"Social democracy is dead"

[The Machine]

I've seen left coms make the argument to more reformist radicals that social democracy is a dead tendency, and a return social democratic policies in europe is just as unrealistic as a communist revolution. Am I misunderstanding your argument or is this really what you think? I mean if you take even a quick look at the history of the 20th century you'll see bourgeois politics is a pendulum and you can see very reactionary eras like the 1910's and 20's preceded by the New Deal, and I think another shift like this in the bourgeois political structure is a lot more realistic in the near future than a revolution.

[RadioRaheem84]

But you're mostly thinking of the West. Those years were also followed by real revolutions happening in Russia, attempts in Germany, and labor struggles worldwide. This radical reaction to capitalism is what frightened the bourgeois into enacting more social democratic reforms.

Heck with the loss of the USSR and no more radical revolutions happening in the 90s, neo-liberalism reigned with a vengeance worldwide.

[The Machine]

Yeah but you also saw a period of reform before that during the progressive era where there weren't significant revolutions and the labor movement was comparatively weak as hell for the most part. I still think it's a fuck of a stretch to say that our current era of neo-liberalism is more likely to be followed by a worldwide communist revolution than reforms.

[RadioRaheem84]

Yeah but you also saw a period of reform before that during the progressive era where there weren't significant revolutions and the labor movement was comparatively weak as hell for the most part. I still think it's a fuck of a stretch to say that our current era of neo-liberalism is more likely to be followed by a worldwide communist revolution than reforms.

Labor movements were never weak or dispersed. There was always a clash, very violent ones at that. They always brought a response whether positive or negative from the higher ups. Before the new deal there were several socialist politicians elected to local office and populist or left leaning magazines were at all time high as far as subscriptions.

Even liberals admit this, just read Whats the Matter with Kansas by Thomas Frank.

Another good read is an article by the Monthly Review team titled, "Keynesians, It's the System".

http://monthlyreview.org/2010/04/01/listen-keynesians-its-the-system-response-to-palley

[ed miliband]

Labor movements were never weak or dispersed. There was always a clash, very violent ones at that. They always brought a response whether positive or negative from the higher ups. Before the new deal there were several socialist politicians elected to local office and populist or left leaning magazines were at all time high as far as subscriptions.

Even liberals admit this, just read Whats the Matter with Kansas by Thomas Frank.

Another good read is an article by the Monthly Review team titled, "Keynesians, It's the System".

http://monthlyreview.org/2010/04/01/listen-keynesians-its-the-system-response-to-palley

lol yeah but monthly review are basically keynesians themselves.

um, i'm too lazy and dumb to summarise the argument but i was reading this last night and it covers all you want to know...


Nevertheless, faced with this rapid transformation of worldwide capitalism, the response, on the left of the Left, has been appallingly weak. Most are content with denouncing the extreme neoliberalism of bosses and politicians. They seem to think that it’s possible to defend the social benefits of the previous period, and even to extend them a bit more, if only we could go back to the capitalism of yesteryear, that of the period just after the Second World War. Their proposals for the future recall the main points of the program of the Resistance, adopted in 1944.1 It is as if it were still necessary to fight Nazism, as if governments were willing to make concessions in order to assure victory – as if there has ever been a backwards motion in history. In this way they forget everything that constitutes the capitalist social relation in its present dynamic.


After the Second World War, destruction caused by war, and losses of value during the long depression that had preceded it, created a situation favourable to what economists call ‘growth.’ This growth is nothing less than a contradictory race to decrease the relative value of labour power while its absolute value increases. The political connections imposed by the antinazi alliance during the war allowed for a form of power-sharing both at a worldwide level (Eastern and Western blocs) and at the social level within Western countries (recognition of a certain legitimacy of struggles, allowing unions and left parties to represent the interests of labour). The ‘Fordist compromise’2 prevailed at the time. It consisted in establishing, through increasing wages, a rising ‘standard of living’ in exchange for an enormous growth in productivity and evermore arduous work. The value of the labour power employed, spread out over a greater number of workers, was increasing in absolute terms, but the total value of everything produced increased a lot more due to the growth of productivity. The sale of all these commodities – the basis of what was called at that time ‘consumer society’ – permitted the surplus value which appeared in production, the source of capitalist profit, to be transformed into additional capital that was reinvested in order to continually expand production. Yet this expansion contains an internal limit: at a certain point there is too much capital to valorise in relation to what it is necessary to produce and sell in order to maintain a profit. In actuality a dynamic equilibrium was maintained for more than two decades, up to the middle of the 1960s when a progressive decline set in, leading to the so-called ‘oil crisis’ of the 1970s.

http://riff-raff.se/texts/en/sic1-what-is-communisation

[Agathor]

Heck with the loss of the USSR and no more radical revolutions happening in the 90s, neo-liberalism reigned with a vengeance worldwide.

