Each party (including German and Nordic social democratic parties) has its own inner democratic election system which elects the party leaders and which proposes and changes the program of the party. Immigration and base-class economic stagnation are two pressing issues which attracted unacceptable solutions provided by the social democratic parties for the so social democratic electorate. That is why the social democratic parties experienced big losses in the recent elections and that caused the election of populist parties into power.
My question is - what can explain the following phenomenon: social democratic voters have not chosen to change and to reinvent the agendas of their own parties and instead they chose to hand down their own party and chose to vote for the populist parties? Why are the programs and thinking of the social democratic parties so rigid and so unresponsive to the voters preferences, so rigid, that parties lose power and possibility to defend their initial voters?
I have heard very strained and short-sighted thinking from social democratic parties about those 2 pressing issues, let me draw some perspective for the change of the social democratic agendas:
- some are saying that the immigration of the low cost labour is good for welfare societies, because there are jobs that are hardly filled with the original citizens of the welfare country. This is strange thinking in the age of 4th industrial revolutions. There are bad jobs indeed, but now all of them can be automated. Humanitarian issues should be solved straightforward - by delivering international assistance to the place of origination of the migration;
- some are saying that base-class stagnation is inevitable in the age of globalisation and the availability of cheap outsourcing options. Well - globalisation could be stopped, globalisation is not the gene of the social democracy, e.g. see more in La Monde Diplomatique editorials. And even if globalisation is accepted then it can be done in just ways - by closing tax heavens, but prohibiting trade with countries with cruel working conditions, by social democratic redistribution of the wealth for the promotion of talent growth, empowerment and self-realisation of all the people.
I added those two outlooks to show that social democratic parties can have the sound and acceptable policies indeed. And that is is not true (as some social democratic leaders aim to show) that there is no solution for the issues of immigration and stagnation. There are solutions indeed, but social democratic parties do not want to listen to their own party base. Why it is so and what should be changed?
https://activists.pes.eu/en/ is another proof of the social democratic establishment - PES activists platform is available only for the activists from the establishment parties. Some countries have created new social democratic parties that are more true to the real aspirations of the social democracy, that are more courageous in proposing solutions, but the members of those parties are not allowed to work for the advancement of PES in upcoming elections of EU parliament.
So - maybe the lack/imperfection of inner democracies in the social democratic parties are the main cause of the rising populism? How parties should overcome those imperfections?
My question is about social democratic parties of Germany, Scandinavia and Baltic countries.