Jan Otto AnderssonÅbo Akademi, Finland
Article prepared on the basis of a paper presented at the international seminar on "Marxism in the New World Order", Syninge-Stockholm, May 1995. It was published in New Left Review, Number 216, March-April 1996, p.66-78
Fundamental Values for a Third Left
Since 1988 I have been engaged in the launching of a new party of the Left in Finland. It was established in 1990 under the name of Vasemmistoliitto / Vänsterförbundet (The Left-Wing Alliance). LWA continued the tradition of SKDL / DFFF (The Peoples Democratic League) which included the Communist Party of Finland. It was launched as a "Red-Green" party of the "modern Left", but despite the enthusiasm at the founding meeting, which was open to all interested, the party has not been able to attract a new mass base. Its election support has hovered around 11 per cent. In the elections in March 1995 it did succeed fairly well , and a decision was taken to enter the new "rainbow"-government, which includes the Social Democrats, the Conservatives, the LWA, the Swedish Peoples Party and the Greens. The party, however, is still searching for its ideological and political place. The negotiations leading to the formation of the new government, and the strong disagreements revealed inside the party during that process, demonstrates the need for a more clear-cut ideological and strategical position.
In our work on the new party program, which was accepted at the party congress in June 1995, we elaborated the concept of the "Third Left".
The First and the Second Left
In Denmark there is a party which calls itself Venstre (Left). It is, however, a conservative right wing party. There is also another party called Radikale venstre (Radical Left), but this is a social-liberal party at the centre of the Danish party-spectrum. Both are hangovers from the First Left. The First Left emerged with the American and French revolutions, and it was bourgeois, liberal and republican. It demanded liberty from absolutist and feudalist fetters. It called for equality through the abolishment of ranks and privileges. It wanted brotherhood instead of the power of the masters. The First Left was the Left of liberty, citizenship and democracy.
For me, the First Left is personified by Thomas Paine, the English pamflettist, who participated in both the American and the French revolution. He was an ardent champion of representative democracy and citizens' rights. 200 years ago Paine's book Rights of Man spread in millions of copies in England, Europe and America.
The First Left was inspired by the idea of equal and free citizens, who are able to arrange their personal lifes and to decide on common matters in a democratic way. The market was seen as a sphere of freedom and equal opportunity, in which the citizens were able to realize their own objectives, whithout the interferences and privileges of kings, churches, Estates or guilds. Also socialists - revolutionaries like Babeuf, and reformers like Owen - were part of the First Left, but even they did not turn against the market. They aimed at a more equal distribution of incomes and wealth, and supported mutual assistance and co-operation.
The Second Left was 'proletarian', it was the Left of the workers' movement, of social democratic and communist parties. It struggled for economic and social rights, and was the main carrier of the welfare state project. It favoured collective solutions to social problems, and saw nationalisation and planning as means towards a more just and progressive society.
If the First Left can be personified by Thomas Paine, the central figure of the Second Left was Karl Kautsky. He was the greatest authority within the socialist movement until the First World War. Through the influence of Kautsky Marxism became a doctrine and socialism an ideology which separated the new left from the old. Although Kautsky was critizised by both Bernstein and Lenin, it was Kautsky's interpretation of capitalism, socialism and the historic mission of the workers' movement that put a stamp on the Second Left, both its social democratic and communist current.
The main target of the critique of the Second Left was the capitalist market economy. In order to overcome it both the power of an organised class and of the state should be used. The capitalist markets caused inequality, insecurity and crises: Krise, Kriege und Katastrophe as Hilferding expressed it. Instead of the capitalist market economy the aim was to build a socialist planned economy, or at least a mixed economy with a strong welfare state.
The Second Left was a continuation of the First, but also its antithesis. The First Left stressed its universal humanism, the second its class character. The First Left believed that free markets could be just and efficient, the Second was convinced of their immanent weaknesses and unfairness. The First Left wanted to decrease the tasks of the state, the Second to increase them. The First Left believed in the individual and the citizen, the Second in collectives and organisations. The First Left wanted to share out property to everyone, the Second favoured common, often state, property.
Common to both was an uncritical belief in progress, science and technology. Both were grounded in a naive notion of human nature, and were drawn to utopian and constructivist ways of thinking. Neither achieved a sufficiently deep understanding of the power relationships between men and women. Neither were able to evaluate the impact of industry and mass consumption on the ecological balance. Both underrated the significance of culture and religion for the individual as well as for society. They put their faith in either enlighted citizens or in ideal social institutions. They imagined that, thanks to the good will of people or within the framework of well designed structures, everything would gradually be rectified and set in order.
