Social democracy

[Bombay]

I find it hard debating a person who believes in social democracy. They are more arrogant than the right wing nuts because they are in a stronger position. They admit it's not perfect but it's better than 'free market capitalism'. I know I'm probably waisting my time debating them but I'd like to know what are the main arguments against social democracy? Why shouldn't us socialists believe in social democracy? Of course you still have wage slavery social democracy but your average liberal doesn't take it seriously.

[ed miliband]

I find it hard debating a person who believes in social democracy. They are more arrogant than the right wing nuts because they are in a stronger position. They admit it's not perfect but it's better than 'free market capitalism'. I know I'm probably waisting my time debating them but I'd like to know what are the main arguments against social democracy? Why shouldn't us socialists believe in social democracy? Of course you still have wage slavery social democracy but your average liberal doesn't take it seriously.

Are they though? They ignore the fact that 'social democratic states' in northern / western are in their dying throes, a process that has been ongoing since the late 1970s, and even in their prime these places were far from perfect. They also seem to imagine that the European states they point to as perfect examples of a functioning society got to where they are without any class conflict at all.

[PoliticalNightmare]

In some ways, the welfare state (because that is essentially what "social" democracy boils down to, of course) is just as bad as the pure free market (I speak tongue-in-cheek, of course). The welfare state is a hierarchy in which, yes, the government do everything (or a lot) for the bottom earners. There is no spirit of rebellion, no urge to overthrow an evil and corrupt system to organise a self-managed democracy where workers work together in solidarity for their own economic betterment: no, the workers are just drowned in the ever rising floods of government bureacracy. There is no workplace democracy: its the same old hierarchical system with the employer employing a bunch of wage slaves to do his dirty work for him only this time, with social democracy, the employer is taxed a bit more by the government so the workers can get some benefits.

If they think it is a good thing, they are so, so badly mistaken: all it does is weaken that spirit of revolt: "things aren't going to get any better, guys, so lets just press on with the same old wage system - at least we have some benefits".

Of course, I speak tongue-in-cheek, social democracy isn't really worse than laissez-faire capitalism but if you tell them that it is, it might make them think a little.

[Zanthorus]

Historically workers have found themselves having to defend their interests against state-owned and regulated companies just as much as private ones:


After the demise of the Socialist League Engels played great store in the Independent Labour Party during the 1890s, at that time an outgrowth of the class struggle. Engels optimism was not borne out by events but at least at that time the ILP was the product of the class struggle, coming up against nationalised and municipalised enterprises, especially in the Great Northern Gas Strike, where pitched battles were fought against local council controlled utilities. The importance of this experience lay in the fact that they were fighting enterprises which some, especially the Fabians, were busily declaring to be socialism on the march!- Partito Comunista, The Burial of the CPGB: A Question of Traditions

The historical success of social-democracy was due to a peculiar balance of class forces, a balance which has long since dissapeared:


COR, on its website, says it “encourages a wide debate on how to protect the welfare state and develop an alternative programme for economic and social recovery”. No doubt one will indeed be formulated - no doubt, also, it will be a superfluous reinvention of the left-Keynesian wheel, which we may file away with the CPB’s People’s Charter, or the PCS union’s pamphlet There is an alternative. Inevitable references to the creation of ‘green jobs’ aside, such programmes cannot escape the 1970s.

Back then, such programmes - though they turned out to be a dead end - had some kind of objective basis. On the one hand, large and powerful workers’ movements existed as a counterweight to the direct assaults of capital; on the other, the existence of the Stalinist bloc created a real incentive to offer concessions to the working class. The decay of the former and demise of the latter in the 1980s and 90s mean that attempts to revive old Labourism appeal to not much more than nostalgia.http://www.cpgb.org.uk/article.php?article_id=1004180

EDIT: I should point out that a similar but more detailed argument to the above is developed in Geoff Pilling's The Crisis of Keynesian Economics (http://www.marxists.org/archive/pilling/works/keynes/index.htm), which also makes some interesting points about how Keynesians confuse the relationship between state-spending and the crisis-free expansion of capital.

[syndicat]

Social democracy came to dominate in certain European countries at the end of World War 2 because of revolutionary upheavals in Europen from World War 1 on. The capitalists were in weak position by the end of World War 2, socialist values had wide support in the working class in many European countries (unlike in the USA). The social democrats took advantage of this situation to apply Keynesian methods and create welfare state programs.

but: they can't get beyond capitalism...an ecologically unsustainable system built on class oppression and exploitation.

they think it's sufficient to try to use electoral politics and bureaucratic trade union collective bargaining to obtain some benefits for the working class.

they have a poverty stricken concept of democracy that thinks democracy is electing an oligarchy of politicians to make decisions for you.

their key methods of electoral politics and bureaucratic trade union bargaining are no longer able to work because capital has become far more assertive since the '70s. there is no longer the mass class concsiousness and mobilization of the period of the '10s to '30s which laid the basis for the capitalist concessions of the post-World War 2 era.

the social democratic parties in Europe have been degenerating for a long time. they've long abandoned any commitment to socialism, and many have become outright neo-liberal parties in their policies...such as the Spanish and German and British parties.

[Sosa]

just look at the austerity measures these social democracy countries have had to employ because they're tied to the market.

[PoliticalNightmare]

they have a poverty stricken concept of democracy that thinks democracy is electing an oligarchy of politicians to make decisions for you.

Wouldn't we anarchists agree with such a belief? I mean direct democracy (in the form of free associations) is, for obvious reasons, a fantastic system but representative democracy is exactly what you just described.

[syndicat]

Wouldn't we anarchists agree with such a belief? I mean direct democracy (in the form of free associations) is, for obvious reasons, a fantastic system but representative democracy is exactly what you just described.

"we" don't advocate representative government but direct democracy and extended via delegate democracy.

[PoliticalNightmare]

"we" don't advocate representative government but direct democracy and extended via delegate democracy.

That's what I mean though. You were criticising social democrats for criticising representative democracy when our stance isn't that different...

[syndicat]

That's what I mean though. You were criticising social democrats for criticising representative democracy when our stance isn't that different...

nope. that's not what i said. this is what I said:


they have a poverty stricken concept of democracy that thinks democracy is electing an oligarchy of politicians to make decisions for you.


here i am criticizing them for advocating representative government.

[PoliticalNightmare]

nope. that's not what i said. this is what I said:



here i am criticizing them for advocating representative government.

Ah, my apologies, I misunderstood you, sorry. Yes, a representative democracy is a definite evil and a joke to the word democracy.

[Die Neue Zeit]

No it isn't. You're confusing representative democracy with elections.

Delegative democracy, if taken to extremes, can degenerate into mob rule.

[Victus Mortuum]

- Lottery Representatives
- Elected Representatives
- Lottery Delegates
- Elected Delegates

The 4 main "democratic" systems of indirect "people's" governing.