How do you argue against a Social Democrat??

[Post-Something]

How do you argue against a Social Democrat?? They have the same aims, but different methods of reaching them.

Actually, how do argue against anyone who wants a heavy welfare problem? Do I just stick to the "classes are essentially bad" argument or what?

Thirdly, I'm going to be informally debating a Democrat tomorrow. She's a Christian Conservative and religiously sticks to her arguments. I know it sounds like an easy debate, but I've heard she's really good, and I don't know where exactly to begin. Any pointers??

[Yehuda Stern]

I don't think it's true at all that social-democrats have the same aim as revolutionaries. In the past, social-democrats claimed to be anti-Leninist Marxists. Today, the difference between reformist social-democrats and revolutionary Marxists is pretty clear.

[Post-Something]

An Egalitarian society? Anyway, I need to know how to argue against these people!

[OI OI OI]

You ask them.

How do you view socialism?(because they talk about socialism)
How is it possible that the working class and the rich will conciliate to create socialism?
Isn't your socialist society full of class antagonisms? (the rich want lower wages , more profits , the workers want more wages less profits for the boss) .

Also won't the society have the market circle since its economic basis will be the free market?
Therefore how can you maintain the reforms such as free health care when every now and then you have a a recession and you need to cut off on social programs?

Those are some of my cliches I thought from the top of my head right now.

And they seem to work.

[Die Neue Zeit]

OI got it almost correct. I say "almost" because the second and third questions are worded to fit into the mainstream definition of "class."

I would ask the following:

1) What do you think is the end goal of "social democracy"? [Because both it and "democratic socialism" can have both class-strugglist and class-collaborationist tendencies]
2) What kind of class antagonisms, if any, exist?
3) Is parliamentary "democracy" the only form of "democracy" possible?

[GPDP]

I second Jacob's question regarding the aims of the social democrats. Are the SDs in question aiming for Sweden, or for the Paris Commune? In other words, are they seeking to humanize capitalism as much as possible, or to abolish it altogether, albeit in a gradual, evolutionary fashion?

Obviously, those seeking to abolish it have a lot in common with us. It is the ones that don't think we can progress past a heavily welfare-based capitalism that are a problem. Are these the kind of people you seek to argue with?

[Random Precision]

Well, Eduard Bernstein, the original social-democrat, started from the idea that capitalism was on the way to stabilizing itself and overcoming its natural anarchy. Thus if capitalism was a stable system it would have no more deep crises, and thus there would be no opportunity for revolution. He came out with all that in the earliest years of the twentieth century, so it's safe to say that most social-democrats nowadays believe that capitalism is generally a stable system.

You can start from a basic critique of that point of view, pointing out the crisis that occurs every 10-15 years. What's coming out of the subprime mortgage situation (with the high priests of neoliberalism being forced to nationalize two mortgage giants) looks like the first signs of one such crisis. If you can get them to admit that capitalism is nowhere near stable, you've won most of the battle. With the probability of revolution still there, you can force them to take a good look at the nature of the bourgeoisie as far as granting reforms go and so on.

Also, read Reform or Revolution by Rosa Luxemburg. It's the first coherent argument against reformism from a Marxist perspective, and still possibly the best.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Obviously, those seeking to abolish it have a lot in common with us. It is the ones that don't think we can progress past a heavily welfare-based capitalism that are a problem. Are these the kind of people you seek to argue with?

I'm not so sure. The evolutionary socialists tend to downplay class struggle of any kind (even the legal kind). :(

On the other hand, there can be non-socialist class-strugglists, as well as socialist-but-reform-minded class-strugglists...

[Post-Something]

The three people I am debating with are:

1. A social democrat who believes in an egalitarian, stateless, classless society etc, but he thinks this is a very far off goal, as it would have to be worldwide. So he supports it being done within the system.

2. A person who doesn't mind the capitalism, as long as it's mixed in with lots of welfare; making it less "harsh". Meaning, that you will be protected from starvation, helped to find a job etc.

3. A Democrat. Christian Conservative. Total *****. Also, pro-life. This is the one I'm debating tomorrow. I want to know which points I should bring up first in front of her. From where I should start the debate.

Thanks for the responses so far guys. Especially Oi Oi Oi's thing about maintaining reforms.

EDIT: RE: Random Precision: What is crisis and why does it happen? What examples are there of this? In the UK?

[GPDP]

So basically, your opposition is a social democrat sympathetic to communism, a modern liberal, and a conservative Democrat?

I'm starting to like this debate. What point will you be arguing, anarchist or Marxist?

[Post-Something]

Yes! Exactly! And I'll be arguing Trotskyist.

