaria Americana (APRA)lAmerican Popular Revolutionary Alliance Puerto Rico Partido Independentista Puertorriqueno (PIP)lPuerto Rican Independence Party Uruguay Frente Amplio (FA)lBroad Front *These parties have participated at conferences heyd by the Socialist International, or have sought SI support...
...But once in power, the social democrats have failed to implement their programs, sustain mass support and retain political power...
...The proximate cause of Latin America's new welcome for European social democracy may be sought in that long period of the 1960s and early 70s when Europe's social democrats gave refuge to Latin American leaders fleeing the dictatorial onslaught...
...intelligence agencies, corporate interests and rightwing movements, U.S...
...However, the resurgence of popular movements in the region has required the IS to move beyond the crusty anti-communist rhetoric and programmatic confines of its older members to a more "radical adaptation" to the new members which they have recruited or are seeking to draw into the fold...
...Efforts to secure external financing bring in their wake the myriad forms of intervention in governmental policymaking: the social democrats are forced to become the instruments for restructuring public spending, social services and wage levels...
...The proposition that German social democracy is concerned, in Latin America, to create a political base for German capital is generally accepted in European circles...
...Thus, factors operating in Western Europe have converged with developments in Latin America to breathe new life into social democracy...
Vol. 14 • January 1980 • No. 1
