Norwegians went to the polls on Sunday and re-elected the Centre-Left coalition government of Jens Stoltenberg. It was the country’s second successive close election: Stoltenberg was elected in 2005 with a majority of just five seats, at a time when there were close elections all round the world, and he seems to have run it even closer this time, dropping one seat (although Stoltenberg’s own Labour Party made gains at the expense of its coalition partner, the Socialist Left).
Norway is hardly a world player, so the fate of its government is probably not a matter of great importance unless you happen to be Norwegian. But what the election revealed about the state of Norway’s Opposition is of much more general interest.
The election consolidated the far-right Progress Party as the largest Opposition party, with 22.9% of the vote. Before the election there had been considerable speculation as to what would happen if the government lost its majority. Last time the Centre-Right was in government, from 2001 to 2005, the Conservatives were the largest party and were able to form a minority government that had the tacit support of the Progress Party without taking it into coalition.
Now, however, the Progress Party is much larger and more confident; if it’s providing the numbers, it wants to be in government. The more centrist opposition parties, however, the Liberals and the Christian Democrats, will not support any coalition that includes it, and the Liberals have apparently made it clear they would rather bolt to the Centre-Left. The Conservatives’ task of trying to bridge the gap between Centre and far Right looks increasingly difficult. (Wikipedia’s diagram of seats is very useful here.)
But Norway reminds us to take care about what we mean by “far Right”. In much of Europe, far Right parties fit a particular mould: nationalistic, militaristic, socially conservative, ranging from France’s National Front and Germany’s NDP to somewhat more mainstream parties in Poland and Hungary (Pauline Hanson’s One Nation was a distant cousin). Without labouring the point, their lineage clearly points to the fascist parties of the mid-20th century.
But the Progress Party and similar parties in north-western Europe have a different complexion. Their origins are anti-statist; they support low taxes, privatisation and free trade, have no particular ties to social conservatism, and are generally hostile to the military. Denmark’s Progress Party once famously proposed to replace the entire defence department with a recorded phone message saying “we surrender” in Russian. In this they share obvious similarities with the Ron Paul wing of the US Republican Party.
Their common link with the more traditional far Right is their xenophobia. The Progress Party rails against the “Islamification” of Norway, and calls for tighter immigration control, just as Paul’s critics detect undercurrents of racism and anti-Semitism beneath his libertarian exterior. (Note the “anti-tax” protests that conveniently reserve all their anger for a black president.)
All of which raises a difficult problem: how can apparently intelligent people support the free movement of goods and capital, but be so passionately hostile to the free movement of people? Is there really a viable platform there, or will their pandering to racist populism ultimately drag them back to protectionism and militant nationalism as well? That’s a question for the Norwegians — and for the rest of us.
“how can apparently intelligent people support the free movement of goods and capital, but be so passionately hostile to the free movement of people?” And how can a chap not only has a PhD but is actually clever make such a naive statement?
Same chap of course who thinks 14 year olds should be able to vote (e.g. one supposes for death duties on estates which don’t buy-pass children in favour of grandchildren; or to allow marriage without parental consent at 14). It must be lovely to live in that rarefied happy world where one keeps on forgetting the power of self-interest and its versatility. (On voting, why do we want to add the votes of others to dilute the already small power our votes carry? That applies also to giving votes to non-English speaking illiterate over-70 parents of the original immigrants…)
Even the standard racism-free explanation for the enthusiasm of the Labor movement for the old White Australia policy should allow Charles to understand that there are plenty of perfectly rational reasons of self-interest for limiting (not necessarily totally denying) free movement of people while happy that cheap goods are available and capital can be imported to finance the growth of one’s economy. And that’s without going to much wider issues of crime, culture, social integration, net economic cost or contribution and numbers (not least if the numbers, multiplied by a far greater fertility than that of the native population, are – or may be – going to lead to big voting blocks wanting to change society in ways very uncomfortable for the natives).
Free movement as used by Charles has to mean movement largely at the choice of the mover. While most readers of Crikey would probably acknowledge that a clever country is best for 99.999 per cent of all of us and that our ethnic mix is pretty good for that by the standards of everywhere but Japan and Korea (and we have demographic advantages over them too) does Charles really want to open our borders to all who may, on the evidence of who gets smuggled into Europe, or crosses the borders illegally into the US, might volunteer to come to Australia – even without prospects of unemployment benefits, health care in systems already failing in many areas, etc.?
Please sign me up to Denmark’s Progress Party.
I agree that it is inconsistent to promote the free movement of capital, goods (and increasingly services) while being ‘passionately hostile’ to the free movement of people. But there is a long way from passionate hostility to promoting the free movement of people. Denmark took a good step along that way in 1973 when it joined the European Union, which of course now has 1 passport and allows the free movement of people within the Union. A further step worth considering would be to open the EU’s borders to other members of the OECD.
I would be interested in any argument against Australia negotiating a reciprocal open borders agreement with any member of the OECD.
Thanks for the feedback. As Gavin seems to appreciate, I’m not saying that support for free trade requires that you support open borders; lots of people who think immigration is basically a good thing still support some restrictions on it. But surely there’s a tension, to say the least, between being pro-trade but positively anti-immigration.
As to the argument from self-interest, it only takes you so far. The evidence shows pretty clearly that countries generally benefit from immigration, just as they benefit from trade. Within a country, of course, there will be both winners and losers, but it’s not obvious that the losers (or perceived losers) from immigration wouldn’t also be losers from trade. Hence my doubts about the long-term prospects of a political strategy that appeals to one but not the other.