[Imerso]

That's not what politics in Europe look at all at the moment. The extreme right and the extreme left are growing a lot. And the center-right and center-left are pretty much merging in many countries, they are either governing in coalition, or they will have to govern in coalition in the near future if they want to remain in power.

Syriza in Greece won the European elections and may govern in the future. FN is rising in France. UKIP in UK.

And in Spain Podemos is not fizzling out at all, the last polls put it as the 3rd party and getting very close to be the 2nd one, and even if they disappear what the polls seem very sure about is that neither center-right nor center-left could govern by themselves, and if they need to create a coalition that would mean political suicide for any future elections, at least with the current political atmosphere, maybe they are able to sell that coalition somehow. But there's probably too much corruption at the moment to sell it as anything else than as the last "let's keep stealing money" card.

[mercurial]

> FN is rising in France.

What is particularly worrying is that through a mix of bad economic results and an economic policy borrowed from the right-wing, the current government is incredibly unpopular. At the same time, the right wing has lost most of its credibility due to both numerous corruption scandals (and more coming to the surface on a regular basis) and infighting. With a completely withered left, this leaves the road wide open to the extreme right wing.

[Ntrails]

I thought France had a hardline socialist president?

[mercurial]

You'll be hard-pressed to find anybody putting "hardline" and "Hollande" in the same sentence. The main, genuinely left-wing measure his government took was gay marriage (and, it should be said, was adopted in spite of large demonstrations from the catholic right) but the Justice minister has also attempted to reduce the ever-increasing overcrowding of French prisons, things like this. However, his reform of the finance system turned into a farce, and he is pretty much considered to cater to the will of Big Business (large tax cuts for companies which have so far shown to be completely ineffective in terms of reducing unemployment). With the net effect of costing him his electorate, while failing to endear him to the right wing.

[blueskin_]

Don't forget the tax hikes that effectively drove the rich out of France (to Switzerland mostly). Are those not left wing now?

[seren]

If you are referring the infamous 75% tax, it was initially supposed to be a new tax bracket for the income tax (so any source of income above 1 million €), but it has been transformed in a tax paid by companies that are paying salaries and bonus above 1 million €, and it is capped to 5% of company revenue.

From my understanding, it means that for whatever reason you get an income above 1 million € this year for selling a company or renting apartment complex, or any other mean, the 75% tax does not apply to you.

The biggest contributors so far seem to be Football clubs, and likely some financial institutions. I don't have the exact number at hand but it is projected to only raise 200 millions. It concerned about 400 companies and 1000 people. It was only applied for 2013-2014 and seems to be abandoned for 2015.

For the most part, the uber rich are not rich because of their salary. Bill Gates or Steve Job, had they been French, would not have payed the 75% tax.

That does not make the idea less socialist, but I think it is a bit overblown internationally given how few people are impacted.

[crdoconnor]

It was whinged about incessantly in the popular press though (even on HN) as being anti-entrepreneurial, anti-business and something that would lead to an exodus of rich people from Paris (as if lower property prices were a bad thing).

I think the thought mattered more than the actual tax. You could sense that the ultra-wealthy all around the world hated it. Made them feel persecuted, perhaps, despite it being ultimately pretty toothless.

[mercurial]

Considering that Sarkozy was increasing tax pressure by the end of his mandate and would have probably done so again, had he been re-elected, not really. As for the rich, they've been practising tax evasion for a long time. I'm not aware that hordes of rich Frenchmen fled to Switzerland since Hollande got voted in, but I'll be happy to see numbers which prove me wrong.

[crdoconnor]

There were probably a lot more articles in the popular press that tried to give this impression than there were actual fleeing hordes.

[Totoradio]

He's barely considered as a "left" guy by most of left-leaning voters. His economic policies are center-right but is social policies are more or less left (for example gay marriage was legalized). The party is called "socialist party" but they have not had a socialist platform in a very long time.

[netcan]

I wonder what is driving this all, I don't really think it is the EU, or even immigration. Those sound more like just the issues of the day, not political paradigm movers.

The reality is that Europe has been in a state of ideological vacuum for a while. The hard right (including most dramatically fascism) really failed between 60-40 years ago as a movement. The hard left failed 25-35 years ago as a viable movement. The old left-right paradigm continued. In many places it's been centrist policies combined with left wing rhetoric. How long can that be the paradigm?

