Introduction by Croakey: The failure of centre-left politics to provide a genuine pathway towards a society based on wellbeing and sustainability has contributed to the conditions that have enabled the rise of Trumpian and other extreme, right-wing politics, according to University of Adelaide academic Dr Matthew Fisher.
Below Fisher outlines several principles to build “a coherent social democratic politics for societal wellbeing”, including the development of “wellbeing communities” and a reversal of current healthcare financing priorities, so that health promotion and disease prevention receive greater support.
Fisher is the author of a new book, How to Create Societies for Human Wellbeing: Through Public Policy and Social Change, previously covered at Croakey. The article below was first published at his website.
Matthew Fisher writes:
The election of Donald Trump raises many concerns about what he and his advisors are doing and will do, in the United States itself and internationally. The US is not the only place where far-right politics is on the rise.
However, these developments raise equally, if not more serious, questions about what those people will do who acknowledge facts and evidence, believe in democratic government, and value human wellbeing and planetary health.
A first step in mounting an effective social-democratic response is to see clearly that many of the (notionally) centrist or centre-left political parties which have held power recently such as the Democrats in the US, Labour in the UK, Labor in Australia, Renaissance in France, the Liberal Party in Canada, or Labour in New Zealand have failed to provide the kind of leadership or politics required.
On the contrary, in various ways, parties such as these have contributed to the social conditions in which more extreme, right-wing politics has been able to prosper.
In the aftermath of World War Two, governments in Europe, North America and Australia recognised how the great depression in the early 1930s had disrupted German society and thereby contributed to the rise of Nazism.
Along with the influence of Keynesian economics, this recognition drove the emergence of a post-war consensus on welfare state policies to reduce inequality and promote social welfare through progressive taxation, universal public health and education systems, housing, full employment, and income protections.
Subsequently, in countries following this path, access to healthcare and education improved significantly, the middle class expanded, and socioeconomic inequalities were reduced to their lowest point in the post-war period during the 1950s, 60s and 70s. (Perversely, right-wing opponents of welfare state policies often look back on this period as a ‘golden age’.)
Not all social groups benefitted equally, but nevertheless this was a significant achievement for the public good.
All that began to change in the early 1980s with the rise of neoliberal economics and the election of right-wing leaders such as Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan (and a little later, John Howard in Australia).
Welfare state policies were targeted as a problem of ‘big government’ hampering the capitalist ‘free market’ and ‘individual freedom’. Instead, we saw policies of reduced taxes for the wealthy, privatisation, reduced regulation, and restrictions on trade unions.
Around the same time, economic globalisation also expanded leading, among other things, to rapid growth in the wealth and power of transnational corporations.
Since the 1980s, many parties of the centre-left have lost sight of the importance of welfare state policies as a bulwark against right wing extremism. Rather, they have acceded to and actively participated in a new neoliberal-globalised economic consensus, arguing that economic growth would promote welfare through rising wealth and cheaper consumer goods, and provide tax revenue for residual welfare state policies targeting those ‘in need’.
Centre-left governments under leaders such as Tony Blair, Bill Clinton and Paul Keating also pulled back from direct provision of public services, instead looking to encourage private sector activity to deliver social goods and protections – as Keating described it, ‘steering not rowing’.
Today, in Australia, a Federal Labor Government desperately tries to keep this outdated ‘new labour’ boat from sinking under the weight of its own contradictions.
Failures
It is now manifestly obvious that this version of centre-left politics has failed our needs and offers no basis for any genuine movement towards a society based on wellbeing and sustainability.
The dimensions of this failure vary from one country to another, but in general they include:
- Failure to reverse the steady rise of socioeconomic inequalities since the 1980s in dimension of wealth, income, housing, and education.
- Failure to control the harmful effects of concentrated media ownership, social media, and other toxic products such as online gambling.
- Failure to anticipate or counter the rise of far-right politics and its main strategy of using controlled media sources to fabricate a psychosocial environment of perceived threat posed by leftist (environmentalist, feminist, black, gay, trans…) ‘elites’ to ‘ordinary’ (working class, white, male, small business, socially conservative…) people.
- Failure to stand up against rising corporate power and acceding to the political strategies corporations use to secure their own perceived interests.
- Failure to put fundamental matters of public interest ahead of private corporate interests.
- Failure to address the root causes of mass migration.
- Failure to address ecosystem damage and anthropogenic climate change as existential threats to human societies.
Philosophically, post-80s centre-left politics has failed because it has tied itself to a simplistic, neoliberal view of human welfare (or wellbeing) tied to employment, economic growth and consumption.
This viewpoint is wilfully blind to the multiple ways in which contemporary social and economic conditions actually work to undermine child development and human health. In particular, it is blind to the ways modern environments cause chronic psychosocial stress, leading in turn to mental ill-health and damaging social behaviours.
We are drowning in the cheap consumer goods promised by former centre-left leaders, while our mental health goes backwards.
