Communism, Socialism, and Social Democracy

[Burn A Flag]

Anyway, I've had a bit of trouble differentiating communists, socialists, and social democrats.

here is what I think they are (beliefs of each group)

Communist: overthrow of state and creation of Labour state and eventual stateless classless society (DOTP)

Socialist: Kind of an all encompassing group that everyone who wants a stateless classless society falls into, (including anarchist and communist)

Social Democrat: values capitalism with reforms like healthcare and welfare "capitalism with a human face" (are these even considered socialists?)

Please correct any of my notions about these 3.

Also, Western Europe is social democrat right? I hear liberals call it socialists so I want to get some opinion here. Also Belarus. Would you call them a mixed State Capitalist/Free Market economy? I know little about it but i've heard no good things so I doubt it's really a labor state.

[Paulappaul]

Communist: overthrow of state and creation of Labour state and eventual stateless classless society (DOTP) If we value First International's use of term, and in the spirit of the Paris Commune, no. Anarchists in this sense are Communists too.

Communist is an advocate of a Stateless society wherein there is struggle against remnants of the previous, sometimes called the Lower - Stage of Communism or the Rulership of the Proletariat.

Labor state doesn't really mean anything. Most of us labor, hell even alot of Bourgeois labor. Should they be a part of the "Labour" State? That's nonsense.


Socialist: Kind of an all encompassing group that everyone who wants a stateless classless society falls into(including anarchist and communist) Yes and no. Socialist is really just a wide term for those critical of the prospects of Capitalism.


Social Democrat: values capitalism with reforms like healthcare and welfare "capitalism with a human face" (are these even considered socialists?)Social Democrat in the past didn't mean that. See Second International Social Democracy for example. The modern use is exactly that though.

[Burn A Flag]

So what about Democratic Socialists vs Social Democrats? Are they the same, do most social dems now support capitalism while democratic socialists don't?

[Paulappaul]

So what about Democratic Socialists vs Social Democrats? Are they the same, do most social dems now support capitalism while democratic socialists don't?

Democratic Socialists: I feel as though they are best represented in the Socialist Party of Great Britain. They advocate the Full Demand in Parliament for the immediate transition to Socialist economy wherein the Workers' Manage Production through a sort of Nationalization.

It's called impossibilism. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impossibilism) Although there are other sorts of brands of Democratic Socialism under Marxist lines. I think the SP-USA which I am a sorta member of is very radical in its demands and descends from a pretty solid Marxist background.

Other Democratic Socialists will refuse Marxism, specifically in spite of the Soviet Union but will still maintain a form of Socialism.

Social Democrats today just argue for Reform. There's not must revolutionary character in them.

[yobbos1]

The people who call themselves social democrats in my country are such complete sellouts, I can barely bring myself to utter the term.
They seem to be leftist wannabes with a complete lack of any real conviction in their policies. Interested more in grandstanding for the public and quietly lining their pockets while they think everyone is looking the other way. Or does that sound too cynical?
Anyone calling themselves social democrat in my experience is NOT to considered leftist in any meaningful sense.

[28350]

Anyway, I've had a bit of trouble differentiating communists, socialists, and social democrats.


The problem people always have with terminology is because the significance of the name often combines both historical material conditions and the current philological significance of the word itself.

A communist is someone who advocates a stateless and classless society, based on the common ownership of the means of production.

A socialist is a little bit more difficult to define, because the historical meaning has changed so much. At one time, a socialism and communism were synonyms.

Socialism as an economic system started to be differentiated from communism around the time of the development of the transitional stage.

Socialism as an ideology started to be differentiated from communism around the time of the break in the 2nd International (now called the Socialist International) over the issue of WWI. The anti-war socialists split from the pro-war patriotic reformists, and the latter became to be known as socialists in accordance to popular conception of socialism's position as communism-lite.

This conception is very popular nowadays, with the difference between the capitalist conception of socialism and the communist conception of socialism.

The difference between these two ideas about an idea is wide, but basically, the capitalist thinks of socialism as central planning, where as the communist thinks of socialism as worker's ownership. When someone calls themselves a socialist, you can tell if they're a capitalist or a communist based on what they say socialism is. This is because of the culture (of capitalism)'s obsession with the conflation of fascism with communism à la "totalitarianism," thus putting governments or people self-proclaimedly "socialist" as closer to capitalism than communism is.

Because of all the different definitions, socialism is generally regarded as an ideology with loose definitions (as in, "communists and anarchists are both socialists", or, "Bernie Sanders is a socialist").

Social Democrats are further examples of this phenomenon. The term social democrat originally meant revolutionary communist, but the term has since been re-appropriated to the likes of the proponents of the Scandinavian economic system. In many senses, they are what communists call those capitalists call socialist. They are fundamentally not revolutionary - they believe in the reform of capitalism, and not just the reformation of capitalism into socialism, but the reformation of capitalism into a "nicer" capitalism.