All that's left is the reality that governing bodies, parties and paradigms have been under fire for 5 years now. Political populism and dissidence sells. All that's left is to find a rhetoric that appeals to young, radical or reactionary pockets of political capital.

To me, one of the important takeaways from marxism/socialism is that forces of political stability and instability dictate history to a large degree. I'm very far from Marx on his determinism, but I agree with the broad brush idea. If the current paradigm is both unsustainable and unchangeable, pressure will mount. Technology is a force that Marx never truly reckoned with, but it contributes to the process. If people don't benefit from the system or suspect they could benefit more from some other system, they'll try to kill the old system.

UKIP make almost as much effort to recruit from the hard left as they do from the hard right.

[narag]

I wonder what is driving this all

Corruption. A lot. Spanish situation is kafkaesque right now. The former treasurer of the governing party is in jail. The prime minister sent him a SMS telling him "to be strong" when he was sent to prison. PM and rest of ministers were paid substantial extra from the construction companies briberies. No, they haven't resigned in two years. Only the scapegoat is canned.

Then similar scandals have arisen for the PSOE, former party in power until 2008, and CiU, the party that is promoting secession of Cataluña.

This week we have the phantom card show: bankers and politicians (politicians and union leaders are in the board of credit unions) using an opaque cards to spend 15.5 millions euros without paying any taxes.

Response from PP and PSOE has been very very very weak. They've lost credibility like... forever.

[webnrrd2k]

Would you say more about opaque cards? I haven't heard the term before, and I'm curious how they work.

[Markinhos]

Basically they are cards delivered by Bankia (an important 'Caja', sort of a bank but politicians are in the board) without any limit and the expenses were charged to different expeses(e.g. a failure of a server)

[nhaehnle]

> The reality is that Europe has been in a state of ideological vacuum for a while.

Correct. It appears that the established parties do not dare touch big visions any more. In itself, I expect most people would actually be happy with this, as long as it works. The problem is that in most of Europe it doesn't: the recovery from the financial crisis in the Eurozone is now actually lagging the recovery from the Great Depression.

And yet, my experience in Germany is that there is complete silence about the failure of politics. When polls show low approval for policies, even journalists tend to excuse this by saying that the policies just haven't been explained properly to the population. The possibility that the mainstream consensus regarding Eurozone policies might be wrong is not seriously considered. There is no serious intelligent debate about political choices.

This is also a failure of journalism. I had some hope when Frank Schirrmacher, one of the editors of the FAZ, a very influential serious newspaper, made steps towards raising the possibility that the mainstream consensus is wrong. Unfortunately, he died recently.

Ultimately, people feel misrepresented by the mainstream parties. The result is a mixture of apathy in the form of dropping participation in elections, and remaining voters going to the non-mainstream parties, which tend to be more extreme.

[netcan]

I disagree about the financial crisis. Germans are not going hungry or cold due to financial hardship. There are issues to do with affordability of accommodation or transport, unemployment and rapidly changing labour economies but not food and realistically the standards that even Germany, France or Spain's poor demand today are far higher than they were generations ago.

I think it's often that realities are politically indigestible.

State institutions all over the world are big. All the political momentum (right and left) and big vision projects stem from expanding them have been done. School/University systems, health systems, welfare systems and such. These comprise 35-55% of national GDPs in most of fully developed European economies. You can't promise literacy for all to Germany. German's are literate and schools are free. A chicken in every sunday pot and fresh bread and milk for your breakfast. Those are things that Franco or Lenin promised to the common man. They don't move the needle any more.

We have institutional problems of big old and sometimes very clunky organizations. If your ask the institutions, they would like those problems solved painlessly with money. Pay teachers 2014 upper middle class salaries & 1970s pensions. Decrease class sizes and increase hours. Take care of the elderly financially then physically throughout their 30 year retirement. Do this in a way that does not burden the family. 12 month paid maternity leave. Fraternity leave. Unlimited medical care. Transportation with 2014 technology, 1970s labour ideals and 1950s prices.

Those are some serious demands. In many cases impractical. A state cannot usually bear this burden financially. Even if it can, it needs to be achieved through effectiveness.

What's needed/possible is reform, improvement, good operational governance of these enormous machines. That's unsexy. It involves long timescales and painful inch-at-a-time improvements.