Within the left there were, of course, thinkers who at an early stage were able to see different aspects of the shortcomings mentioned above, but they were soon pushed out from the mainstream into small side-currents.
The Finnish case
In Finland the First Left was relatively weak. This was due to its position as a Grand Duchy under the Russian Csar for more than a century. Therefore its most notable achievements were realized only when the Second Left already had gained a considerable strength. In 1906 a generally elected parliament took the place of the old Four Estates. The radicality of this reform can be judged from the fact that also women were given the right to vote, and that the Social Democrats were able to gain a majority of the seats already in 1917. Other great achievements of the First Left were the establishment of general public education and the emancipation of the crofters in the early 1920s.
One reason for the relative strength of the Second Left in Finland was the geographical position between communist Russia and social democratic Sweden. The Finnish labour movement gained its victories after the Second World War, when it managed to establish collective agreements on the national level and to gradually construct a Nordic welfare state. Especially from 1966, when the social democrats and the communists were able to cooperate sincerely, and to form several "peoples front"-governements together with the agrarian Center party, the pace of social reform and income equalisation accelerated.
A Norwegian sociologist, Stein Ringen, has described the equalisation of incomes carried out after 1966. Finland, from the mid-1960s to the mid-1980s, "experienced the most dramatic case of reduced income inequality in any industrial nation and was transformed into the most egalitarian of the Nordic countries. During this period, the Gini-index for the distribution of equivalent disposable income fell from about .32 to about .20. Most of this change occurred during no more than ten years, from 1966 to 1976. After 1985 the distribution has been stable." The hegemony of the Second Left is shown by the broad consensus of that period. "It is as if Finnish society decided that its income distribution was unacceptable, set about changing it with the help of cautious policy interventions, succeeded in doing that in about ten years, and then settled down to a new and acceptable distribution."
However, during the last ten years the Second Left has been on the defensive also in Finland. Three great transformations has swept over the country: the large firms and other central parts of the economy have become much more internationalised and integrated into the European Single Market project; the Soviet society and economy has collapsed, dramatically affecting the economic and political situation in Finland; finally in the 1990s an economic depression, deeper than that of the 1930s, has resulted in a severe mass unemployment and undermined the financial position of the welfare state. The new government has committed itself to substantial cuts in transfer incomes, which inevitably will increase the divide between the well off and the poor, between those with a stable job and those unemployed or in precarious earning positions, as well as between the urban South and the rural North. Will the Finnish Left follow the path set in Australia and New Zealand on the other side of the globe?
The dramatic events and transformations of this century are thus clearly reflected in the Finnish case. So are the triumphs and frustrations of the Left. It is time to take stock and to elaborate a new vision and strategy.
The Third Left
The concept of a Third Left is both positive and normative. On the one hand, it implies an effort to describe new social movements and ideological currents, which actually and potentially constitute a new left, that differs from the Second Left as much as it differed from the first. On the other hand, it implies an effort to construct an acceptable ideological and political platform, that could challenge the neoliberal hegemony of our times.
The Third Left necessarily builds on the traditions of the first and the second, at the same time as it transcends them. Its earliest manifestions was the New Left of the 1960s, followed by the new environmental and feminist movements in the 1970s. This left was able to think more globally, to listen more attentively to the demands of oppressed peoples, and to respect divergencies more readily than the old left. It was, however, not able to take advantage of the crisis of Fordist capitalism. Instead it had to watch the triumph of neoliberalism and neoconservatism. The false heirs of the First Left - the neoliberals - got the upper hand both over the heirs of the second and the pioneers of the third.
The Third Left can become a coherent political force only when it has grasped the full implications of the dramatic transformations of the last decades: the shaking up of the advanced industrial societies, the hollowing out of the national welfare states, and the collapse of Soviet communism.
In "Beyond Left and Right" Anthony Giddens - although he speaks of "the future of radical politics" - actually is concerned with the question of a Third Left. He describes the transformations at the end of this century in terms of three basic changes, that together have undermined the ideas of the founders of socialism. He identifies these changes as globalization, i.e. the creation of several global systems, which directly influence personal and local lifestyles, as the emergence of a post-traditional social order, in which traditions cannot be taken for granted, but have to explain themselves and to become open to interrogation and discourse, and thirdly as the expansion of social reflexivity, which introduces a dislocation between knowledge and control, thus generating qualitatively new uncertainties. As a consequence the left must embrace - and is actually embracing - what he calls 'philosophic conservatism', i.e. a position that critically encounter productivism and stresses protection, conservation and solidarity. This reversal of roles between the right and the left - the right becoming a radical supporter of 'progress' and the left taking a more prudent stand - is certainly a associated with what I see as the emergence of a Third Left.
