Trouble for the Social Democrats?

Two items struck me in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung this morning. Both represent trouble for the Social Democrats. One item is the discontent on the Left with Schröder's Agenda 2010 reforms. These reforms, like those of Blair and Clinton, have attempted to use market solutions and some withdrawal from the nanny state with the purpose of making the remaining social programs, stronger, more robust, and more effective. Rather that seeking to reduce these programs because they are bad, Agenda 2010 seeks to improve their viability in the face of climbing costs. The left rejects this position and advocates higher taxes and more programs. A splinter group has been talking about the possibility of an alternative party since March. The recently met at Berlin's Humboldt University, and plan to assemble a platform in the next month. By the end of the year they plan to have some plans about whether to go ahead with the formation of a new party. This opinion piece on the problem is not optimistic.

The second item is the rise of the Green Party at the expence of the Social Democrats. The support for the Greens has nearly doubled in the past five years, and in Berlin, the Greens outpolled the SDP. The Greens themselves think they have become mainstream, and that may be true, but in light of the above article, its also just as likely that the Social Democrats are hemoraging leftist voters to the Greens. In America's winner take all system, a third way politician could succeed by holding on to their base on the left while attracting swing and centrist voters by moving to the right. In a multiparty parliamentary system, voters can more easily shift to the party next over to the left. In the American system, the appearance of a party even more leftist than the Democrats, such as Nader in 2000, siphons off voters handing the election to the Right. In a parliamentary system the SDP could still govern through a coallition government of the left, but would be forced to make concessions to the allied parties, effectively pulling the center of gravity of the Chancellor's policy closer to the majority of voters. One way to accomplish this is to reorganize the cabinet.

An interesting side note, is that the FAZ reports that one alternative explanation for the Greens success at the expence of the SDP is that the Green's cabinet possitions, the foreign, consumer, and enviromental portfolios, have nothing to do with the domestic cuts involved in Agenda 2010.

In American politics, the political cost of such reforms as welfare and social security reform typically require the appearance of bipartisanship to avoid these effects. With two parties its possible to arrange the crossover votes, the photo ops, and the other trappings of bipartisanship. With a dozen parties, there will always be someone willing to attack the government and collect the votes againts any unpopular reforms, no matter how neccesary. Social Security reform, traditionally the third rail of American politics, has been known to occupy this place. The Agenda 2010 involves Germans in many of the same problems in allocating benefits and costs of its generous social welfare programs.