Why NOT social democracy?

[Broviet Union]

If you were to debate someone who said that communism is dangerous (Khmer Rouge, Stalin and all that) and that social democracy is likely to be the form that best provides for human needs without resulting to authoritarianism, how would you respond?

[cyu]

Their definition of social democracy and mine might be different. Their definition of communism and mine might be different. But if it just ends up in an argument over semantics, then the debate would be useless.

Anarchists, for example, would say anarcho-communism is a form of communism. Obviously that would be far removed from authoritarianism.

[piet11111]

Social democracy is an ideology of compromise and for compromise to happen both sides need to be willing to sacrifice.

Capitalism clearly has become unable to sacrifice even the smallest of crumbs.

In fact what little we have has become an unsustainable burden to the capitalists ability to generate a profit.

The only possible outcome of such a situation is conflict AKA class war and in order for our side to win we need a fully socialist program and fight to make it happen and put an end to capitalism once and for all.

[Nevsky]

In the short term and on an exclusively national scale, social democracy as we had it in Germany and northern Europe was obviously a better place to live in than any of the "actually existed" socialist states. However, social democracy fails to live up to its values of freedom and social justice in the long run. We are witnessing just now how this model is falling apart step by step, the failed keynesian economics spawn more radically liberal capitalist lackeys (Reagan, Thatcher e.g.) and social justice ceases to exist in the former welfare states.

Even a well functioning social democratic state owes its success to being a part of the global capitalist machinery. While it does provide better living conditions to its own citizens compared to late USSR, China, socialist Romania, Khmer Rouge or whatever, it is still founded as much on third world exploitation as the completely asocial countries such as USA. Consequently, social democracy is no valid alternative to communism. If you seek permanent social justice, communism is the way to go, no matter how ugly the road of "actually existing socialism" may be.

[Kalania Voluminost]

Anything can be corrupted. Nothing is free from the erratic nature of the human element. If anything those examples just go to show why decentralization is so important, and federations serve better than states.

[Skyhilist]

Social democracy just taxes the ruling class more and doesn't actually remove them from power. Should we be complacent with society's most exploitative class being able to serve as the ruling class just because the change from their pockets is used to throw crumbs at the poor?

[goalkeeper]

Any concession given by the state and ruling class can also be taken away. You will be dependent upon the ability and/or the will of the state to carry out with social democracy or assault it.

It makes the working class dependent upon the bourgeois state. It means people have to draw on state agencies to supplement their income because their capitalist employers are underpaying them. It is a constant charity from the state and can be humiliating, mystifying the fact that the workers are themselves the creators of wealth. It also increases the power of the state over the working class. Next thing you know you have an army of busy-body bureaucrats from the local authority telling working class people how to raise their children, what to eat etc.

It also does not work. It can work when the economy is in a good state (e.g. post-ww2 in USA and Europe or New Labour years in the UK) but fluctuations in the economy and crises can see it not longer affordable (and ofc such crises and fluctuations are entirely created by the existence of capitalism).

[Fourth Internationalist]

If you were to debate someone who said that communism is dangerous (Khmer Rouge, Stalin and all that)

I'd tell them that Khmer Rouge and Stalin were not communists/never established socialism/their actions did not help create socialism.



and that social democracy is likely to be the form that best provides for human needs without resulting to authoritarianism, how would you respond?

Classical, or as I like to call it, real social democracy is Marxist/communist.

[GiantMonkeyMan]

People who equate communism to the Khmer Rouge are morons.

[cyu]

People who equate communism to the Khmer Rouge are morons.


Kind of like people who equate democracy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._Federal_Election_Commission), freedom (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradley_Manning), and human rights (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signature_strikes) with the United States ;)

[Nevsky]

I'd tell them that Khmer Rouge and Stalin were not communists/never established socialism/their actions did not help create socialism.

Stalin is a controversial figure within the communist movement but even as an anti-stalinist I'd never denounce Stalin like that to a non marxist person. I as a "stalinist" never outright denounce Trotsky or other famous marxists when debating a liberal. It simply sends the wrong signals and makes us look weak and estranged. Pol Pot on the other hand is a complete anti-marxist and should be clearly dissociated from communism. Say what you want about Stalin but his aim was the (socialist" future not the past. He developed industry, wanted socialist intelligentsia to rise; Pol Pot looked at some kind of idealized, romantic past, his ideas had nothing to do with marxism at all.

Ironically, Pol Pot and his thugs were historically the only ones to actually embody all of the typical red scare cliché-visions of communism: A hardcore collectivist, radical egalitarian, anti-intellectual working camp nightmare... and guess what? The stupid "land of the free" supported them

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

If you were to debate someone who said that communism is dangerous (Khmer Rouge, Stalin and all that) and that social democracy is likely to be the form that best provides for human needs without resulting to authoritarianism, how would you respond?

Communism is dangerous. Any movement that does not present a danger to the bourgeois order is irrelevant. And yes, communism is authoritarian to the extent that, as Engels puts it, revolutions are authoritarian by nature. To us, however, authoritarianism over the remnants of the bourgeoisie and the dregs of the old society is infinitely preferable over the bourgeois authoritarianism over the workers, the unemployed, women, the youth, LGBT people, national minorities and so on, which the hypocritical "social"-democrat tries to cover up in "socialistic" phrases.

