The Heirs Without a Testament

What would the founders of Belgium's major parties say if they saw their heirs? Exploring the liberal, socialist, and Christian-democratic roots.

Transparency note

This chronicle is the result of a collaboration between a human (Pépé) and an artificial intelligence (Claude, Anthropic). The guiding ideas, editorial line, and final validation are human. Documentary research and writing are AI-assisted.

Because AI can produce inaccuracies, every factual claim is sourced from verifiable academic, encyclopaedic, or journalistic documents. Sources are listed at the end of the article.

This text is the sole responsibility of its human editor.

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This week, I watched a political debate. Three parties clashed, each certain of carrying THE authentic tradition. And I wondered: what would their founders say if they saw this?

I went digging.

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The liberals: from emancipation to… something else

On June 14, 1846, the Liberal Party was born at Brussels City Hall. It was the first political party in Belgian history¹. Its founders? Lawyers, journalists, romantic young people who saw themselves as heirs to the great emancipatory movement of the late 18th century¹.

Their fight? The independence of civil power from the clergy. Concerned with improving the conditions of the working classes, the party was seen as a progressive formation — as the left of its era¹.

You read that right: the left. The liberals of 1846 defended the small against the powerful — royal arbitrariness, monopolies, clerical control over education.

Then came 1961. The party abandoned its original dividing line — emancipation from the Church — in favour of positioning itself on the owners-versus-workers axis. The flagship marker in successive programmes became the tax question².

The shift was complete: from a party that freed individuals from arbitrary powers, we moved to a party that frees… capital from fiscal constraints. The word “freedom” remained. Its meaning reversed.

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The socialists: from the streets to the palace

On April 5, 1885, the Belgian Workers’ Party was founded by a hundred delegates representing trade unions, mutual aid societies, and cooperatives³. Not professional politicians: workers, craftsmen, people who pooled resources to survive together.

Their founding text, the Charter of Quaregnon (1894), states that wealth constitutes the common heritage of Humanity and that the party presents itself as the defender of all the oppressed regardless of nationality, creed, race, or sex, in a true spirit of solidarity⁴.

This movement from below won immense rights: universal suffrage, the eight-hour day, social security. Real, indisputable victories.

But the price? The last decades of neoliberal erosion of the welfare state have been combined with what some observers call the “bourgeoisification” of social-democratic parties⁵. Some even note that, unlike the BWP of old, today’s social-democratic parties sometimes participate in dismantling the very achievements they helped build⁵.

The party of the oppressed now manages the system. Is that betrayal or a necessary evolution? The question deserves to be asked without passing judgment.

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The Christian democrats: from Rerum Novarum to managers

In 1891, the publication of the encyclical Rerum Novarum inspired believing militants, convinced of the urgency of creating legislation in favour of social justice, to found Christian democracy⁶.

These first Christian democrats were rebels within their own camp. Aware of the threat posed by the new workers’ party, this Christian-democratic tendency aimed to compete with the socialists on their own ground: setting up cooperatives, mutual aid societies, and Christian trade unions⁷.

The original idea? The Gospel commands social justice. The poor are not a fatality but a scandal. The Christian must act in the city, not merely pray.

Today? The two heir parties have drifted apart ideologically: CD&V became a centre-right party moving closer to Flemish nationalists, while the Centre démocrate humaniste shifted towards the centre-left, dropping any mention of Christianity from its name⁸.

The word “Christian” has even disappeared from the name on the French-speaking side. The social DNA inherited from Rerum Novarum has been diluted in managerial pragmatism.

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The universal pattern

Here is what I see, without accusing anyone:

1. A birth in urgency — Every movement is born from real suffering, from glaring injustice. The founders are often idealists, sometimes misfits within their own circles.

2. The conquest of power — The movement grows, organises, wins. This is necessary to change things.

3. Institutionalisation — To endure, you need permanent staff, offices, compromises. The movement becomes an apparatus.

4. Management replaces vision — One defends achievements more than conquering new horizons. “How to govern” replaces “why are we fighting.”

5. The words remain, the meaning evaporates — “Freedom,” “solidarity,” “social justice”: the labels remain on bottles whose contents have changed.

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This is not an accusation

I am not saying that all these evolutions are betrayals. Some are necessary adaptations. The world of 1846 is not that of 2026.

But I am saying this: when a party invokes its “founding values,” it is legitimate to check.

Not to humiliate. To understand. To measure the gap between the packaging and the contents. To know whether you are buying what you think you are buying.

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The question I leave you with

This phenomenon of semantic erosion, this drift between the original intention and current practice — do you see it elsewhere? In other countries? In other fields beyond politics?

Write to me. The garden is vast, and there are many roots left to unearth.

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Pépé

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Sources