[Die Neue Zeit]

A social democrat who believes in an egalitarian, stateless, classless society etc, but he thinks this is a very far off goal, as it would have to be worldwide. So he supports it being done within the system.

Then you don't need to ask him #1 above. Please do, however, ask him #2 (class struggle), and #3 (the reduction of "democracy" to parliamentarism, and contrast this to Venezuelan communal councils, historical soviets, and participatory democracy).


A person who doesn't mind the capitalism, as long as it's mixed in with lots of welfare; making it less "harsh". Meaning, that you will be protected from starvation, helped to find a job etc.

This is a more typical "social-democrat" of the post-war European consensus type, actually. Well, maybe GPDP is right, but ask him about nationalizations (to distinguish social liberalism from Cold War "social democracy").

[Random Precision]

EDIT: RE: Random Precision: What is crisis and why does it happen? What examples are there of this? In the UK?

Basically a crisis is when a capitalist economy has a temporary breakdown, which usually leads to intensified class struggle, and revolutions can happen if the workers are well organized enough. There are several types of crisis, like a monetary crisis (i.e., the rampant inflation in Weimar Germany), or a mortgage crisis (like we see the beginnings of in the United States). Crises are a natural feature of capitalism and since its rise have occurred every 10-15 years. The best example is the Great Depression, and we can also talk about the 1987 stock market crash and the scenes in Europe/United States in the late seventies.

Marx described a couple of ways a crisis can occur. First, profit under capitalism tends to fall, which at points leads to a slow-down in production, and if it happens in enough key industries, a crisis. Also, if capitalists attempt to push down wages of their workers, there will be inadequate consumer demand, which also leads to a slow-down in production.

I'm kind of rambling here, but marxists.org has a good, brief introduction to crisis theory here: http://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/c/r.htm#crisis-of-capitalism

[Kwisatz Haderach]

The basic argument against social democracy is this: Social democracy is a nice idea, but it doesn't work. The capitalists might allow your welfare state and national health care for a while, but as soon as they're no longer afraid of a socialist revolution they will take it all back. Look around you: Social democracy has been in retreat for 30 years. How exactly do you plan to reverse this trend?

[Kwisatz Haderach]

3. A Democrat. Christian Conservative. Total *****. Also, pro-life. This is the one I'm debating tomorrow. I want to know which points I should bring up first in front of her. From where I should start the debate.
I would attack her by pointing out the incompatibility between Christian morality and capitalism. Arguments between me and Christian conservatives usually go like this:

Me: Capitalism is based on greed and selfishness. These are sins. Why do you support a system that promotes sin?
CC: Free will! People must be free to choose whether or not they sin.
Me: Murder is a sin too. To respect free will, do you think we should allow people to choose for themselves whether or not they murder?
CC: No, no, of course not.
Me: Why not?
CC: Um, well, murder hurts other people.
Me: Capitalism hurts other people too.
CC: No it doesn't.
Me: Yes it does, and let me explain how...

At this point, the Christian aspect of their politics has been effectively neutralized, and all arguments must revolve around the question of whether capitalism hurts people or not. Christian morality cannot be brought up again, because if the CC does it then I'll remind him that capitalism promotes sin, which will force him to fall back on secular arguments.

[La Comédie Noire]

@ the social democrat:

Where would we be if the capitalists had decided to work within the constraints of feudal society? In fact they did try it and for 600 years it got them zilch. That's exactly what working within Bourgeoise society will get you, more of the same!

@ the modern liberal:

If companies won't pay for social welfare anymore and the middle class is becoming poorer by the year then who will pay for all these reforms? After all most(all?) reforms come from progressive taxation and if no one is willing to pay or unable to pay then you're pretty much sunk.

It's important to keep in mind most people aren't aquainted with the class struggle paradigm, so you might want to take some time to explain historical materialism to the class. Other wise your arguments will fall on deaf ears.

[Demogorgon]

The best way to argue with a social democrat is to agree with as many of their goals as possible, but challenge them on how they are to be achieved and maintained given the collapse of the post-war consensus. They might very well say they wish to return to this, but point out that if it can be torn up once, it can be torn up again.

Next argue that while social democracy was certainly nice for what it was, it never really achieved what its proponents wished for. It was an attempt to tame capitalism but capitalism is not an easy beast to tame. It is difficult to argue too heavily that the results of it were bad as they were so blatantly better than the results of more laissez-faire capitalism which is the only other system we really know, but all the same, the results were only a very partial improvement.

Argue that social stratification is a huge problem, the Social Democrat will almost certainly agree, point out that social democracy failed to solve this and sometimes even allowed it to get worse, albeit at a much slower rate than laissez-faire does.

