News and opinion from an authentic social democratic perspective (for a change)
Finding the words with which to start a new blog is fairly easy. Since
the Web is already saturated with blogs, it's unlikely that more than a
few people will ever read this one anyway - which rather helps reduce
the stress factor. However, for the handful who have somehow managed to
penetrate this tiny corner of cyberspace, a few words of introduction
are required. This website is something which, so far as I am aware,
simply does not exist anywhere else on the Net: a blog that presents
news and opinion from an authentically social democratic viewpoint.
It would probably not be going too far to suggest that most people today have very little idea what social democracy means. This is because the modern political galaxy is thickly populated by pseudo-social democrats, including most notably Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and their fellow New Labour hoaxers in the U.K., as well as the Schroeder-Fischer gang in Germany, whose negligible differences from conservatives parties have engendered extensive confusion as to whether, once it has embraced the 'golden straitjacket' of economic orthodoxy, social democracy possesses any substantive content whatsoever. Any genuine social democrat would be appalled by the discredit these so-called 'Third Way' social democrats have brought upon social democracy itself. Since they are in reality neoliberals who occasionally spout social democratic rhetoric as a cynical means of building consensus for neoliberal policies, they are symptoms of the complete and utter bankruptcy of the organized social democratic parties. The social democratic cause would, in fact, only be advanced if these moribund and long-subverted organizations simply shut up shop. They no longer stand for anything, and the world would be a far better place without their continuing obfuscation of class politics.
Closing down the social democratic parties would lead to a renewal of authentic social democracy. Fortunately, there exists a solid basis for such a renewal: social democracy lingers on in many countries as the common sense of the politically- and economically-literate citizen. This blog aims to contribute to such a process of renewal by presenting authentic social democratic opinion as a contrast to the fakes who populate the upper hierarchy of the organized social democratic parties, with the possible exception of Sweden, where it is not clear to me whether the social democratic party has yet been fully subverted.
Given that it is no longer self-evident what social democracy means, readers will probably want to know what I mean by the phrase. Probably the best short answer is that social democracy inhabits the middle ground between ideological attachment to the 'free market,' on one hand, and the market-free economy on the other. While authentic social democrats rightly reject the free market, they harbour no illusions about the state's ability to direct economic production. Caught between the devil and the deep blue sea, they are apostles rather of a 'third way' between laissez-faire capitalism and state capitalism - but this via media should not be confused with the Clinton/Blair/Schroeder Third Way, which is simply a neoliberal scam. (At least part of the aim of this blog is to show how very remote these frauds are from authentic social democracy.)
The view taken here is that the social democratic via media is best exemplified by the Swedish welfare state. Unlike the straw man imagined by many of its critics, the social democratic welfare state is far from being, or having ever been, irrational state largesse to those they would stigmatize as 'undeserving.' It is, in fact, a profoundly constructive creation in which social goods which cannot be provided fairly and efficiently by the market economy are provided by the state, financed from general taxation. Any retrenchment of the welfare state, accordingly, amounts to a direct attack on social democracy. Those who claim to be social democrats who talk about welfare 'reform' are nothing but liars. They are in truth neoliberals exploiting the rhetoric of progress to reconcile voters to their real agenda, which involves radically reducing the share of government revenues which are returned to taxpayers in the form of collective services. Their aim is not to reduce government spending and thereby taxes, which is the result most voters probably anticipate when they hear talk of trimming social spending, but to direct a larger proportion of government revenues to their relatives and cronies in business.
There are, in fact, many encouraging signs that voters in the advanced capitalist countries are ready for authentic social democracy. Over and over, opinion polls show that, however much people might want tax cuts, what they need are better government services. (As the standard of living erodes under neoliberalism, people seem to be becoming more inclined to think about what they need rather than what they want.) At the moment, the major political parties are not prepared to acknowledge that fact, which profoundly unsettles their impoverished, rightwing thinktank view of human nature. But a revival of social democracy will ensure that they will.
It would probably not be going too far to suggest that most people today have very little idea what social democracy means. This is because the modern political galaxy is thickly populated by pseudo-social democrats, including most notably Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and their fellow New Labour hoaxers in the U.K., as well as the Schroeder-Fischer gang in Germany, whose negligible differences from conservatives parties have engendered extensive confusion as to whether, once it has embraced the 'golden straitjacket' of economic orthodoxy, social democracy possesses any substantive content whatsoever. Any genuine social democrat would be appalled by the discredit these so-called 'Third Way' social democrats have brought upon social democracy itself. Since they are in reality neoliberals who occasionally spout social democratic rhetoric as a cynical means of building consensus for neoliberal policies, they are symptoms of the complete and utter bankruptcy of the organized social democratic parties. The social democratic cause would, in fact, only be advanced if these moribund and long-subverted organizations simply shut up shop. They no longer stand for anything, and the world would be a far better place without their continuing obfuscation of class politics.
Closing down the social democratic parties would lead to a renewal of authentic social democracy. Fortunately, there exists a solid basis for such a renewal: social democracy lingers on in many countries as the common sense of the politically- and economically-literate citizen. This blog aims to contribute to such a process of renewal by presenting authentic social democratic opinion as a contrast to the fakes who populate the upper hierarchy of the organized social democratic parties, with the possible exception of Sweden, where it is not clear to me whether the social democratic party has yet been fully subverted.
Given that it is no longer self-evident what social democracy means, readers will probably want to know what I mean by the phrase. Probably the best short answer is that social democracy inhabits the middle ground between ideological attachment to the 'free market,' on one hand, and the market-free economy on the other. While authentic social democrats rightly reject the free market, they harbour no illusions about the state's ability to direct economic production. Caught between the devil and the deep blue sea, they are apostles rather of a 'third way' between laissez-faire capitalism and state capitalism - but this via media should not be confused with the Clinton/Blair/Schroeder Third Way, which is simply a neoliberal scam. (At least part of the aim of this blog is to show how very remote these frauds are from authentic social democracy.)
The view taken here is that the social democratic via media is best exemplified by the Swedish welfare state. Unlike the straw man imagined by many of its critics, the social democratic welfare state is far from being, or having ever been, irrational state largesse to those they would stigmatize as 'undeserving.' It is, in fact, a profoundly constructive creation in which social goods which cannot be provided fairly and efficiently by the market economy are provided by the state, financed from general taxation. Any retrenchment of the welfare state, accordingly, amounts to a direct attack on social democracy. Those who claim to be social democrats who talk about welfare 'reform' are nothing but liars. They are in truth neoliberals exploiting the rhetoric of progress to reconcile voters to their real agenda, which involves radically reducing the share of government revenues which are returned to taxpayers in the form of collective services. Their aim is not to reduce government spending and thereby taxes, which is the result most voters probably anticipate when they hear talk of trimming social spending, but to direct a larger proportion of government revenues to their relatives and cronies in business.
There are, in fact, many encouraging signs that voters in the advanced capitalist countries are ready for authentic social democracy. Over and over, opinion polls show that, however much people might want tax cuts, what they need are better government services. (As the standard of living erodes under neoliberalism, people seem to be becoming more inclined to think about what they need rather than what they want.) At the moment, the major political parties are not prepared to acknowledge that fact, which profoundly unsettles their impoverished, rightwing thinktank view of human nature. But a revival of social democracy will ensure that they will.
