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Socialism is ‘human work’  

Is there a future for socialism? This comprehensive question was posed at this year’s famous ‘Gentse Feesten’ – literally the Gent Parties or Feasts –  to Jan Marijnissen. Most certainly, said the leader of modern Dutch socialism to his large Belgian audience – but not ‘just like that’. Socialism is ‘mensenwerk’ – human work. And it surely demands an optimistic approach. Socialism is not for cynics.

By Jan Marijnissen

When my party wanted to overcome its original dogmatism, we asked ourselves – halfway through the eighties – the question, “What is it that we are committed to?” The answer turned out to be three moral values. We have described these values as the core of our socialism, the socialism of the Dutch SP:  human dignity, equality of all people and solidarity between people. But morals on their own won’t get us anywhere. These starting points are linked to a rational analysis of society feeding into effective standpoints - and the organisation, strategy and tactics to match.  The moral starting points in combination with the rational analysis form the measuring rod by which we judge and determine our politics. Whatever comes out positive against this measuring rod we promote, whatever comes out negative we try to prevent or combat.

Socialists aren’t a better kind of people

The organisers asked me to address the question, ‘Is there a future for socialism? My answer is this: for people who make it their aim to strengthen human dignity, equality and solidarity, there will always be a future. Because a future in which these elements, which have crystalised in our history, were absent would be a dead end street.

You should understand that it is an optimistic person that stands before you. I have to inform you that I rarely call myself a socialist. I find it too pretentious, but also uncomfortable, because it pigeon-holes me. And not everyone has the same opinion as to the contents of this ‘pigeon-hole’. I don’t think either that ‘socialists’ are a better kind of people. But also, it isn’t what you say that determines what you do but, in my view, what you are.  But for this occasion, here at the Gentse Feesten, I will gladly make an exception and explain what I understand by the terms socialism and socialist.  

Not sticking to old forms and old thinking

To start with, I am a socialist of these times. I am not attached to old forms and thinking about socialism as holy writ, as an inevitable, necessary historical development, as a blueprint for a paradise on earth. I know the socialist movement’s past. I have a great deal of respect for it, and at least as much serious criticism. Under the banner of socialism great thoughts have been born and great deeds committed; but it is just as true to say that socialism’s flag has far too often hidden a terrible burden. What to think of the so-called ‘actually existing socialism under which, as I wrote in my 1996 book ‘Enough!’, the free exchange of ideas was replaced by the golden calf of absolute truth? Where democracy was an empty and hollow word and tyranny, bureaucracy and oppression of human dignity reigned. You understand, I didn’t shed any tears when that system collapsed under the weight of its own powerlessness and through the refusal of people any longer to bow down before it.  

But what should we think of all of these socialist parties and the politicians who turned their backs on their old ideals and transformed themselves into what are in general unusually cynical politicians, throwing themselves into agreement with neoliberal parties.  They decided, freely and knowingly, to assist in the dismantling, or better the destruction, of the post-war welfare state. They showed themselves to care nothing for their forerunners, who had done all in their power to construct a civilised society. Respect for the struggle to which the many brave, self-sacrificing people who came before them have contributed, was and remains hard to find.

Untruthfulness and socialism don’t go together

Of one thing I am certain: untruthfulness and socialism do not go together. I have a reputation of being somewhat open and direct, but I cannot see that as a handicap. If socialism is the movement towards more human dignity, equality and solidarity, then by the same token it is a movement for democratisation, for transparency. It isn’t a movement which takes people for fools, treats them like cattle and then, with just as little care, shoves them aside. It isn’t for cynics. It also offers nothing to people who think that altruism, commitment, guts, and being prepared to make sacrifices are old-fashioned concepts. Socialism is struggle. So, are you looking for fair weather socialism? You can do that, but you won’t find me there.
A few years ago my book ‘Nieuw Optimisme’ (New Optimism) was published. In this book I sketched out our place in the political spectrum. I formulated – in contrast to the gloomy tales favoured by the dominant power -  the idea that there is actually good reason to look to the future with optimism - if we are prepared to approach a number of things in a fundamentally different way and turn our backs on neoliberal thinking and the political practices which go with it.  

Five aspects of socialism

The publication of ‘Nieuw Optimisme’ was, for my good friends, but equally good journalists,  Kees Slager and Karel Glastra van Loon, reason enough to subject me to thorough questioning on the subject of how I could put my general opinions into everyday practice, how I could give substance to my thoughts. The interrogation by these gentlemen lead to the book entitled ‘Hoe dan, Jan?’ (How then, Jan?). They asked me, for example, to expand further on my general definition of socialism. I listed five aspects for them, and I’m happy to go back over each of these.