[Orange Juche]

If you were to debate someone who said that communism is dangerous (Khmer Rouge, Stalin and all that) and that social democracy is likely to be the form that best provides for human needs without resulting to authoritarianism, how would you respond?

In bullet points because that's how I roll.

1) Social democracy is still inherently a system of theft seeing as there's still capitalists stealing surplus capital. A system based on theft is exploitative and inherently wrong.

2) Social democracy is (ironically) an undemocratic system, seeing as it's still capitalism and a "free" market.

3) As long as there is a "free" market there will always be incentives for corruption. Humans will do what the system's constructs have them do... if you have a society where profit (any system of capitalism) is the top motive, that will come at any cost. Speaking of danger, THIS is VERYT dangerous.

4) Ask the "developing" world how non-shitty and non-oppressive social democracy is working out on this planet.

[tuwix]

If you were to debate someone who said that communism is dangerous (Khmer Rouge, Stalin and all that) and that social democracy is likely to be the form that best provides for human needs without resulting to authoritarianism, how would you respond?

Democracy is built-in in each genuine socialism. It's jus not posiible otherwise. But so-called "social-democarcy" is compromised ideology of corrupted people to capitalists.

[Martin Blank]

If you were to debate someone who said that communism is dangerous (Khmer Rouge, Stalin and all that) and that social democracy is likely to be the form that best provides for human needs without resulting to authoritarianism, how would you respond?

First, a social-democratic system is capitalism with a slightly more "humane" appearance, due to the outright bribery of the working class (e.g., social welfare programs, the labor aristocracy, "official" labor unions, etc.). Workers will still be exploited, alienated and oppressed under social democracy, just as they are now.

Second, social democracy, as a form of capitalist rule, is only a temporary phenomenon. As long as the capitalist mode of production continues to exist, the tendency toward maximizing profits through maximizing exploitation continues to exist. And as we've seen historically, when the ruling classes decide that social democracy is no longer the best form of pacifying the working class and maximizing their profits, they toss it out rather unceremoniously.

Third, I would argue that "official Communism" and its various sub-trends are fundamentally the same as social democracy. We've seen this both through the actions of the "official Communists" in capitalist countries (especially after the Second World War) as well as in the existence of the USSR, China and the "people's democracies". The authoritarianism experienced in countries like the USSR was no different in qualitative terms than the authoritarianism that workers engaged in the class struggle have experienced under social-democratic capitalist regimes.

[MarxSchmarx]

piet11111 already identified the basic problem with "social democracy" or the system as it existed in northern Europe ex Britain and Ireland: it is just not sustainable under prevailing global capitalism, and has a historical track-record that seems decent only in light of the utter disaster that was Bolshevism.

One further problem, which others haven't noted, and which exposes my libertarian bias, is that "social democracy" is hardly a panacea.

For instance, there are people whose lives have effectively been forfeited and who languish in Norwegian prisons for crimes that only involve narcotics. As another example, people, including a revleft user, have been jailed for refusing conscription in Finland.

In my view, the idea that any state can continue to destroy individual lives with impunity over arbitrary and silly rules like drug laws or military service strike me as a serious failure of a liberatory society. They should be unacceptable not only to those of us on the left, but for those of us who treasure the sovereignty of people to run their own lives as they see fit without harm to others.

Combined with the more pragmatic failure of "social democracy" to survive the tide of neoliberalism, I think the case is abundantly clear that this "reformism for its own sake" strategy is an utter dead end.

[Flying Purple People Eater]

You do realise that the Khmer Rouge was openly supported by the US and China against the Vietcong, right? They even continued to recognize the monsters' sovereignty over Cambodia after the Vietcong invaded and stopped them killing anyone who didn't fit an artificially created stereotype Cambodian and putting on slave-farms everyone who did.

I mean, I hate Stalin but the USSR in the 50s isn't even comparable to that fascist hellhole and anyone who tells you otherwise doesn't know their history at all.

[Noa Rodman]

Because it requires to do boring hard work and I don't have enough talent for that.

[JPSartre12]

Because social democracy (as it currently stands, not the original social democracy vis-à-vis Bernstein) is still capitalism. Just because it's a "nicer" capitalism that tempers its markets with a little regulation, a few social programs, progressive taxation, etc does not eliminate the internal contradictions of a capitalist mode of production.

Social democracy is placation by the State's bourgeois-progressive reforms in that they sap the proletariat of any legitimate, revolutionary zeal that it might have had. By taking steps to improve (ever so slightly, just enough to prevent the seeding of revolutionary consciousness) the direct material conditions of the workers, the State is able to perpetuate itself. Social democrats are not socialists because the "reforms" that they champion are only forms of "softer" capitalism than there would be without them.

Social democracy is able to improve the standard of living for the working class, but that improvement is inversely proportional to the amount of class-consciousness that the works will develop. It's certainly nicer to live in a country with universal healthcare and education than one that doesn't, but we shouldn't fool ourselves into thinking that just because we may have those programs we are in socialism.