When was the last 'radical revolution'? Spain in the thirties? Greece in the fourties? It's been much longer than you think.

[RadioRaheem84]

When was the last 'radical revolution'? Spain in the thirties? Greece in the fourties? It's been much longer than you think.

If you think Spain had a radical revolution in the thirties then why discount the Cuban revolution or perhaps most if not all the national liberation struggles of the Cold War era? The Sandanista movement? Vietnam?

[ed miliband]

If you think Spain had a radical revolution in the thirties then why discount the Cuban revolution or perhaps most if not all the national liberation struggles of the Cold War era? The Sandanista movement? Vietnam?

what changes in social relations occurred under these "revolutions"?

[RadioRaheem84]

lol yeah but monthly review are basically keynesians themselves.

Yes, their brand of neo-Marxism share a lot with Post-Keynesian radicals like Joan Robinson.

[RadioRaheem84]

what changes in social relations occurred under these "revolutions"?

Basically what I was hinting at was that these movements tried to seek an alternative to corporate Western dominance. That's all.

But these movements were still a catalyst for maintaining the shaky compromises the upper echelons made with workers during the Cold War.

There is nothing to that extent today that would remotely intimidate the rulings classes.

[Agathor]

If you think Spain had a radical revolution in the thirties then why discount the Cuban revolution or perhaps most if not all the national liberation struggles of the Cold War era? The Sandanista movement? Vietnam?

I don't know much about Vietnam. Cuban revolution was just a guerrilla war with popular support, and it wasn't radical: Castro's stated intent was to restore the liberal constitution that Batista destroyed. In fact a few of the senior revolutionaries were anti-communists. The Nicaraguan Revolution was similar. They were fighting against dictatorship with the support, but not involvement, of the population.

[Grenzer]

Fuck Social-Deocracy.

Social-Democracy is dead. I mean you have a lot of parties today describing themselves as socialist, but they're just doctrinaire liberals. It's not really a problem of intent. When one party seizes control of the bourgeois state machine, the entire framework of the system makes it impossible for them to do anything other than work in the general interests of capitalism, regardless of what their intentions might be.

Well on second thought, social-democracy might not be dead. I'd say the Stalinists, Trotskyists, most of what we call "the left today, have basically filled the niche that social-democracy once occupied. Fuck it all, frankly.

[GiantMonkeyMan]

Yeah but you also saw a period of reform before that during the progressive era where there weren't significant revolutions and the labor movement was comparatively weak as hell for the most part. I still think it's a fuck of a stretch to say that our current era of neo-liberalism is more likely to be followed by a worldwide communist revolution than reforms.
The thing that's most interesting about this era is that the historic reformist parties have been proven to be just as strong supporters of neoliberalism and austerity as the conservative parties such as the Labour Party in the UK whose leader recently got booed at a large trade union demonstration and PASOK in Greece which has collapsed and been replaced by a coalition containing (supposedly) revolutionary parties amongst others. But just because more people are disenfranchised with their past 'worker' parties doesn't necessarily mean they want a revolution to completely change the system or even that a revolutionary situation would enact any significant change to society. Revolution can spark off at any time in periods of harsh economic climates such as the wave of revolts during the Arab Spring that kicked off after one man immolated himself in Tunisia. Yet, as we've seen from Egypt, nothing of real significant change has occured.

I guess my point is that, as communists or members of the radical left, we need to agitate for change that won't simply be reversed at the next election but simultaneously be pragmatic enough to defend and extend our hard earned rights.

[GerrardWinstanley]

Nobody can say for certain social democracy is dead, but I don't anticipate any return to social democratic politics in the West for a long time. Many of us expected a comeback for Keynesianism after the great credit collapse. But since it was a crisis of accumulation, it has actually mobilised the ruling classes to escalate their class war on the rest of society. This is the reason for austerity, accompanied by the bank bailouts in Europe.