One essential aspect of my socialism is the emancipation of ordinary people, of women, men and their children, to the degree that they can live and eat decently, send their children  to a good school, have access to culture and to more of these kinds of things. In other words, socialists devote themselves to creating the conditions under which homo universalis is given a chance. We need to arrange things so that they become quite a matter-of-course: good education, good and available healthcare, decent public transport, social security, to name just a few important examples. Why all that complicated business about so-called freedom of choice, which the neoliberals force on us and for which they have meanwhile created a powerful ally in the Europe of Brussels? This freedom of choice is a euphemism for leaving everything to the market. Large parts of the public sector are being handed over to this. Almost none of the promised advantages have been realised. Disadvantages are all too visible.

Another aspect of my socialism concerns humanity as such. I’m referring to the conclusion that human beings are social beings. From this idea flows a vision of society. A view that  society should be one in which social feelings are honoured rather than denigrated and as  values in themselves are noted and respected. Persistent individualism stands at right-angles to this approach.

A further aspect of my socialism is that it proceeds from the scientific knowledge that human beings in all of our facets are extremely dependent on the circumstances in which we live. My watchword I am happy to take from the Portuguese Nobel laureate Saramago who said: ‘Circumstances are very much what defines humanity; so, make the circumstances human.’ Make humanity the measure of all things. Look for a human scale.

 
My socialism is averse to megalomania, to delusions of grandeur, to the inhuman scale. Look at how in my country, in education, in science, in the different health care sectors, everything has assumed proportions beyond the human.  Increase of scale has, in part under the influence of the social democrats, become frightening and at the same time a widely recognised cause of many of the problems experienced by people at the present time in our society. I am pleased that in the Netherlands the SP’s critique on this point is being underwritten by the government, at least in words.

A fourth aspect of my socialism is that it grows out of historical consciousness, basing itself on answers to the question of where we have come from, what sort of problems we have faced in the past and how we solved those problems. Such a feeling for historical consciousness has consequences for your plans for the future. Without a feeling for history the future quickly becomes a black hole or a light-headed dream, neither of which has any place in my perception of socialism. This plea for a more historical understanding has opened the SP to the accusation that we are conservative - in my way of looking at things an absurd accusation. Socialists are, to an unusual degree I would say, people who see the shortcomings of the present organisation of society and want to change it. A more historical consciousness is, however, an effective means to counter exaggerated expectations, and therefore frustration, teaching us humility.  

A final aspect that I would like to add to my list is that my socialism also often has much to do with upbringing and development. Or to put it differently, in fine old-fashioned terms: with the raising up of the people. I read in the Dutch weekly magazine Vrij Nederland (Free Netherlands) that our Labour vice-premier Wouter Bos proposed including ‘verheffing’ – “raising”– in the title of the governmental accord that he signed together with Christian Democrat Prime Minister Balkenende, but that the latter felt that it sounded too “Marxist”. You understand: this designation was dropped, but I employ it with great pleasure. To raise up the people is to raise up ourselves.

I hope that I have given you an insight into a few aspects of the socialism that my party  attempts to propagate. And with a certain success, if I might with modesty say so. We have now become, after years of effort and of searching - during which we have primarily allied ourselves with the people whom it’s all about -  in both membership and parliamentary seats, the country’s third party.  In some opinion polls we have already surpassed the PvdA, the Dutch Labour Party.

Marx and Marijnissen

When the two journalists asked me, for my book ‘Hoe dan, Jan’ whether Marijnissen imagined himself to be the new Marx, I immediately put them straight. Marx is dead, and I am not. I don’t believe in reincarnation, even for socialists. I take my inspiration from the facts and circumstances of today. That does not mean that I am not happy to learn from the interesting analyses and opinions which socialism has produced and which continue to have a major influence on our thoughts and actions. Time has sometimes overtaken them but that does not make them any less interesting. Humanity is made by history. But people themselves must make their future, which will later become history. The essence remains the historical development of humanity, humanity on the way to a decent society. Since the Enlightenment emancipation of the individual has occupied a central place. Every individual is of ultimate value. This idea I hold to be crucial. At the same time we must keep a watch out for the uprooting that is a consequence of rampant  individualism. The testing of the self, the search for the limits of one’s own possibilities, has always a relationship with one’s environment, with society, and is also limited by them.

Not the thickness of your wallet...

On the other hand, everyone likes to experience recognition, appreciation and sympathy from those around them. It’s a question of balance. That consciousness, that understanding that the essential thing in life is something wholly other than the thickness of your wallet, that is, I believe, at the heart of socialism itself. If we learn to look in this way at the financial and economic possibilities which we have, great and hopeful prospects open up before us.

