Fuzzy left

In fact, since I would rather wait for next year before I get in any more trouble, I will just take a little time now to walk around my garden, and identify these few main questions that I will try to raise, hopefully with some relevant insights, in the coming year. Two main questions really, one deeper, one less so. Well, they’re actually two sides of the same, which is basically this one: whatever will happen to the left? On the deeper side, will the left be able to rethink itself so as to confront the real world? And on the surface, how will it transform its own incarnation in this very reality?

Obviously, the way I ask the deeper question implies that something is wrong there, and I sure think so. Left-wing economic analysis is broken, for one thing, and its philosophical roots in the Enlightenment era have gotten way too mythological, which is completely out of sync with the notion of human progress, which is its cornerstone. So much for the deep stuff. It’s all perspective anyway, and objects are needed for observation if we are to make use of perspective.

So what about the surface? Well, here’s what will keep my attention focused next year. At the widest angle, I’m interested in what will happen with at least three countries: Turkey, Iran, and Brazil. Obvious question is how will Europe deal with the first; less obvious is if and how the other two can play a leading role in their region while stabilizing relationships between current and future superpowers. Two other major issues also, I guess, are how will Africa get its act together (and what priority this will get from the new UN secretary), and if the Arab world can re-construct an identity around something else than Israël. Fun for the whole family here. Basic theme: can underlying inequalities be alleviated without political radicalization?

Now at a more manageable level, I’ll certainly be following at least four characters closer to home. Outside Canada, two women, Ségolène Royal and Hilary Clinton, have already helped tremendously in their respective countries, it seems to me, to give a sort of maturity to the liberal outlook, in the north american sense of the word “liberal”. Both presidential elections will certainly benefit from this, and so will our understanding of where the left is going, post-Tony Blair, in the developed world. Inside Canada, though, it’s two men that I’m anxious to know better: new Liberal leader Stéphane Dion at the federal level, and current health minister Philippe Couillard in Québec.

In fact, these two men are actually way more interesting to me for what we don’t know yet about them than for what we do: will they be able - and are they willing, actually - to merge convictions about the valuable role of the State in the economy, with actions that allow the State to play this role efficiently? It may seem more natural though to ask this question about a party leader than about a health minister. Many do see Mr Couillard as the successor to Jean Charest, but it’s not my main take on it. I’m more concerned about the fact that healthcare policy is a major building block of our traditional left-wing vision of the role of the State, and that if we can’t make more progress, soon enough, about opening to the private sector than we have, tax revolts could just get us deeper in a more conservative world as a result. The left has no clue how to deal with this, and is thus partly responsible for the social costs of the choices made in the meantime.

Finally, this brings me to the one issue in Québec that I will be very interested about in this election year, more so actually than both sovereignty and the so-called so-called fiscal imbalance: will we get serious about moving away from post-secondary tuition freezes once and for all? Subsidizing rich kids to become richer is no way to mitigate economic inequalities, and a free market for brains is way too important a signalling device to be neglected, with the complex challenges we now face in all areas of collective endeavors. How will the left deal with this one? Dunno. But opening some mental windows is becoming urgent.

Well, a Happy New Year to all.