It won't do to expect any quick solutions. Every mainstream political party in the wealthy European countries are in service to the banks, hedge-funds and corporations and nobody else, not even the middle classes. When in office, they effectively act as their debtors and, in the UK, the situation will not change in the slightest when the Labour Party is (probably) voted into power in 2015. We had Occupy London which suggested the possibility of a movement for democratic change, but which sadly fizzled out and made little difference in Westminster.

It's just going to take more time. When finally we can organise a mass movement against plutocracy that threatens the political classes, we may begin to see some changes. I would hope by this time that the uprisings in the South, the Latin American revolutions and the uprisings in the Middle East have crytallised and are fighting back against imperialism. This is what will presented with the opportunity for socialism.

[Geiseric]

Well we have to revive something like an Engels and Bebel era SPD, or the RSDLP, if we want to effectively wage the political war bringing socialism and marxism to the masses. I don't think a mass revolutionary party has been created any other way to date, without some kind of class consiousness built up by a marxist social democrat party. I mean we need something to marxism what Sinn Fein used to be towards Irish Republicanism (in the 20's)

[RadioRaheem84]

Social Democracy is not only dead but doesn't even exist in so called Social Democratic parties today.

Social Democrats of all stripes sold out in the 90s. They're now worse than conservative parties in some regards. While right wing parties left some of the social services they didn't cut in tact, social democrats have continued the deep cuts and reformed the existing social programs to fit neo-liberal efficiency; in effect making them worse.

From New Democrats in the US (Clinton and Obama) to New Labour in the UK.

Then when you get a REAL social democrat in power like Hugo Chavez, he looks like a freaking Bolshevik second coming of Stalin to the capitalist ruling class.


1.) in one way Social Democrats selling out in the 90s made conditions worse by continuing Thatherite/Reaganite policies and "reforming" social programs. This led people to believe that democrat or "left leaning" policies were responsible for the hard times we face today; i.e. states spending beyond their means but in reality were leveraging their nations future in debt.

2.) Social Democrats have moved to the right but still identify as "left", shifting the political discourse in most countries further to the right, making any notions of class struggle seem extremist.

3.) I consider myself a democratic socialist but some of the people ive talked to in the same category get way too cozy with the Dems.

[TheRedAnarchist23]

My country used to be a social democracy, then the troika came along...

[Geiseric]

