Nuevas ideas para nuevos tiempos

John Thornhill, editor para Europa del Financial Times, dice en su columna de ayer (Europe’s socialists should look to Obama):

In the 85 legislative elections in Europe over the past decade the political right has won 52.4 per cent of the vote, with the left accounting for 44.5 per cent. In 2007 the right was in power in 16 of the European Union’s 27 member states. While many socialist leaders floundered to rethink their economic strategy, they channelled their radicalism into socio-cultural reforms. Student leaders of the 1968 generation who often emerged to run these parties championed issues such as gender equality, gay marriage and environmentalism.


Valid though these campaigns may have been, they were not the main focus of most working-class male voters who provided the bedrock of socialist parties during the 20th century. But these voters’ core concern – preserving their jobs and income – presented socialist parties with a big strategic conundrum. Should socialist parties be about defending the jobs and privileges of “insiders” in the workplace, particularly in the public sector? Or should they be about opening up opportunities for the “outsiders”, very often immigrants, part-time workers and women?

La pregunta no puede ser más relevante. De hecho, creo que su importancia va mucho más allá de los partidos políticos: ¿existe un modelo sindical que proteja, por ejemplo, los derechos de las empleadas del hogar inmigrantes? ¿podemos las ONG sostener una distinción cada vez más artificial entre la pobreza de 'dentro' y la pobreza de 'fuera'?

Los ámbitos de interés público en los que estas fronteras se han difuminado son cada vez más numerosos: inmigración, cambio climático o seguridad son sólo tres ejemplos. Cada uno de ellos exige medidas que contemplen los intereses ajenos, porque sólo de este modo se podrán atender adecuadamente los propios.

Y eso nos devuelve a la pregunta original: ¿tenemos los líderes que necesitamos?

Gonzalo Fanjul, desde Boston