Arguing that revolution is better than working within the system does not really work because it is possible to be a revolutionary social democrat and a not particularly revolutionary socialist, rather you have to argue against the actual policies.

[Post-Something]

I would attack her by pointing out the incompatibility between Christian morality and capitalism. Arguments between me and Christian conservatives usually go like this:

Me: Capitalism is based on greed and selfishness. These are sins. Why do you support a system that promotes sin?
CC: Free will! People must be free to choose whether or not they sin.
Me: Murder is a sin too. To respect free will, do you think we should allow people to choose for themselves whether or not they murder?
CC: No, no, of course not.
Me: Why not?
CC: Um, well, murder hurts other people.
Me: Capitalism hurts other people too.
CC: No it doesn't.
Me: Yes it does, and let me explain how...

At this point, the Christian aspect of their politics has been effectively neutralized, and all arguments must revolve around the question of whether capitalism hurts people or not. Christian morality cannot be brought up again, because if the CC does it then I'll remind him that capitalism promotes sin, which will force him to fall back on secular arguments.

This is brilliant, I'm using it today.

Also, thanks to everyone else, especially for explaining crisis etc.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Arguing that revolution is better than working within the system does not really work because it is possible to be a revolutionary social democrat and a not particularly revolutionary socialist, rather you have to argue against the actual policies.

Comrade, I'm not sure that the label "revolutionary social-democrat" would apply. Maybe the term "revolutionary welfare-democrat" or "revolutionary progressive-democrat" or whatever, because they're willing to consider the post-parliamentary, participatory democracy (perhaps even in the extreme form of demokratia), but "revolutionary social democracy" has always been associated with state-capitalist monopoly "socialism" (Lenin).

[Sendo]

talk about inherent contradictions in ccapitalism (reread some passages from Kapital and I highly highly highly recommend James O'Connor, who writes well on contradictions).

As others,, talk about the opposite interests of the classes.

Ask how social democracy can achieve its goals in an environment of bourgeois politics and centralized wealth. discuss how capital will always seek a system of unbridled growth. Discuss how the free market creates waste and crap via planned obsolescence.

This is probably too late. But worth noting for anyone in the future.

[politics student]

Thirdly, I'm going to be informally debating a Democrat tomorrow. She's a Christian Conservative and religiously sticks to her arguments. I know it sounds like an easy debate, but I've heard she's really good, and I don't know where exactly to begin. Any pointers??

Simple let her start.

Listen carefully and then rip apart.

Make sure you control the direction the debate is taking and don't let her bait you to changing the current area to debate.

[Lenin's Law]

The basic argument against social democracy is this: Social democracy is a nice idea, but it doesn't work. The capitalists might allow your welfare state and national health care for a while, but as soon as they're no longer afraid of a socialist revolution they will take it all back. Look around you: Social democracy has been in retreat for 30 years. How exactly do you plan to reverse this trend?

Bingo! Well put.

Social Democracy is idealistic and naive in the extreme. They basically wish to create a "good" capitalism where the bourgeois will "play nice", make concessions to the working class, the antagonisms between the classes will be reconciled and we'll all live happily ever after! Bourgeoisie and proleteriat holding hands with those soft and fuzzy capitalists doing what's best for the whole of society because...it's the right thing to do after all! You can immediately point out how naive this all sounds, the inherent contradictions and also how demeaning it is...why should the working class depend on the bourgeoisie profiting off its labor for a bigger crumb off their table?

As Kwisatz pointed out, Social Democracy is on the retreat everywhere, the welfare state is crumbling fast in places where it existed and we can expect more of the same in the future. Why? Because history is determined by materalistic factors, not idealistic ones; the ruling class in some places believed the best way to offset the revolutionary threat in their countries was to offer them a somewhat bigger crumb off the table in the form of these welfare benefits. However, with the falls of the USSR, the perceived absence of the revolutionary threat, and the rise of speculation in the search for quick profits instead of the traditional industrailization/manufacturing businesses, the welfare state has shown how unstable it truly is as it is being attacked and in places where it existed it is now just a mere shadow of it's former itself. In other countries, it is basically removed entirely.

Thus Social Democracy is inherently unstable as the workers, the vast majority depend on the "goodwill" of the minority to give it these welfare-releated benefits. When the capitalists decide it is no longer useful, the working class can do next to nothing to stop it. Precisely because the means of production, the economic power is still in the hands of the capitalists, in the hands of the parasitic few who effectively run society.

The heyday of liberal reformism and welfare politics are long gone and they are not coming back. Instead expect more demands for "sacrifices", cutbacks and austerity measures for working people to bail out the reckless greed and criminiality of a capitalist minority.