Democratic Socialism would be an improvement over Capitalism/Social Democracy

Thanks to Con for elaborating on the notion of social democracy and giving an account of some of its strengths over democratic socialism – I will now present a more detailed critique of social democracy with a view to demonstrating the superiority of democratic socialism. The issue of democracy – Social democratic countries tend to mirror the institutional structures of liberal democratic countries, of which they may be considered a sub-section. This entails a parliamentary system wherein MP’s are elected from constituencies to seats in parliament, the party with the largest number of seats gaining power over the country. Aside from the the blatantly undemocratic nature of certain country’s electoral systems (where number of votes routinely fails to translate into number of seats), the combination of capitalist economics with representative democracy is notorious for its capacity for corruption and its tendency to support and retain policies which benefit the capitalist class over the workers. In the U.S.the collaborative nature of big business and government is completely undemocratic. In all countries the power of business and capital exerts a powerful force upon politicians who have no legal obligation to fulfill the wishes of their constituents. Because business and corporations are private entities, the policies they push (with great economic force) rarely have the interests of the working class in mind. The lobbying power of big business is an insurmountable problem for both capitalism and social democracy. When the working class unites to a sufficient degree to make real change in favour of the interests of workers, the inherent antagonism of capitalist economic systems to pro-worker reforms can result in economic stagnation or a lack of competitiveness, as happened in the 1970’s. The result of this is a stong anti-socialist response from the political right, as occurred during the Reagan and Thatcher revolutions of the 1980’s. The forces of the right will always assert their power at the first opportunity; moreover, their power is always considerable because of the concentration of wealth (and therefore power) inherent in capitalism. Such policy backpeddling retards the progress made by social democratic policies, often for decades. The kinds of institutions which could really get the ball rolling on economic democracy are practically impossible to implement on a large scale under any form of capitalism, namely, industrial democracy or worker-owned firms. While there are examples of such firms in existence, they are in a small minority due to the tendency of market forces to either render them uncompetetive or to force them to run their business as though it were being run by a single capitalist for profit, and not by a group of workers to produce a sustainable livelihood. Which ever way you look at it, social democracy fails to put power where it belongs: in the hands of the people. It fails to do this because it insists on making an enormous sector of social life, the economy, largely inaccessible to democratic reform. Inequality and Exploitation Both are are exacerbated by it social democracy. Inequality is presently at a level hitherto known only under autocratic, monarchical and pre-democratic regimes. While it can be forcibly argued that the steep rise in inequality over the past several decades has been due to the imposition of neo-liberal government policies, and not social democracy itself (which has always pursued equality as a central aim), we must not forget that neo-liberalism is a political response, often supported by large parts of the population, to the stagnation and lack of competitiveness associated with social democratic reform. By refusing to take a firm anti-capitalist stance, social democracy agrees to play by the enemy’s rules, rules under which it suffers the severe handicap of having to make good on its redistributive promises. The poor in advanced industrial societies now live lives that bare little resemblance to those lived by the rich, the result being growing social strife, the demonization of the working class, riots, virtual apartheids and so on. Exploitation does not decrease under social democracy, since the wave of capitalist productivity it rides upon is predicated by that very exploitation. While social democracy does attempt to give some of this exploited value back to the workers in the form of minimum wages, pensions and benefits, it consistently fails to do so in a way which keeps any kind of pace with productivity. Exploitation, therefore, defined as the difference between the value the workers produce and the value of their compensation, increases as does the productivity of capitalism. When we look at, for example, rising wages incertain developed countries over certain periods, what we are seeing is the absolute bare minimum of worker-created value that social democracy is able to pry from the capitalist class; even though this value increases in absolute terms (it would be patently absurd if it did not), it represents an increasingly small slice of an increasingly large pie. If we agree that people’s lives should be improved in proportion to the advances made by society as a whole, such an unequal outcome, not at all representative of where wealth actually comes from, should be considered unacceptable. The reason that this state of affairs is not considered unnacceptable is because modern social democrats, like the populations of advanced industrial nations, have been convinced by the propaganda of the capitalist class that the only way to ensure steadily improving material standards of living (as though this were the be all and end all of existence to begin with) is to sacrifice all power and nearly all wealth to an elite minority. Democratic socialism refutes this defeatist attitude and makes the claim that only the people themselves have the right to decide where and when, and to what degree, growth, that is, increased productivity, should be pursued as a national goal. Sustainability, security and community should be viable democratic alternatives, but both capitalism and social democracy strip these choices away by demanding constant, unconstrained growth, vulnerability to crisis and the steady destruction of community life by economic segregation and a parasitic, morally bankrupt culture of consumerism and spectacle. Con claims that ‘Social Democracy is a good hybrid that includes portions of both these systems and is able to deliver the benefits of both in moderation and balance’. In reality, social democracy, far from delivering the benefits of both systems, retains the majority of their flaws in an awkward and unsustainable mix: inequality, disenfranchisement, inefficiency, corruption, economic crisis, political polarisation, exploitation and cultural uniformity (consumerism). He claims, approvingly, that despite its conscience social democracy ‘still provide an opportunity for entrepreneurs and innovators to succeed and make a profit’. Why does this need to be retained? ‘Making a profit’ is synonymous with exploitation – the only upside is potential (not guaranteed) economic growth, which can be pursued more fairly and sustainably by a democratic electorate. Innovation does not require financial motivation – it requires a love of one’s craft, the desire to get better at it and, perhaps most importantly of all, financial security to begin with! No system is better placed that deomcratic socialism to meet these conditions; there is no reason to think that innovation would be reduced under the system I am advocating, leaving the notion of ‘rewarding entrepreneurialism’ with anything other than well-deserved respect and social status pointless and even counter-productive.I'll leave it there for my critique of social democracy; Hopefully I will have more of a chance to outline more precisely how a democratic socialist society might work in future rounds.