Collection on the left

When did the Labor Party's downturn start? With 36,9 and Thorbjørn Jagland? With the fight between him and Jens Stoltenberg, a fight that lasted from Gro Harlem Brundtland's resignation as party leader in 1992, and until Jagland resigned as party leader ten years later? Was it when the Labor Party and the Socialist People's Party lost their majority in 1981, and the right-wing wave swept over Norway? Or was it, as former Labor leader Reiulf Steen believes, even earlier – perhaps already simultaneous which historian Jens Arup Seip proclaimed the Labor Party to the eagle among the parties?

The eagle

It was on 14 September 1963, in the Norwegian Student Society, that Arup Seip stated that the Labor Party's government of Norway represented a new state custom. And where he uttered the almost winged words: "When we use the term party about them all, it is in the same way that we use the word bird both for a hen and for an eagle."

When Jens Arup Seip referred to the start of the Labor Party as a new state custom, it was after a division of recent Norwegian history into the bureaucratic state (1814-1884), the age of the business bourgeoisie (1884-1945) and thus the era that began in 1935, when the Labor Party took over " the old society's bankrupt estate to the board, in 1945 they took over the entire state ”.

It is worth noting that the day Jens Arup Seip proclaimed DNA for the eagle among the parties, Norway was for the first time since 1935 under civil rule. Three weeks earlier, the Gerhardsen government had to step down and release the Lyng government because of the Kings Bay case. About a week later Gerhardsen was back, but only for a two-year period. The Labor Party may yet be the eagle among the parties, but the eagle's grip began to loosen. Their dominance was no longer anything but natural. When historian Arup Seip talked about the Labor Party State in 1963, it was already on its way into his professional discipline: History.

Despite the fact that the Labor Party's influence lasted through both the 60s and 70s, and right up to the present day – with a kind of renaissance in the 1970s – it is as far back as the 1960s that Reiulf Steen places the beginning at the end. The party was still under the leadership of many of those who had fought the internal struggles of the 1920s, in a silent position war. Then there was little room for new generations, new perspectives and new struggles. The security opposition was already out. Now came a youth uprising, with the Vietnam War as the most important issue. That was, according to Steen, when it burst. He himself, as one of the few of the new generation, sat at the center of the Labor Party's leadership from this time until the right-wing wave washed in at the turn of the decade 1970s / 80s.

The social analysis

Steen has borrowed Arup Seip's name for the Labor Party when he has now published the book "The eagle has landed" – a historical view of the Labor Party's rise and fall, from Marcus Thrane in the rebellion year 1848 to the current situation, where the eagle is "winged" back . Ideological confusion, the absence of a useful social analysis and, throughout the 1990s, an apolitical struggle between the wings around two leaders in the party.

- What was that political the content of the dispute between Thorbjørn Jagland and Jens Stoltenberg?

It is Reiulf Steen who asks, when Ny Tid visits him at home on Nesodden. And he gives the answer himself: – Nothing, as far as I can understand. The two stood together on issues that were controversial elsewhere in the party. The partial privatization of Statoil. Telenor on the stock exchange. This they agreed on. That is the answer to the question, he says.

The former Labor leader (1975-81) adds The eagle has landed emphasis that when the Labor Party and the labor movement had such success in Norway, it was about being able to understand the society you lived under, that you had a social analysis at the bottom of politics. As society has changed, the old analyzes are no longer useful. But the Labor Party has not managed to establish a new analysis apparatus, and thus not the visions and the concrete policy needed to meet today's challenges.

- In what way do you think today's society differs from the society under which the Labor Party had such success?

- We live in a revolutionary era. We are witnessing the second capitalist revolution, says Steen, who believes that the information revolution has brutalized global capitalism. – It is embarrassing to state that it is Kåre Willoch who has given the most apt name; "Predatory capitalism". Globally, we see an enormous concentration of power, power is concentrated in the multinational groups. This also propagates to Norway, where we get new capitalists – Røkke, Rimi-Hagen. I note that a public inquiry, the power and democracy inquiry, states that more power has been transferred from the public to the private sector. And I have noticed that the financial problems of Kjell Inge Røkke received more attention in the media than the state budget, which was presented at the same time. And rightly so, because the fate of Kjell Inge Røkke has consequences for something around 35.000 jobs, says Steen.

- What amazes and annoys me is that there is no more healthy rage over how we are balded and rolled with. Unfortunately, there is little audible criticism of the current society, he says.

Continued class society

The society that the labor movement took control of from 1935 onwards was characterized by clear class divisions. Today, many paint a picture of a "classless society", where it is not possible to organize people according to objective common interests. Reiulf Steen thinks this is a crazy analysis, even though the traditional industrial worker is about to disappear.

