Difference between revisions of "Social democracy"

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(The Luxemburg murder is a fact, but it's not a bone of contention between Socialist and Social Democrats. They differ over policy.)
(Actually, failure to support revolution, or even real socialist doctrine, betraying Socialists when convenient and worming further right every day is a major bone of contention!)
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'''Social democracy''' is the idea that the [[state]] needs to provide security and equality for its people, but without the full apparatus of [[totalitarianism]].  This belief took hold most strongly in the Scandinavian region, with [[Sweden]] as the fullest demonstration of this. Many [[Socialists]] find this system too conciliatory, and point to the current neo-liberal policies of self-described Social Democratic parties such as Great Britain's "New Labour."
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'''Social democracy''' is the idea that the [[state]] needs to provide security and equality for its people, but without the full apparatus of [[totalitarianism]].  This belief took hold most strongly in the Scandinavian region, with [[Sweden]] as the fullest demonstration of this. Many [[Socialists]] find this system too conciliatory, and point to events like the murder of Rosa Luxemburg by German Social Democrats and current neo-liberal policies of self-described Social Democratic parties such as Great Britain's "New Labour."
  
 
There is still some debate over how well this worked; while in most judgments it did far better than the related, but deeply conservative "Christian democratic" movements of Central Europe, as well as Great Britain, it did not keep up economically the United States. Only one of the three Scandinavian countries, Norway, which has a great deal of oil, has a higher (PPP) GDP per capita than that of the USA. In social matters (for example social mobility) however, the Scandinavian countries tend to outstrip the USA by a good margin. It is also worth mentioning that the original Social Democrats would care little about GDP, as it measures only the wealth of the wealthiest. In terms of the [[GINI Coefficient]], which measures true per capita wealth, the United States does very poorly (Even worse than Russia) and is handily beaten by the European states. However, these days, Social Democrats are largely indistinguishable from their Conservative opponents.
 
There is still some debate over how well this worked; while in most judgments it did far better than the related, but deeply conservative "Christian democratic" movements of Central Europe, as well as Great Britain, it did not keep up economically the United States. Only one of the three Scandinavian countries, Norway, which has a great deal of oil, has a higher (PPP) GDP per capita than that of the USA. In social matters (for example social mobility) however, the Scandinavian countries tend to outstrip the USA by a good margin. It is also worth mentioning that the original Social Democrats would care little about GDP, as it measures only the wealth of the wealthiest. In terms of the [[GINI Coefficient]], which measures true per capita wealth, the United States does very poorly (Even worse than Russia) and is handily beaten by the European states. However, these days, Social Democrats are largely indistinguishable from their Conservative opponents.

Revision as of 19:42, 30 June 2010

Social democracy is the idea that the state needs to provide security and equality for its people, but without the full apparatus of totalitarianism. This belief took hold most strongly in the Scandinavian region, with Sweden as the fullest demonstration of this. Many Socialists find this system too conciliatory, and point to events like the murder of Rosa Luxemburg by German Social Democrats and current neo-liberal policies of self-described Social Democratic parties such as Great Britain's "New Labour."

There is still some debate over how well this worked; while in most judgments it did far better than the related, but deeply conservative "Christian democratic" movements of Central Europe, as well as Great Britain, it did not keep up economically the United States. Only one of the three Scandinavian countries, Norway, which has a great deal of oil, has a higher (PPP) GDP per capita than that of the USA. In social matters (for example social mobility) however, the Scandinavian countries tend to outstrip the USA by a good margin. It is also worth mentioning that the original Social Democrats would care little about GDP, as it measures only the wealth of the wealthiest. In terms of the GINI Coefficient, which measures true per capita wealth, the United States does very poorly (Even worse than Russia) and is handily beaten by the European states. However, these days, Social Democrats are largely indistinguishable from their Conservative opponents.

Social democracy in the United States has been associated with the left wing of the Democratic Party and the right wing of the Socialist Party USA. The latter party had both Social Democratic and Marxist wings. The Democratic Party's left wing, during the post-World War II era, was typified by organized labor and writers like Arthur Schlesinger Jr., who viewed social democracy as the "vital center" of politics in opposition to both far-left communism and far-right laissez-faire capitalism. Other groups, like the Social Democrats USA, and the related Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee, were formed by former Trotskyists who had swung hard right on foreign policy and advocated a strong anti-Soviet Union stance but remained economically leftist; this group's main ideological influence was Trotskyist theorist Max Schactman, who is sometimes also cited as an intellectual father of neoconservatism.

See also