There are then what I would say are many reasons for a new optimism. There is reason for New Optimism, after years in which social thinking, socialism, has everywhere been forced on to the defensive by a neoliberalism which has poured over us like a tidal wave. In the meantime the disadvantages of neoliberalism have become so clear to many people that a turnaround cannot fail to occur. The widening of income differentials, the retreating state, the rundown of social security, the dismantling of the public sector, liberalisation, privatisation and the propaganda for an every-man-for-himself mentality have opened many people’s eyes. In my country these people are meeting each other ever more often in my party. But it’s broader than that: also in the trade unions, the churches, the social organisations, there is an awareness that after all this neoliberalism the time appears to have come when we will take much more of a social line. There is a recognition that we have become entangled in a network of lies about society. The lie that we treat our old people decently. The lie that we treat animals, nature and the environment decently. The lie that we give our children what they have a right to, a fair chance in the world. The lie that we trade fairly with the Third World. The lies surrounding the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. These people are beginning to be increasingly aware that if we accept these lies any longer, we will gradually become just as guilty as those who thought them up. This awareness is making a great call on everyone’s sense of responsibility. I am happy to alert people to this. We have to put an end to the looking away and want and dare to see things as they are.  

Point out what is truly valuable

To this also belongs the fact that we should point out what we, all things considered, find truly valuable in life. These are not, in any case, the things which the commercial world palms us off with. It’s often a case of substitution, of a surrogate. I am profoundly convinced that we place far more value on Gross Domestic Happiness than on the Gross Domestic Product that politicians and economists put on a pedestal. As you know, GDP includes the fattening of pigs, but not the raising of children.

Ask anyone what the three most important moments of happiness in his or her life were: will they say, ‘when I bought my car’, or are they more likely to cite the success of their daughter in her exams?  Do they find overtime and the money it brought in essential, or rather the hours that they can free up to help their mother as she is dying?  How would you reckon the chances that someone would rate meeting their partner as less important than adding a second bathroom? Consider yourself: where were you the last time you were truly happy? And had this to do with money or with people?

I know that I am supported in these opinions by research from the Netherlands Bureau for Social and Cultural Planning (SCP), which time after time confirms that Dutch people favour a society with a feeling of community over the ‘achievement society’. For some of our politicians this is a strange and curious finding, but if you go regularly out amongst the people then you will not be surprised by it. It is likely that most people would want such a society. Even if it meant that their material prosperity would possibly grow less quickly or would have to be divided in a rather different way.

esearchers confirm time and again that people hope to see a society with more solidarity, more security, the restoration of standards and values and the preservation of essential services and social security. They hope for this but at the same time fear for it, being anxious that the opposite will occur. Hardly a foolish fear, after all of these years of neoliberal politics. But you can immediately see here also why there has turned out to be such a base of support for the thinking and for the dynamism of my party.  

Not always more, but better

Our last election manifesto was called ‘A better Netherlands for the same money’. In this we proved that for the same amount of money that the government spent on its own policies there was also another, more human and more social set of policies which could be implemented. It was piquant to note that, according to the SCP’s accountants, who assessed the overall costs of the various party’s manifesto commitments, we did even better than the neoliberal VVD. With this we gave the lie to the idea that socialists always combine a head full of ideas with a free-spending hand. I’m convinced that it should not always be a matter of more financial resources but rather of a better division of available resources. In the rich west we have huge resources. We simply don’t share them. And that we must do: share our resources better, but also power. Society is now continually placed under a burden because too few people have too much power and are incapable of developing a middle-term, let alone a long-term vision. We are in the grip of shareholder capitalism and the fast buck, where it isn’t a matter of tomorrow or the day after tomorrow, and absolutely not a matter of solidarity and justice, but only of today. Everything for today, today for everything! Neoliberalism has given birth to the hedonism of the present times, a hedonism which does nothing to cheer. How wretched, these bosses who ensure that they get fat bonuses while they sell off their businesses to others who don’t even know what the firm produces, let alone who the people are who are responsible for this production. This speaks of complete alienation – and it’s time that we had something to say to these people about it. Our forefathers and –mothers did not struggle for democracy to see it go under a hundred years later beneath the tyranny of what a German social democrat once called ‘predator capitalism’. It is hard to understand why so few people should be allowed to play the boss over so many. If we give people the right to vote then we must ensure that this vote really means something. And that is not the case if the real decisions are taken outside parliament, on the market and by boards of directors behind closed doors. In the Netherlands social services will come poking around to look if there are perhaps too many toothbrushes standing by the wash basin but they will never take a real look into what’s going on behind the doors  of our  entrepreneurs and tycoons. I don’t see that as right for these times. Nor that in firms decisions are once again taken over the heads of the employees - this is also old-fashioned and counterproductive   We would therefore like to gain some insight into what is happening in our business community. We want to put an end to a situation in which our economy is able to develop to a large extent beyond the framework of our democracy.

Socialism has a past and a future

Only when we are aware that humanity is more than a ‘homo economicus’, and thus also understand that humanity is more than a consumer or producer, only then does it become more logical to adapt the structure of society to the demands of new times. That is why socialism has not only a past, but certainly also a future. In the Netherlands, in Flanders – and anywhere.