- We have a more differentiated social pattern, but that does not mean that we no longer live in a class society. We have an upper class of one to two percent of the population who are enormously rich, and by virtue of that have an enormous amount of power. Therefore, it is not true that we live in an egalitarian, classless society. The situation today is that the class divisions are getting bigger, says Steen, and points out that today we have a government that works to increase the differences, and fight the equality mindset.

- The Italian philosopher Norberto Bobbio, who has published the book "Right and Left", believes similarity is the central criterion that separates the right and the left. If you advocate a policy that promotes equality, you belong to the left. If you advocate a policy that promotes inequality, you belong to the right wing. So simple, but true, it can be said. And then the government's Sem declaration is right-wing policy in practice, Steen says.

In response to the right-wing offensive, the former Labor leader believes that the left and the labor movement must establish a analysis which describes the society we live under, and which can be the basis for a political offensive. This offensive must involve one ideological collection on the left – in the long run maybe also an organizational gathering, but it must come eventually. The question is, however, whether one can expect initiatives for a new social analysis from the leadership of a party that is struggling to understand its own contemporaries.

- I think the initiative must come from the trade union movement, Steen says. He believes that a manifesto must be made for our time, modeled on Marx's and Engels' communist manifesto of 1848 – a manifesto described by the British historian Eric Hobsbawm as more relevant for the 21st century than for the nineteenth.

- It could start with a working group with people from all over the left. It should embrace very wide. It should have no mandate, but start with an open mind. And it must result in an analysis of the society we live in today. The initiative should come from the trade union movement, but far more should participate. Such a project can also stimulate the intellectual left to increased social criticism.

On this basis, Steen believes, one can imagine an ideological gathering of the left into a common struggle for equality – a response to the second revolution of capitalism. – Such an ideological gathering will have far greater consequences than what can be measured in the number of representatives in the Storting, Steen believes, because a unifying analysis and a common position will give ordinary people in Norway an understanding of their own situation. In this way, one can also curb that people, contrary to their own objective interests, in frustration turn to the FRP – or do not vote in elections.

But division and disagreement are nothing new on the left, and getting a rally can seem difficult. Steen points out that what was once divisive – NATO membership and nuclear weapons policy – has become less relevant, because NATO is becoming irrelevant.

- But what about the other big issue – the EU issue?

Steen, who has also been the leader of the European movement, also does not believe that this issue should stand in the way of a left-wing gathering.

EU affairs

- I have always been an ardent supporter of European unification – not because of the Treaty of Rome, but because it is a peace project. When nations are intertwined, war between them becomes impossible. My second reasoning is about America's dominant position in the world. But now, in 2003, Norwegian society can not afford to split again in the middle, with an uncertain outcome as a result, says Steen, who believes that Norway must wait for developments in the EU until we see the consequences of eastern enlargement and work on a new EU constitution. Should it lead to significant movements in the electorate, the time may come for a new vote in Norway.

- But a new vote in the near future will be wrong, Steen says. – The EU can succeed or fail. No one can say for sure about it today. Only when we see the consequences of what is happening in the EU can we have a debate that is not a repetition of 1972 or 1994. And until then, we can not let a hypothetical discussion about EU membership stand in the way of unification on the left, he says. A new round of voting will have to take place when the time is right, and perhaps the EU issue will then not seem as divisive on the left as in previous rounds.

Active reform policy

Despite the fact that it just is History Reiulf Steen has dealt with in his latest book, he does not want a discussion about what has happened to stand in the way of gathering. The analysis of society, and the specific policy, must be based on the current situation, not yesterday's quarrels. At the same time, he likes to add a word to the Labor Party's approach to politics during his heyday – to translate visions and ideas into concrete reforms and decisions.

- It is probably nice to be in opposition, but the purpose of political work is to get power to change. I think SV and others have underestimated the socialization process that Norway went through under the Labor Party's board. It meant that the public sector accounts for as much as half of Norway's gross national income. The Sem declaration, in turn, implies a de-socialization of Norway.

When the societal analyzes are lacking, the overall perspectives that allow each individual political issue to be seen in a context disappear. Thus, Steen believes, one discusses school, the elderly or other issues detached from the ideas of where society should develop. This can mean that the parties support a policy that violates their values, and it can mean that you do not see the significance of what you achieve.

- In its best periods, the Labor Party has managed to stand for a policy where these connections are present. This applies in the period from the Labor Party took power in the 1930s, and it applies to the 1970s after the EC referendum. It was one of the most active reform periods in Norwegian politics – says Steen, who was party leader at this very time. He points to concrete reforms that Norwegian society underwent, despite the fact that the Labor Party was history:

- We introduced the Working Environment Act, upper secondary education and the college reform, to name a few, says Steen. – This was an active reform policy with values.

And if Reiulf Steen does not dream back to the 1970s, it is the same way of thinking about politics, he would have liked to have seen that the left could gather around. A basic social analysis, a clear, common ideological value base and a concrete reform policy to lead society in the direction of more – not less – equality.