Revolutionary dissidence is sexy. Political entrepreneurs do sexy.

They promise to tax the rich or corporations, something they would be doing already if they could. They might promise to alleviate the problems really sucking the money out of schools and hospitals, immigrants, Muslims, Jews, the EU or somesuch. ATM, they don't even have to worry about implementation as they are not going to govern in the near future.

[dageshi]

The fundamental issue with the EU is that it has rules but no flexibility. It cannot adapt to the new situation it finds itself in because to reopen any of the treaties in order to fix things that need fixing will cause a stampede of demands to alter other things in those self same treaties. Equally the "people" of europe are for the most part not willing to move more power from their national governments to the EU and we're at a point where additional powers will likely need referendums which in the current environment are unlikely to pass.

So things muddle along and will continue to do so, I don't yet see how or where it will change. It seems to me large parts of europe will have a lost decade.

[spindritf]

That's the problem with trends, they can turn. I'm sticking with it though, I've seen protest and single-issue parties make it all the way to the government before sliding back into single digits or complete irrelevance.

There's a reason mainstream parties are mainstream. Usually, they adjust to push out new contenders. Although the immigration issue (a driver for FN and UKIP) is interesting because some are far too invested to turn around now.

[mercurial]

This Podemos thing is reminiscent of the Five-Star movement in Italy, which apparently did well at the EU elections earlier this year.

[slapresta]

Actually, the polls seem to imply that neither center-right nor center-left could govern by themselves or even if they formed a coalition with each other, which is an amazing change for Spanish politics.

[Al-Khwarizmi]

That's not true at the moment. It is true that some polls give the sum of the two major parties less than 50% of the votes, but the electoral law is far from being purely proportional, so they would still get more than 50% of the seats.

[sebkomianos]

Slightly offtopic probably, but to provide more context: Syriza is heavily criticised for making a very conservative turn to the center.

[raldi]

What is your extreme right like? I'm curious where their views would fall on the American spectrum.

[spindritf]

On the continent, less free-market and much more nationalistic. UKIP is pretty close to American right with vouchers, cutting spending... they even picked up private gun ownership lately.

[blueskin_]

UKIP are centre-left, not 'extreme right'. On economic issues, they're to the left of the big 'left' party in the UK (Labour, who are really a more centrist party) and only really go to the right on immigration rather than social issues in general. You're confusing them with the BNP.

[anon1385]

On the economy UKIP are certainly right wing. They supported a flat tax for gods sake. More broadly their entire reason for existing is to promote deregulation of all kinds (financial, environmental, health and safety etc).

[dageshi]

They no longer support a flat tax to my knowledge.

[ZeroGravitas]

I wouldn't call them centre-left, they're a bit of grab-bag of policies e.g. some member have been a bit libertarian (which can be socially "left" but economically "right" depending on particular issues). But Xenophobia is the biggest theme, see for yourself:

http://www.ukip.org/issues

[mercurial]

They're scoring pretty well on the class right-wing themes of "more police", "putting bad people in prison for a long time prevents crime", "down with environmental policies", "make sure these brown people pay taxes but don't get benefits". I'm liberally translating the program, in the spirit of their "No to Political Correctness - it stifles free speech" bullet point.

Of course "Teach children positive messages and pride in their country" (which immediately brought to mind a law passed by the right-wing in France aiming at emphasizing "the positive role of colonization").

[crdoconnor]

>But Xenophobia is the biggest theme, see for yourself:

It resonates with the working classes who have had their wages held stagnant by competition from immigrants from low-income countries.

Unfortunately, no other party has even begun to address that issue so they get to collect a lot of votes.

Furthermore, the way that all of the other parties dismiss any complaints regarding immigration as "pure xenophobia" only hands them even more votes.

Which is unfortunate because they're total assholes.

[disputin]

Is wanting to leave the EU xenophobic? The EU is currently failing. Or wanting immigrants to be have sufficient points and be able to support themselves? This is standard for many countries.

[blueskin_]

I have to agree - in many people's eyes it's 'xenophobic' due to not having been the case in the past, even where it by all rights should have been.

[mickoforpington]

see www.theeuroprobe.org 2012-016 What is Left Wing, Right Wing and Centre in UK politics?