|
X Close Window |
THE NEW INCLUSIVENESS
Herschel Hardin Leadership Campaign
Policy Circular 17 • May 25, 1995 |
|
|
Democratic socialism is an expansive, creative philosophy for majorities, not a politics of narrow application. We as a party, accordingly, should be much more open and inclusive opening the party up, breathing in fresh air, expanding our lungs. A party like ours should be satisfied with nothing less than 40 or 50 per cent support of the electorate, and pushing upwards from there.
There are two ways to become a majority party. One is to move to the mainstream, but since that mainstream was created by others, that strategy is self destructive. We might as well join the Liberals. Or, for the electorate, they might as well vote Liberal. They usually do. The other way, which I favour, is to touch the popular imagination and move the mainstream towards us. Make the other parties, who want to be mainstream, fight in our territory. "Politics," as I have said before, "is not the art of the possible. It is the art of creating new possibilities."
In order to reach others and move the mainstream, however, we have to be culturally open to others and see our interests in common. Doesn't social democracy, for example, need a large variety of skills, from actors and writers to accountants and business managers? Conversely, do they not have a stake in dynamic crown and co operative sectors and other indigenous enterprise? Or an ecologically based political economy? Or the decommercialization of broadcasting? Or cohesive, livable communities? Yet we are not making those connections.
It's true we do accept people into the party from all walks of life and that anyone can vote for us. It's also true, to a significant extent, that they exclude themselves, because of political prejudices. It is no less true, however, that we exclude them, by our overly narrow culture and rhetoric, a narrowness which hurts the force of democratic socialist ideas rather than strengthens them. And of all those democratic socialist ideas, one of the most powerful is that we are ultimately all part of the same community.
For somewhat the same reasons, I do not believe in class politics. I believe in classless, egalitarian, inclusive, populist politics, which catches the variety and diversity of people and the work they do.
Maybe that's the difference. I really do believe that democratic socialist egalitarianism is so compelling a notion that it can engage and unite large segments of the community. I will go further: Unless we can unite multiple segments of the community, those who most rely on social democracy are going to be further marginalized. It is happening right now.
|
|