In this article I will concentrate on the fundamental values, which I think are forming - and I also hope will form - the basis for a revitilisation of the left. This is a rather non-Marxist way of proceeding. The story of the Third Left should be told in terms of economic and social tendencies as well as changing class forces. However, I think that identifying those fundamental values that most probably will constitute the uniting element of a new left also helps to locate the appropriate political forces that already is - or that can become - engaged in a broad struggle. As to the socio-economic tendencies and contradictions that are characteristic of our epoch there exist a large accumulated knowledge from different sources. Personally I have been most influenced by the analyses made by economists in the different heterodox traditions, especially the postmarxist theory of regulation, evolutionary political economy, and so called 'living economics'.
I think it is instructive - even imperative - to summarize the fundamental values of the Third Left under three headings. They are "real freedom for all", "democratic communities" and "sustainable development".
"Real freedom for all" is a value formulated on the level of the individual, and can be interpreted to express the central values advanced by the First Left. Today it is explicitely adopted by 'real-libertarians'. "Democratic communities" is a value pertaining to collectives and societies. It expresses the solidaristic values of the socialist left. It is, of course, also the central value of the communitarian reaction to the neoliberal dominance. "Sustainable development" relates to the global and ecological system as a whole, and brings in the values of the Green Left.
It is hardly possible to derive one of these values directly from the other two. There are therefore genuine conflicts between them. "Real freedom for all" may clash with either "democratic communities" or "sustainable development", or it may make the other two values to conflict with each other. This means that we may not be able to say which ethical position or political solution is preferable in any absolute sense; we have to accept valuational differences and ethical compromises within the left. It is, however, important to see the reasons for the conflicts as clearly as possible.
The three fundamental values can be compared to the the six-point framework for a reconstituted radical politics, formulated by Giddens: 1) to repair damaged solidarities; 2) to recognize the centrality of life styles as well as life chances; 3) to allow individuals and groups to make things happen, rather than have things happen to them; 4) to develop dialogic democray; 5) to rethink the welfare state in relation to global poverty; and 6) to confront the role of violence in human affairs. Point 2, and partly 3, pertain to "real freedom for all"; points 1, 3 and 4 relate to "democratic communities"; and at least points 5 and 6 are essential parts of "sustainable development".
Real freedom for all
In an often quoted passage from the first book of "Capital" Marx expresses the ruling principle of communism as "the full and free development of every individual":
Robert van der Veen inteprets "full and free development of every individual" to mean maximizing the real freedom of the worst-off group in analogy with the Rawlsian difference principle, but applied to real freedom instead of to income or primary goods. "Real Freedom for All" is also the title of Philippe Van Parijs impressive work, in which he tries to lay the theoretical foundations for what he names 'real-libertarianism', "a left-wing variant of Rawlsianism". Real-libertarians strive for a society in which "each person has the greatest possible opportunity to do whatever she might want to do". Van Parijs argues that this implies an unconditional individual basic income at the highest sustainable level for each human being. "Fanatically bent on making value expand itself, he [the capitalist] ruthlessly forces the human race to produce for production's sake; he thus forces the development of the productive powers of society, and creates those material conditions, which alone can form the real basis of a higher form of society, a society in which the full and free development of every individual forms the ruling principle." The interpretation of van der Veen and Van Parijs of "real freedom for all" should, however, be deepened in two ways. First, the concept of real freedom should comprehend the capability approach elaborated by Amartya Sen. Secondly, it should overcome the libertarian danger of 'political atomism'.
Sen focuses on freedom itself, rather than on achievements (such as utility) or the means to freedom (such as command over resources) on what a person, in fact, can do or be.
Sen's proposed solution is to introduce the concept "capability", which he defines as a combination of functionings (beings and doings) that a person can achieve. It reflects a person's freedom to lead one type of life or another. The capability approach puts emphasis both on the intrinsical value of individual freedom in a free society and on the instrumental value of the freedom to achieve well-being. Sen underscores the difference between the capability approach and other approaches to individual and social evaluations, such as the Rawlsian system based on primary goods, Dworkin's analysis based on resources, or the traditional real income-approaches. However, it builds on the same general evaluative foundation, since all these approaches are concerned with the extension of the freedom of the individuals to choose what kind of life they live. "The resources a person has, or the primary goods that someone holds, may be very imperfect indicators of the freedom that the person really enjoys to do this or to be that." What makes Sen's approach appealing is that it focuses so clearly on real or substantive freedom, not only on formal freedom or on the distribution of the means for freedom. What also makes it appealing is the effort to relate the demands of equality to the demands for freedom. The equality of freedom to pursue our ends - i.e. the equality of capabilities to function - should be the basal equality looked for in a just society.