Instead of political leadership to improve psychologically harmful social conditions such as poverty, overwork, housing insecurity, discrimination, social isolation, what we get from centre-left politics is a narrow and failing medical response – removing psychological distress from its social context and treating it as merely a form of disease, to be ‘fixed’ with psychoactive drugs.
All of these failures have in effect opened up space for the rise of the self-victimising, conspiracy-fuelled, grievance politics of the far-right.
As I explain in my book on How to Create Societies for Human Wellbeing, the socioeconomic inequalities and widespread psychosocial stress caused by modern social conditions render people more vulnerable to the political right’s fabricated atmosphere of threat, amplified a hundredfold through social media algorithms.
So, without fundamental changes in the centre-left politics of today, it really has nothing to offer any movement toward a wellbeing society.
Path forward
However, the path forward does not lie with simply reviving the post-war welfare state model either, although redistributive policies and universal public services are part of the picture.
So then, what core political principles are needed to overcome the recent failures of centre-left politics and build a coherent social democratic politics for societal wellbeing?
An evidence-based view of wellbeing: It seem to me that movement toward a wellbeing society can only be stronger if founded on a clear, evidence-based view of what wellbeing is and how it is shaped by social conditions.
Public interest and the role of the State: The defining role and duty of democratic governments, other public institutions and public officials (‘the State’) is to serve the shared public interests of their citizens. These are concerned most essentially with the good functioning of the community and government affairs to protect the wellbeing of citizens. If the (perceived) private interests of businesses, organisations, or individuals conflict with this public interest, the State’s duty is to put the public interest first.
Governments of the post-WWII period fulfilled their public interest role when they implemented welfare state policies. Governments of the neoliberal-globalisation consensus have egregiously failed the public interest on multiple fronts. Social-democratic governance in the wellbeing society must recognise human health and wellbeing, ecological sustainability and climate stability as matters of fundamental public interest and use their powers to prevent any harms to these interests arising from the exercise of perceived private interests.
Redistribution:Â The steep and rising levels of contemporary socioeconomic inequality are a barrier to public wellbeing for multiple reasons. Modern societies are like a tall building, with governments and big business collaborating to build ever fancier facilities on the upper floors while down at ground level the foundations are falling apart.
Instead, like the post-war welfare states, governments must use redistributive spending to rebuild universal access to foundational social needs such as comprehensive primary healthcare, schools, and affordable housing.
However, today we recognise that creating the social conditions for wellbeing is not just about access to such services. Active, engaged communities also have an essential role to play in building the social conditions for wellbeing and sustainability at the ground level.
Thus, I have argued that governments should shift redistributive social policy toward a policy of building wellbeing communities with proportionately larger funding support for communities subject to disadvantage.
Wellbeing communities:Â Wellbeing communities are those where community members, organisations and local social services, with financial support from governments, are actively engaged in building essential conditions for health and wellbeing such as: supportive family environments for child development; strong local economies and meaningful work; positive social connectedness; connection with and care for nature; healthy, sustainable food and local food production; housing access and healthy neighborhood design; comprehensive primary healthcare; education for lifelong learning; and creative practices.
Promotion and prevention:Â Many centre-left parties have supported public healthcare, but they have the policy settings backwards, putting the bulk of resources into expensive hospital services to treat ill-health after the fact. Wellbeing policy requires a major shift in policy emphasis toward public health promotion and disease prevention, including by creating health-promoting environments.
Recognition: The first-generation welfare states did not do so well in recognising the legitimate claims of some groups for fair treatment to reduce/eliminate structural forms of discrimination based on sex/gender, race, ethnicity, disability, sexual preference, age, or other attribute.
However, I would also argue that advocacy efforts on behalf of such groups will be more likely to succeed over time if conducted in parallel with universal policies to promote public wellbeing.
Planetary health: Obviously, the ecological health and climate stability of the biosphere and human health and wellbeing are inextricably intertwined, as many First Nation peoples have known for thousands of years.
Wellbeing economy: The starting principle of a wellbeing economy is that people do not exist to serve the economy, the purpose of the economy is to provide for human welfare.
The neoliberal-globalised economy of today is failing that purpose and acting to undermine the functions of the social and ecological systems on which it and all of us depend; not only neglecting but actively damaging its own foundations. There is nothing inevitable about this; alternative economic strategies to promote wellbeing and restore ecological health are already available.
In response to such principles, the average centre-left politician might see them as ‘nice in theory’ but fatally ‘unrealistic’.
Why? Because if such principles are put through the narrow filter of political interests – i.e. interpreted in relation to possible reactions from interest groups, the media, financial markets, opinion polls, etc – then the highly likely conclusion will be that they’re out of step with ‘political reality’.
I would say rather, it is this view of ‘political reality’ that is now wildly out of step with actual reality, and in fact centre-left parties would do far better politically by demonstrating genuine leadership for the public interest, based on consistent ethical principles.
Previously at Croakey by Matt Fisher: New book examines how to create societies for human wellbeing
See Croakey’s archive of articles on the Trump Administration and health
Thanks Matthew, very well said.