What do you mean when you say the Left?

After a very long journey, I just have a question: what does it mean to be a political progressive leader today? Said differently, what is it we should call the Left? What defines it? 

The European social-democrats are getting me confused

Is the European democratic socialism in crisis?

That was today´s question in a small group that met to discuss what next for the social-democrat movements in Europe. And I have to add that the debate was not very conclusive. To start with, it is getting more and more difficult to make a difference between the left wingers and their opposite parties of the centre right. Then, there are those who place greater emphasis on behavioural matters, such as the gay and lesbian issues, and others that keep the focus on the economy, job creation and equality matters. But you find people from both the right and the left saying the same things about these issues. And one gets confused then.  

Hollande has cut short the socialist ambitions

The West European socialists, on the centre-left, the social-democrat kind of socialists, feel these days very betrayed by François Hollande. Based on his press conference of 14 January, they think he has changed course and is basically courting the employers. For them, Hollande is now more interested in making it easier for the capitalists to invest than in matters such as employment, public investment, and protecting the social rights of the workers.

There is disappointment in the air, within the socialist circles.

And also the fear that they will lose quite a number of seats in the May European Parliament elections.

The fact of the matter is that the European socialist movement has lost the initiative. It has not be able to come up with a coherent and appealing body of ideas that could be seen as a credible alternative to the Right.

Why is it?

Brazil's class politics

Recently I spent about three weeks in Brazil. And I wrote, in the Portuguese weekly magazine Visao, where I am their international affairs columnist, that I found a better country than fifteen years ago. Indeed, Brazil is a much safer place, with a striving economy and a growing international agenda. But I also said that the cost of living is exceptionally high, the currency overvalued –which benefits the urban rich that love to travel abroad –and the police too close to the interests of the rich and powerful.

Since then, the country has been headline news. The riots in many urban centres reveal the malaise that many Brazilians experience. This malaise is a composite feeling that is fed by several streams: corruption, low politics, high cost of living, poorly performing public services and wide social disparities. In addition, life in the big cities can be extenuating just because of the time it takes to move from home to work and vice-versa.

The demonstrations also show that the urban middle class is deeply against the ruling party, Partido dos Trabalhadores, PT, President Dilma’s party. They see this party as something close to the populism prevailing in other parts of South America, a party that is too keen in taxing the better-off in order to give subsidies to the insouciant masses. For them this is not social justice, it is lefty power politics.