Real freedom also involves a dimension that is not fully comprehended in the real-libertarian approach, namely the capacity to recognize adequately one's own important purposes, and to overcome one's emotional fetters, as well as being free of external obstacles. As Taylor emphasises, this requires a certain degree of self-understanding. Freedom cannot be seen just as an opportunity concept. Real freedom implies consistency, self-esteem, sense of belonging, and commitment, i.e. identity and interaction, which brings us to the second fundamental value of a Third Left.
Democratic communities
To focus on the freedom and the capability to function of the individuals may involve a downgrading of the value of the communities to which they belong. Should the collectives be seen as purely instrumental for the full and free development of their individual members? According to the doctrines of social contract theory, to certain forms of utilitarianism and to real-libertarianism, society is constituted by individuals for the fulfilment of ends which are primarily individual. Such a position Taylor calls 'political atomism'. It is deeply ingrained in economic thinking since homo economicus is very similar to the individual presupposed by political atomism. He is far from the social animal formulated by Aristoteles.
If we agree that social processes are crucial for the formation of the tastes, desires and beliefs of human beings, then we cannot take these as given and derive the institutions for a good society from them. We cannot e.g. treat the market as an ideal order without considering the effects of a market society on the whole of society and its members. Even if we put the free individual at the centre stage we cannot ignore the necessary social conditions for the development of free individuals.
In their book "For the Common Good" the communitarian economist Herman E. Daly and philosopher John B. Cobb make a convincing critique of abstract homo economicus-based analysis, which disregards the social and environmental human conditions. They discuss the concept of community in depth and put forward a definition with strong normative elements. According to them a society should not be called a community unless it fulfils four criteria: "The crucial point here is this: since the free individual can only maintain his identity within a society/culture of a certain kind, he has to be concerned about the shape of this society/culture as a whole... It is important to him that certain activities and institutions flourish in society. It is even of importance to him what the moral tone of the whole society is - shocking as it may be to libertarians to raise this issue - because freedom and individual diversity can only flourish in a society where there is a general recognition of their worth." 1. Membership in the society should contribute to self-identification.
2. The members participate extensively in the decisions by which their lifes are governed.
3. The society as a whole takes responsibility for the members.
4. The society shows respect for the diverse individuality of its members.
Such a "community" is a desirable society, which can be renamed "democratic community" and used as a valuational foundation. A democratic community is desirable both instrumentally - being important for the realization of real freedom for everybody - and intrinsically. Its intrinsic value can be seen when there is a conflict between individual freedom and democratic community. Socially unresponsible life-styles, unregulated migration, and disrespect for common goals and rules, may threaten the functioning of a democratic community.
John Rawls has made an admirable effort to set forth the principles for a just and democratic society, based on a constitutional regime derived from a principle close to our "real freedom for all". By a "community" he means a society governed by a shared comprehensive religious, philosophical, or moral doctrine. He does not, however, consider such an ideologically narrow community to be a well-ordered democratic society, since it is guided by one ideology rather than by public reason and a political conception of justice. One can, however, question whether not Rawls's requirements for a just democratic society constitute a moral - even a quite utopian - doctrine in its own right. All persons are supposed to be ideal citizens, who are prepared to recognise each other as equals, and to accept the same conception of justice. Therefore, the "well-ordered democratic society", outlined by Rawls, can be seen as a rather strong version of the ideal of "democratic communities".
Each conception of a collective - be it a household, a firm, a nation or a civilisation - implies the constitution of an "us" in relation to others. It requires criteria for membership and also some conception of the territory or property that belongs to the community. A community can make demands on its members that it cannot make on outsiders; but outsiders do not have an equal right to be cared for by the community. However, a genuinely democratic community must be open in a recognizable way. Both entry and exit must be possible on precise and non-afflicting terms.
The establishment of a plurality of communities will be of great importance both to the individuals and to democracy. By not being dependent on only one community, but having the possibility to find several suitable identities is a crucial aspect of real freedom. When people meet each other on equal terms in one community, and learn to respect each other in that context, they will be more inclined to understand and respect differences in other contexts. Democratic usage in one community will tend to spill over into other communities, gradually strengthening democratic pluralism.
