Social liberalism vs social democracy

[Ovi]

Probably a stupid question, as I should have done more research. Anyway, what's the difference? The only kind of liberalism I knew of until recently was neo-liberalism, and it was kind of weird reading posts on Revleft talking about it like it was left wing. So is the difference about personal freedom? market?

[L.A.P.]

Social/Modern Liberalism is an off shoot of liberalism but includes social justice and some public intervention in the market (regulated-market capitalism). This rejects the ideas of Economic/Classical Liberalism.

Social Democracy is an ideology that believes in reforming the economy (assuming the economy is capitalist) to be more aligned with social justice and economic democracy while still having a capitalist mode of production. This ideology is actually where revisionism comes from because it rejected revolution for reform and only used some parts of marxism while disregarding the materialist ideas for idealist ones.

[syndicat]

they differ in their origin, and in their original class base. advocacy of laissez faire and free trade were the original form of liberalism, an ideology designed to restrict the ability of society or the state to restrain capitalist activities. the "freedom" was the freedom of the capitalist or property-owner. in the USA "liberalism" began to change its meaning due to the "Progressive" movement of the early 1900s, which was a middle class movement...small business, professionals, and middle managers...against the abuses of the plutocratic tycoons and big companies of that era. this was when there began a middle-class based movement to restrict capitalist activity, in response to popular protest and maintain legitimacy.

social democracy in origin was a socialist ideology that aimed to replace capitalism with socialism, but was based on a parliamentary strategy. from the time of Berstein on, increasingly the "movement" became everything, and the goal faded in importance. the parties were often dependent on the trade union bureaucracies. so social democratic practice includes both collective bargaining by bureaucratized trade unions. from the '20s on these parties came to appeal increasingly for votes to the middle class. in the neoliberal era of the past several decades, they have come to abandon even rhetorical socialism, and some have become independent of their original trade union creators (as in UK). increasingly they've come to adapt neo-liberal ideology, to cater to middle class voters. nonetheless, the existing welfare states of the European countries with social democratic parties are still more generous than the thinner welfare state enacted under liberalism in the USA.

Liberalism was historically also opposed to not only state constraints on business but also to certain kinds of state control over personal behavior, such as enforced religion, subsidies to churches, and has also taken up private discrimination such as against gays, racial minorities etc. the idea being that discriminatory behavior by private parties can be destructive of the freedom of others.

in the USA the more original less statist form of liberalism...rightwing liberalism of the laissez faire variety...tried to appropriate the "libertarian" name from the '60s on.

[Desperado]

The only kind of liberalism I knew of until recently was neo-liberalism, and it was kind of weird reading posts on Revleft talking about it like it was left wing.

Social liberalism, (modern) social democracy, classic liberalism... are all "neoliberalist", which just means market driven - as in a fairly open market (so with a capitalist mode of production) is what creates the lion's share of the countries wealth.

Before I read Marx and became a radical lefty, I had some difficulty deciding as to whether I advocated social liberalism or social democracy, but really the difference is hardly clear cut. Social democrats tend to advocate more nationalisation and more taxes, whereas social liberalism it's just about providing certain services and welfare by taxing a free market. But really there's a lot of overlap.

Outside economics, social democrats tend to be more authoritarian on certain individual rights and instead focusing on the greater good - social democrats are often stricter on drugs, alcohol, compulsory education, whereas advocates of social liberalism would be far less strict. With the older social democrats (actual non-revolutionary socialists) this was sometimes more pronounced - for example how the Fabian society had some eugenics themes. Social democrats also tend to have a more class analysis, whereas social liberalism again it's on individual rights.

[Queercommie Girl]

Liberalism was historically also opposed to not only state constraints on business but also to certain kinds of state control over personal behavior, such as enforced religion, subsidies to churches, and has also taken up private discrimination such as against gays, racial minorities etc. the idea being that discriminatory behavior by private parties can be destructive of the freedom of others.


I don't see these as exclusive to "liberalism", whether left or right wing economically, at all. I don't think genuine Marxism is socially or morally conservative, and since communism actually calls the abolishment of the state, "state control over personal behaviour" becomes a kind of non-issue essentially.

Communism aims for a society based on the "free association of free producers".

The difference is that actually Marxism's position on personal freedoms is more advanced because it suggests that the only way to fight against discrimination etc is through collective struggle, whereas for liberals it's just considered to be a "purely private issue". But without socialising such things, objectively discrimination never actually goes away.

For a liberal, LGBT rights are just about "personal sexual freedom".

For a socialist, LGBT rights are about the collective political and socio-economic struggle of an oppressed community.

[Zanthorus]

from the time of Berstein on, increasingly the "movement" became everything, and the goal faded in importance.

This is false, the SPD completely rejected Bernstein's 'Evolutionary Socialism'. Somewhat ironically, Bernstein actually formed part of the SPD opposition that became the USPD when the SPD reichstag delegates voted for war credits.

[Die Neue Zeit]

^^^ I've edited my work to clarify on Bernstein's relationship with the really yellow tred-iunionisty.


from the time of Bernstein on, increasingly the "movement" became everything, and the goal faded in importance

To a certain extent Bernstein was correct, but only to a certain extent. The worker-class movement, as opposed to mere "labour movements" to its right and exclusive communist sect formations to its left, is everything while the goal is very, very secondary.

[syndicat]

This is false, the SPD completely rejected Bernstein's 'Evolutionary Socialism'. Somewhat ironically, Bernstein actually formed part of the SPD opposition that became the USPD when the SPD reichstag delegates voted for war credits.


why do you think i was talking about the German social democratic party in the '20s? I suggest reading "The Primacy of Politics: Social Democracy and the Making of Europe's Twentieth Century" by Sheri Berman. she sees Bernstein's revisionism as a key original source of social democratic ideology. She notes that this ideology did not become dominant in the SPD in the '20s. in her view the SPD was paralyzed by having no actual strategy, not willing to abandon its previous version of Marxism nor adopt anything else.

But when I mentioned the '20s, I had in mind the Swedish Social Democratic Workers Party, which began to coopt nationalist rhetoric (with their talk of the Swedish "People's Home") and abandon a "class struggle" framework in the '20s. This set the stage for the 1932 SAP election victory.

[Die Neue Zeit]

The original source of Social-Democratic ideology today is not in Bernstein, but in Marx's observation of class-collaborationist French Social-Democracy in Brumaire (where the term first arose). Once again, Sheri Berman strikes out.

[syndicat]

The original source of Social-Democratic ideology today is not in Bernstein, but in Marx's observation of class-collaborationist French Social-Democracy in Brumaire (where the term first arose).

well, it seems you're confusing practice and ideology. i would see the basis of social democracy as a tendency that emerged out of socialism in its parliamentary strategy.

[Die Neue Zeit]

The ideology of French Social-Democracy was "for a democratic and social republic." That's not confusing at all, when considering that "democratic" was already for some form of parliamentarism. It took the Paris Commune to make inroads against this "democratic" orthodoxy.

[syndicat]

it's certainly possible...likely...that various 19th century socialists were overly optimistic about what could be accomplished thru parliamentary means, given that there had been little experience with universal male suffrage (and none that included females) at that time. prior to the revolution of 1848 the right to vote was restricted to only the elite in France.

nonetheless, "democratic" is not a clear term. it's a contested term in that there are different interpretations of it. prior to Andrew Jackson in the US and prior to the revolution of 1848 in France, the dominating classes never said they were for "democracy." they identified that with direct democracy, as in Athens, or the tumultious section assemblies in French towns during the French revolution of 1789-93.