Socialism in decline in Europe

Washington Post:

Among the victims of the Great Recession: Europe's big-government, welfare-loving socialist parties, which so far have been unable to exploit voter anxiety over the perils of runaway capitalism.

In Germany, which will hold national elections Sept. 27, the pro-labor Social Democrats are headed to their worst showing in at least a generation, paving the way for the easy reelection of Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Despite public anger over rising joblessness and the souring of attitudes toward unregulated markets, the story is similar for left-wing parties across Europe. In France, the Socialist Party is in tatters and poses little threat to President Nicolas Sarkozy. In Italy, the weakness of the leftist opposition has helped Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, a billionaire, weather a series of personal scandals. In Britain, voters are poised to toss out the Labor Party, which has ruled since 1993.

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In Germany, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the Social Democrats' candidate for chancellor and Merkel's chief rival, unveiled a plan last month to create 4 million jobs and bring "full employment" to the country by 2020. But surveys found that only one in seven Germans found the proposal believable. Pundits mocked it as a modern-day version of the Five-Year Plans that never worked in communist East Germany.

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Steinmeier's primary challenge is that Merkel remains highly popular among voters, who credit her with adopting sensible middle-of-the-road policies while shying away from overly partisan politics. Although Germans vote for parties instead of individual candidates, a Forsa poll released Wednesday showed that 57 percent favored Merkel for chancellor, compared with 18 percent for Steinmeier.

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Rejecting the evils of socialism is the intelligent thing to do. It is a filed system that needs to be rejected so it cannot inhibit the ambitions of free people. It relies on a failed control freak model, and Obama and liberal Democrats like Pelosi are finding that few in the US are willing to try it either.