The most important identity-forming forces in history have been classes, religions and nations. Today - despite the internationalization of the economies - the nation states are still supposed to be that community through which people primarily identify themselves and through which they are able to make common decisions. The hollowing out of the nation states therefore implies a weakening of the possibilities to realize democratic communities. Therefore, efforts to restrenghten the capacity of the nation states to govern, or to create other collectives to democratically regulate the market forces is a central task of the Third Left.
As argued by the social philosopher Michael Walzer, a most urgent task is to extend democratic principles to the economic sphere. Large enterprises and workplaces, which affect the lives of several persons, should not be governed by individual owners. Democrats cannot accept that whole towns are owned and run by private owners, since this violates against the principles of democracy and equality as citizens, and the same principle should apply to large enterprises as well.
The economists Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis have shown the importance of explictly bringing in democratic values into economic enquiries. They find that the capitalist economy, "not only fosters the exercise of unaccountable power, it also thwarts those forms of political learning-through-choosing by means of which democratic societies may come to deepen their fundamental political commitments and capacities."
There are many other important contributions towards constructing the economy in accordance with democratic ideals, such as James Meade's "partnership economy" - Agathotopia - where different forms of ownership are mixed in such a way as to guarantee economic security for everyone (through a social dividend) and to strengthen worker participation in the running of the enterprises (through a system of worker share certificates).
Another effort, worthy of apprecitation, is the radical democracy model elaborated by the neo-Marxian Budapest School. It tries to give formal democracy a new content by extending it to include equal rights of participation in all social decision-making processes. It implies the positive abolition of private property, self-management and the equal recognition (although not satisfaction) of all needs. The model requires the acceptance of some fundamental ethical principles: freedom, justice and an end to suffering. The spirit is captured by the concept of 'planetarian responsibility', which means that people behave responsibly by considering the effects of their actions on others. This quest for planetarian responsibility brings us to the most telling and exacting value of the Third Left.
Sustainable development
The concept of sustainable development brings in an ecological and global dimension not fully covered by the other two values. The notions of "all" and "community" might be streched to include ecological and global considerations, but we usually think of existing individuals and of our societies, and tend to forget the importance of finding the appropriate scale and pattern of human activities from the point of view of global sustainability.
The term sustainable development has been interpreted in different ways, and the struggle over its meaning is probably going to be as intensive as the struggle over the meaning of 'freedom' and 'democracy'. According to David Pearce "sustainable development implies that the object of concern is the whole process of economic progress in which economies contribute to improvements in human welfare, however defined. ... How sustainability comes about is the subject matter of most of the debate, but one theme is constant to all the discussions: sustainability means sustaining and augmenting natural environmental systems.... Sustainability requires at least a constant stock of natural capital, construed as the set of all environmental assets."
Michael Jacobs finds a core meaning consisting of three elements. The first is the entrenchment of environmental considerations on all levels of economic policy-making. Sustainable development insists on the integration of the environment and the economy in both theory and practice. This requires a reconception of such central concepts as capital, income and welfare. Daly and Cobb point to the importance of choosing the right level of community when seeking to implement a sustainable development. To what extent should one country be allowed to draw on the ecological carrying capacity of another country and thus be unsustainable in isolation?
Second, sustainable development incorporates a commitment to equity, to a fair distribution between North and South as well as between our and future generations. This commitment is highly demanding, since humankind already has appropriated some 40 per cent of the terrestrial food supply, measured as the net primary productivity of solar energy reaching earth. At some point, the likely result is a chain reaction of environmental decline. Pearce finds that a sustainable economy should contribute to three types of justice:
- justice to people within a generation,
- justice to people between generations, and
- justice to non-human sentient beings.
The third element of the core meaning of sustainable development arisis from the word 'development'. It is a wider concept than 'growth' and includes the quality of the environment itself. In his description of what development can mean - "the beauty of natural scenery ... the state of people's health and their level of education, the quality of work, the existence of cohesive communities, the vibrancy of cultural life." Jacobs comes close to subsuming "real freedom for all" and "democratic communities" under the concept of sustainable development. However, one can construct acceptable interpretations of sustainability and development, which could suppress both individual freedom and democratic communities in the sense given above. Therefore, rather than including real freedom for all and democratic communities in the concept of sustainable development, they should be kept as separate fundamental values. Sustainable development stresses the dimensions of global and intergenerational equity, as well as ecological balance, in a way freedom and democracy do not.
