Next Left: A Progressive Answer to the Global Social Question1 FEPS Next Left –– Fundación Democracia y Desarrollo – Fundación Salvador Allende – - Renner Institut - IGLP Harvard Law School Santiago de Chile, 19th – 21st November 2014 Wednesday, 19th November 2014 Arrival of the participants 21.00 Welcome Dinner Venue: Hotel Plaza San Francisco Thursday, 20th November 2014 09.30 – 11.00 Opening Venue: Salón Sesiones del Senado, Ex Congreso Speakers: Isabel Allende, President of Senate Massimo D’Alema, President of FEPS Alfred Gusenbauer, Chair of the FEPS Next left Research Programme David Kennedy, Professor, Director of IGLP HLS Ricardo Lagos, former President of Chile 10.30 – 11.00 Coffee Break Sala de Lectura, Ex Congreso Nacional. 1 The scientific report of the seminar will be written by Dr. Carlo D’Ippoliti, FEPS Next Left Focus Group Next Left: A Progressive Answer to the Global Social Question, on 19th – 21st November 2014 Santiago de Chile 11.00 – 13.00 Panel 1: A Challenge of Building Prosperous Societies: a progressive agenda to fight inequalities. Existing, growing and emerging ineQualities have been in the focus of the “Dialogue of Dialogue” since the first seminar “The Left: Globalised Social Democracy in South and North” (held at Watson Institute at Brown University in 2010). In the context of the European Union, the initial assessment was that the imbalances had become disproportionally large already before the crisis of 2007 - 2008; however they have been further enhanced on the course of false ‘rescue’ policies. Austerity has induced even more devastating, erosive processes, which pushed many into impoverishment. This has been paired with the phenomenon of continuing fragmentation and polarisation of societies, within which both the sense of solidarity and beliefs in the transformative character of the welfare state as a pledge, are declining. At the same time, the Latin American experience showed that properly designed and executed projects to fight against poverty can make an enormous difference, improving the situation regarding living and working conditions. Their respectively diverse characters (looking at Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, Peru, Venezuela etc.) inspire, especially in a conversation about how far common conclusions can be drawn and how those conclusions help us to move into the next phase of struggle for eQuality. This links with a Question in how far a Cardosian understanding of developmental economics should be accelerated to both build on achievements and to meet the new challenges ahead. Returning to the 2010 debate on “Next Left Policies Pentagon2”, the panel will look at three Questions: - What is the nature of the contemporary ineQualities and with what tools can they be combated? How can solidarity based arguments that ‘eQuality serves all’ find support in designing welfare and labour reforms? - Since the national economic policy is routinely focused on enabling nations and individuals to upgrade their relative position in economic life, with a promise to compensate or secure a minimum for those who fail to do so, would that be possible to say that the recent policy innovations in Latin America suggest an alternative? 2 In 2010 it was defined as “labour policies, welfare policies, social market economy, taxation policies, education” Next Left: A Progressive Answer to the Global Social Question, on 19th – 21st November 2014 Santiago de Chile - Can there be a connection established between the progressives’ political action and social mobilisations demanding more equality? Does the centre left know how to link the leading and lagging factors productively? Speakers: Rocio Martinez, Secretary for Economy PSC and Member of Catalan Parliament Maria Helena Andre, Director, Bureau of Workers’ Activities, ILO Marcela Ríos, Doctora en Ciencia Política. Coordinadora oficial del Programa de Gobernabilidad de Naciones Unidas para el Desarrollo en Chile. Ernesto Ottone, Cientista Político de la Universidad de Paris III, Catedrático de la Universidad Diego Portales, Chile. Jorge Navarrete, abogado y catedrático de la Universidad Diego Portales, Chile, y la Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, España. Chair: Carlo d’Ippoliti, FEPS Next Left Focus Group 13.30 -15.00 Lunch Venue: Academia diplomática With a speech by Juan Somavía, UN Special Adviser on Interregional Cooperation 15.00 – 17.00 Panel 2: A Challenge of Reconnecting with the Society: a modern understanding of a class struggle. One of the conclusions of the earlier exchanges spelled out a need for progressives to pave the way towards a new, inspiring and holistic vision of a better society. The evident emphasis on ‘holistic’ derived from a realisation that social democracy (as also other traditional parties) has been