Decline of the Left?

[Zinneke]

The "old" left declining in the West coincides with the industrial working class becoming an irrelevant force and the transfer to a service-orientated society. As a result union membership is on the decline (and the last bastions of social democracy often are those with still high union membership). Organised labour is no longer both a useful tool (due to service sector workers wanting to prioritize flexibility more) not has the same social value it had in the past.

At the same time the US is having a bit of a rebirth in the organised labour movement. But many of it seems more like well intentioned but symbolic posturing than something that can get somewhere. And the US, for social democracy to thrive, IMO needs actually a more top-down approach. It's political institutions are outdated and don't allow social progressive policies to be implemented even if that's what the American people want. So from an outsider I think the American Left should forge an alliance with the centrists that also see the Burkean incentive to reform American institutions

EU is another issue. The main one being the imbalanced currency, the lack of willingness for a transfer union, an inflexible labour market and as I previously said in criticising southern European social democracy, a tendency for cynical politicians to enter Social Democrat parties and treat them as a way to make.money and create a criminal network with wasteful spending and "jobs for the boys" culture. The far anti-capitalist Left had a golden opportunity in 2011 but they consistently shat the bed by associating themselves with China or Venezuela.

There is actually a tradition of labour unions in the EU western countries that can be maintained but it's being undermined by poor political performances as at levels by social democratic parties engaging in either careerism (your average Dijsselbloem) or criminality (your PASOK, your PD, your PSOE).