Sustainable development, however, is not an absolute value, which has to be fulfilled before the other two can be considered. There can be more or less sustainability, greater or smaller risks for ecological catastrophes, as well as there can be different degrees of real freedom or vitality of democratic communities.
One variant of sustainable development is sustainable livelihoods, a concept which has been put forward by Robert Chambers. The context is the rural South, where three major processes - population growth, 'core' invasions and pressures, and the responses by the rural poor - undermine the sustainability of the traditional livelihoods. The strategy centres on enabling very poor people to overcome the conditions which force them to take the very short view, but to be able to save and accumulate, to adapt to changes, to meet contingencies, and to enhance long term productivity. The concept sustainable livelihoods shows how it may be possible to link the values of real freedom and democratic communities to that of sustainable development in a relatively concrete and policy oriented way.
Challenges for the Third Left
In the advanced industrial countries the Second Left is loosing its progressive force. Of course it is of great importance to defend the achievements related to the welfare states, but this defence becomes more difficult as the societies are transformed by new technologies, challenges and power relations. The problem for the Third Left is that it must, on the one hand, distinguish itself from the traditional left, and at the same time show that it can be a credible alternative to neoliberalism and neoconservatism.
One positive challenge is to revive the ideas of the First Left in order both to reform the Second Left and to elaborate a better respons to neoliberal views. Some of the shortcomings of the socialist left, which have been exploited by the liberal critics, can probably be overcome by bringing back and clarifying the positions of the social-liberal left. The elaboration of the concept "real freedom for all" and of its implications - e.g. some form of an unconditional basic income in combination with some variant of a conditional citizens' wage - is important to transcend the too narrow workerist and productivist conceptions.
The Third Left is not as allergic to the market as the Second Left was in theory and quite often in practice. It is ready to use and develop market mechanisms where they are appropriate. However, it does not believe in "free markets". All markets are culturally and legally embedded, and they should be consciously regulated and "socialized". In comparison to Hayek's "The Road to Serfdom" Karl Polanyi's "The Great Transformation" - both published in 1944 - shows a much greater historical understanding of the functioning of markets and a market economy. Polanyi's contributions are therefore a very valuable basis for a constructive position towards the use of markets.
A most succint and relevant analysis of markets from a New Left position is Diane Elsons article "Market Socialism or Socialization of the Market?". She identifies the main problem of markets in their tendency - not only to decentralize - but to atomize decision-making. The individual agents are not able to ask what could be the result if they coordinated their actions in a public-spirited way. Elson's outline of a socialized and transparent market economy includes many ingredients of an economics for the Third Left: she stresses reproduction and household in relation to production and wage-work; she advocates a basic income and some kind of unpaid community service; she proposes several institutions specialized in socializing the different markets, by the use of information technology.
Another interesting, although narrower, approach to the market economy is represented by one of the leading economists Joseph E. Stiglitz. In his Book "Whither Socialism?" he sees the collapse of socialism not only as a consequence of the failures of central planning, but also of the critical failing of the models of market socialism. His effort to establish a new paradigm called information economics is of great relevance for the elaboration of institutions which could enhance trust and overcome alienation.
Another challenge is to renew the ideas of democratic control and government. The increasing gap between the possibilities and the needs for democratic guidance must be bridged by the use of new concepts and methods, such as international financial cooperation and taxation, democratically controlled funds, worker share certificates making firms more democratic and workers more involved in the economic risks, as well as new types of local cooperatives and moneys.
The probably most demanding challenge is to integrate the concept of sustainable development with the ideas of the First and the Second Left. This is the Achilles-heal of the Third Left. The trade-offs between the environment, on the one hand, and living standards and employment, on the other, seem sometimes to be overwhelming. E.g in order to accomodate a doubling of the world's population and a fivefold rise of the living standards in the South (combined with no increase at all in the North), the technologies we use must become eight times less exhausting and polluting, if we are not to increase the yearly current pressure on the environment. Just in order to employ the growing population at the existing level of productivity would require a dramatic ecological improvement in the technologies used.
However, there need not be a trade-off between jobs and the environment. An appropriate use of new technical possibilities combined with institutional reforms, can bring us towards a more sustainable economy, characterised by more jobs in the area of information and communication, in education, caring personal services, and in repair and maintenance. Such a perspective, which has been outlined by e.g. Chris Freeman and Luc Soete, can give the Third Left the opportunity to become the main carrier of hope for the future.