tempted to follow a strategy of “trying to win the elections in the middle”, as it became a ‘catch all party’ making diverse promises to different groups of potential supporters. While deliberating the cornerstone of this new project, there seems to have been a consensus that we might develop a strong and united point around the struggle for a more egalitarian and more just society. That was not enough, however. When it came to specifics, it appeared that it would be impossible to put in place a new narrative without revisiting the traditional class theory. It is true that it has served for a very long time as a fundament of conceptual understanding and as a Next Left: A Progressive Answer to the Global Social Question, on 19th – 21st November 2014 Santiago de Chile reference point for mobilisation, but various developments have transformed society in such a way that “class” as a purely socio-economic category can no longer be applied in the same way as in the past. The consequences of this evolution are multiple – starting from weakening “traditional alliances” (such as between political parties and trade unions), through further disaffiliation of individuals from groups, organisations, and associations. To that extent it has also been observed that in fact the contemporary politics rather encourages people to see themselves as individuals in a national society – without the essential solidarity (that in many cases has been diminished to a simplistic question of redistributive obligations of a taxation system). Having that in mind the panel will look at three Questions: - With the changing character of the labour market, progressing polarisation and stigmatisation between outsiders and insiders – is there still a way to restore an idea of organised, solidaristic labour? Can virtue of solidarity seen both as a drive to “struggle together” and as an issue of equitable distribution of resources, power, knowledge, can such an understanding of solidarity be revitalised? - What is our best contemporary understanding of social classes, and can social democracy deal with the fact that it is becoming less of socio-economic category and more of a cultural, identity issue? - To what extent is the remaking of class responsible for the volatility of shifting voters’ preferences among traditional political parties? In that light, how can the progressive movement construct new alliances and organise new majorities? Speakers: Michael Kennedy, Professor at Brown University, US Martin Schröder, Professor, Institut of Sociology at University of Magdeburg Brando Benifei, MEP, Partido Democratico, Italy Alfredo Joignant, Doctor en Ciencia Política, Catedrático Universidad Diego Portales y Profesor Asociado de la Universidad de Chile. Ángel Flisfish, Político y abogado, Universidad de Chile. Francisco Javier Díaz, Abogado de la Universidad de Chile, Master en Ciencia Política de London School of Economics. Actual Subsecretario del Trabajo, Chile. Manuel Puccio, Abogado de la Universidad Diego Portales, Profesor de Derecho Laboral de la Universidad Católica de Valparaíso. - Chair: Isabel Torres, Doctora en Historia Política de la Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, Argentina. Next Left: A Progressive Answer to the Global Social Question, on 19th – 21st November 2014 Santiago de Chile 17.00 – 17.30 Coffee Break Sala de Lectura, Ex Congreso Nacional. 17.30 – 19.30 Panel 3: A Challenge of Strengthening Multilayer Governance: the role of state in the times of global financial capitalism. During the two rounds of the “Dialogue of Dialogues” (at Brown University in 2010 and then subsequently at Harvard Law School in 2012), it was remarked that the overall “crisis of concept of state” is one of the reasons for social democracy’s weakening appeal. Through the prism of developments over the last two decades, it was argued during the 1990s that states are relatively powerless while facing the overwhelming power of globalisation. Following the crisis hit in 2008, fears concerning any single state’s vulnerability became even more evident. As discussed later in 2013 (Barcelona Symposium), these two forms of the “doomsday” scenario were met with a reaction of societies (respectively alterglobalist movements, and then social mobilisations), but social democrats did not recognize in this crisis the opportunity with a new proposal on how to move forward. Instead, social democracy continued to depend on a vision of a more eQuitable distribution of power that would enable public institutions of the state to exercise their mandate. Whether this might work is still unknown, but what is clear is that social democracy remains challenged by a public vision of its embeddedness in etatism. Though, as it is, the economy and politics have been organised in different ways.