The European elections in early June revealed the continued decline of social democracy. Across Europe the total vote for the traditional party of the left declined from 28% in 2004 to only 22%.

Where there were social democratic governments, the voters spoke loudest. In Great Britain, the vote for Labour fell to a meagre 16%, below that of the UK Independence Party! In Spain, the vote for the Socialist Party fell five percentage points. In Germany the vote for the SPD was down to 21%, an all time low. In Portugal, the vote for the Socialist Party fell to only 27%.

The turnout was only 43%, exceptionally low for Europe. It was lowest in the Eastern European countries of the former Soviet Union.

Why is this happening? As the Financial Times rightly pointed out, today's social democrats are on the same page as the traditional conservative parties. There are no significant policy differences. The world is in economic and financial turmoil, the worst since the Great Depression of the 1930s, and the social democratic parties have nothing different to offer.

The foundations  of social democracy
Social democracy as we know it was created following the Russian revolution. The Second International comprised those parties which rejected socialism and revolution, arguing that it was possible to create "capitalism with a human face." In the period after World War II social democratic parties, aligned with the non-communist trade union movement,  formed the government in many First World countries. They produced the Keynesian welfare state, which greatly improved the lives of most people.

This began to change in the 1980s with the election of the Labour governments in New Zealand and Australia. The leadership of the parliamentary party shifted gears dramatically and embraced the neoliberal policies represented by Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan. Tony Blair's "New Labour" government in Great Britain entrenched  this move to the political right.

Following the collapse of the Soviet Union and their client regimes in Europe, social democracy was left with no serious competitors on the political left. Instead of moving to fill the vacuum, they all shifted strongly to the right.

Embracing neoliberalism
Across the First World, social democratic governments have pursued the same policy package. This has included tax cuts for the corporate sector, tax cuts for those in the highest income brackets, a shift to regressive sales taxes and user fees, privatization of state-owned industries, deregulation of the economy, and deregulation of the financial sector. Universal social programs have been steadily reduced. We know these well in Saskatchewan.

The result has been the same everywhere, but most pronounced in the more free market economies of the Anglo Saxon world: rising inequality of income and wealth and rising poverty rates. It is no surprise that the social democrats have been steadily losing their base of support in the organized working class.

In addition, environmental concerns, especial global warming and climate change, have emerged as very important political issues. Historically, social democratic parties have been quite hostile to environmental issues. That is the main reason for the rise of the Green Parties.

Canadian social democracy
Canada, of course, has been part of this political evolution. On the federal level, the NDP, under the leadership of Jack Layton, has struggled to keep their vote total at 15%. They have offered no alternatives of substance in the period of the Great Recession and now hope that Stephen Harper can postpone an election. They have been unable to come up with any alternative to the Tony Blair-Bill Clinton deregulation of the financial industry.

In Saskatchewan the NDP was in office from 1991 to 2007. During this time their policy direction moved significantly to the right, embracing all the major planks of the neoliberal agenda. Dwaine Lingenfelter played a key role in this shift from the policies of Tommy Douglas, Woodrow Lloyd and Allan Blakeney.

A group of progressives within the Saskatchewan NDP is now calling for a movement to regenerate social democracy, to move back to a policy of social and economic justice. But how likely is this to happen? In a party that chose Lingenfelter as their leader? In isolation from social democracy in the rest of Canada? In isolation from the decline of social democracy across the First World?

The European elections can tell us something. First, the working class and the marginalized poor largely abstained from voting. This is a trend across all the First World countries, including Canada. Second, they do not believe that the social democrats have anything progressive to offer them. As many have pointed out, the trend in the European elections was for the working class and the poor to give their votes to the new fascist and far right parties. Why not? They have been abandoned by the social democrats.

John W. Warnock is retired from teaching political economy and sociology at the University of Regina. He is author of Saskatchewan: The Roots of Discontent and Protest (2004).

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