Well hey check this out written by Engels

The war of 1870-71 and the defeat of the Commune transferred the centre of gravity of the European workers’ movement in the meantime from France to Germany, as Marx had foretold. In France it naturally took years to recover from the blood-letting of May 1871. In Germany, on the other hand, where industry — fostered, in addition, in positively hothouse fashion by the blessing of the French milliards — developed at increasing speed, Social-Democracy experienced a still more rapid and enduring growth. Thanks to the intelligent use which the German workers made of the universal suffrage introduced in 1866, the astonishing growth of the party is made plain to all the world by incontestable figures: 1871, 102,000; 1874, 352,000; 1877, 493,000 Social-Democratic votes. Then came recognition of this advance by high authority in the shape of the Anti-Socialist Law[456] (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1895/03/06.htm#n456); the party was temporarily broken up, the number of votes dropped to 312,000 in 1881. But that was quickly overcome, and then, under the pressure of the Exceptional Law, without a press, without a legal organisation and without the right of association and assembly, rapid expansion began in earnest: 1884, 550,000; 1887, 763,000; 1890, 1,427,000 votes. The hand of the state was paralysed. The Anti-Socialist Law disappeared; the socialist vote rose to 1,787,000, over a quarter of all the votes cast. The government and the ruling classes had exhausted all their expedients — uselessly, pointlessly, unsuccessfully. The tangible proofs of their impotence, which the authorities, from night watchman to the imperial chancellor had had to accept — and that from the despised workers! — these proofs were counted in millions. The state was at the end of its tether, the workers only at the beginning of theirs.
But, besides, the German workers rendered a second great service to their cause in addition to the first, a service performed by their mere existence as the strongest, most disciplined and most rapidly growing socialist party. They supplied their comrades in all countries with a new weapon, and one of the most potent, when they showed them how to make use of universal suffrage.
There had long been universal suffrage in France, but it had fallen into disrepute through the way it had been abused by the Bonapartist government. After the Commune there was no workers’ party to make use of it. It had also existed in Spain since the republic but in Spain election boycotts had been the rule for all serious opposition parties from time immemorial. The experience of the Swiss with universal suffrage was also anything but encouraging for a workers’ party. The revolutionary workers of the Latin countries had been wont to regard the suffrage as a snare, as an instrument of government trickery. It was different in Germany. The Communist Manifesto had already proclaimed the winning of universal suffrage, of democracy, as one of the first and most important tasks of the militant proletariat, and Lassalle had again taken up this point. Now that Bismarck found himself compelled to introduce this franchise as the only means of interesting the mass of the people in his plans, our workers immediately took it in earnest and sent August Bebel to the first, constituent Reichstag. And from that day on they have used the franchise in a way which has paid them a thousandfold and has served as a model to the workers of all countries. The franchise has been, in the words of the French Marxist programme, transformé de moyen de duperie qu'il a été jusquici en instrument d'emancipation — transformed by them from a means of deception, which it was before, into an instrument of emancipation.[458] (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1895/03/06.htm#n458) And if universal suffrage had offered no other advantage than that it allowed us to count our numbers every three years; that by the regularly established, unexpectedly rapid rise in our vote it increased in equal measure the workers’ certainty of victory and the dismay of their opponents, and so became our best means of propaganda; that it accurately informed us of our own strength and that of all opposing parties, and thereby provided us with a measure of proportion second to none for our actions, safeguarding us from untimely timidity as much as from untimely foolhardiness — if this had been the only advantage we gained from the suffrage, it would still have been much more than enough. But it did more than this by far. In election propaganda it provided us with a means, second to none, of getting in touch with the mass of the people where they still stand aloof from us; of forcing all parties to defend their views and actions against our attacks before all the people; and, further, it provided our representatives in the Reichstag with a platform from which they could speak to their opponents in parliament, and to the masses outside, with quite different authority and freedom than in the press or at meetings. Of what avail was their Anti-Socialist Law to the government and the bourgeoisie when election campaigning and socialist speeches in the Reichstag continually broke through it?
With this successful utilisation of universal suffrage, however, an entirely new method of proletarian struggle came into operation, and this method quickly took on a more tangible form. It was found that the state institutions, in which the rule of the bourgeoisie is organised, offer the working class still further levers to fight these very state institutions. The workers took part in elections to particular diets, to municipal councils and to trades courts; they contested with the bourgeoisie every post in the occupation of which a sufficient part of the proletariat had a say. And so it happened that the bourgeoisie and the government came to be much more afraid of the legal than of the illegal action of the workers’ party, of the results of elections than of those of rebellion.

[Yuppie Grinder]

Social Democracy isn't dead, it smells funny. Welfare State clearly isn't sustainable and it will collapse before I am old. As a result of that we are going to see a paradigm shift in mainstream politics, possibly an opportunity for the left.

[Let's Get Free]

Seeking to improve capitalism through reforms is a distraction from what really needs to be done.

[o well this is ok I guess]

[QUOTE=The Machine;2541897]you can see very reactionary eras like the 1910's and 20's preceded by the New Deal/QUOTE] Yeah, and then McCarthyism set in. Pendulums swing both ways, brah.

[Red Banana]

Seeking to improve capitalism through reforms is a distraction from what really needs to be done.

But seeking to improve the condition of the working class through reform can build the lasting organizational power to to do what really needs to be done.

Most people won't commit to a revolutionary organization if it doesn't seem like they'll be doing anything of value up until their revolution takes place, whenever that'll be. If you can show people the progress you can make in the mean time they'll be more willing to participate, and work for a later revolutionary goal. Agitation of the capitalist system empowers the working class and can foster revolution more efficiently than simply expecting people to suddenly realize revolutionary socialism is the way to go.

[Agathor]

Seeking to improve capitalism through reforms is a distraction from what really needs to be done.

But the fact that 'what needs to be done' is not going to be done any time soon - if ever - changes this.

[Yuppie Grinder]

Seeking to improve capitalism through reforms is a distraction from what really needs to be done.

You won't find anyone who disagrees with you here. We're not talking about whether or social democracy/liberalism are bourgeois or not, we're talking about whether or not they're alive and kicking.

[Geiseric]

Social Democracy, as in the old SD from the 1800s and early 1900s, was in no way bourgeois. Social Democrat was synonymous with Communist, so if communism is more or less alive in the 1st world, it depends on which country, but usually it's a glaring no unless we're looking at imperialized countries.