It is important to be honest about the very real conflicts that exist between ethical values and the practical realities of power.

Any project that envisages changing Europe through a combination of gradualist methods and revolutionary objectives contains from the outset an element of utopianism. The idea of creating a ‘good society’ is generous, and its visionary nature represents an excellent means of concentrating positive energies. But for a person of the left the problem lies not in the nature of objectives for a ‘better society’, but in establishing whether the means of change are adequate to reality, and whether they are efficient.

The nationalisation of public services, and the way in which this can be effectively achieved, would raise a question of principle only if public services are seen as better simply because they are public property. But in our opinion the quality of services is mostly determined by management efficiency, and only partially by forms of ownership. There are very efficient state-owned companies and bankrupt private companies, and there are also government-managed companies that are characterised by critical inefficiency. Of course, companies producing public goods must be regulated, both as regards quality of services, and in the taxing of speculative profits. But even if we possessed irrefutable arguments for the superiority of public property, there would still be a problem about the available methods for taking governmental control over companies in the fields of transport, postal services, banking, etc. Nationalisations without compensation are not possible in a democratic country, but buying companies would create such huge deficits and high inflation rates for governments that the losers would be the same people that the democratic left wishes to protect against ‘unfettered capitalism’.

Another contentious thesis promoted by Jon Cruddas and Andrea Nahles is the need for the restoration of the primacy of politics, and rejection of the subordination of political interests to the economic. If we considered this idea in the arena of pure ethics it could be accepted as a desirable objective. But if we try to apply it concretely there are three possible options: (a) politics would turn into ideology, more specifically into communism; (b) since it is implicit in the drastic separation of economic interests from politics that the financial support of companies during electoral campaigns would not be permitted, parties could expect certain failure, as in the current conditions no single party can fund its electoral campaign solely through the contribution of its members; (c) we risk becoming hypocrites, in tacitly accepting the influence of economic interest groups over parties but publicly denying it. All three options are unacceptable. The solution is not to subordinate the economic sphere to politics, but to make the former more transparent, and to regulate it. Of course technocratic government must be rejected, as it lacks democratic support, but politics must form a transparent synergy with economic interests.

A third contentious theme in the document is its assertion that global social justice can be achieved through the EU renouncing the promotion of free trade while simultaneously ensuring social security in Europe. It is an irrefutable fact that globalisation has brought benefits to economically developed countries, which are in need of fewer customs barriers for the promotion of their products and services in less developed countries. The fewer trading markets Europe has, the more pressure grows on social security systems throughout the EU. Of course, we ideologically share the objective of a more just and fairer world, as well as that of increasing the prosperity of Europeans. There is, however, a practical problem: how do we reconcile objectives that could in reality be conflicting? In fact, isn’t the European left’s decline caused by the very fact that we often say one thing within our ideological documents, and do another when we reach power?