Talk:Social democracy/Archive 1

message: As I was updating the list of parties and adding a section for the United States, I was wondering: should we include the American Democratic Party? Certainly, one could say that many ideas of the "liberal" current (in the American sense) have had social-democrat leanings over the years (like under Franklin Roosevelt). Others might say Bill Clinton and Al Gore took more centrist approaches. Can we include them, maybe even with a mention of caution? This party is quite important in the US and the world, it cannot be overlooked.
* NO, the Democrats and Republicans are both center-right parties. Even though alot of Social-democratic parites have been going in that direction in recent years, they have little in relation with those two parties and are generally center-left. --Che y Marijuana 11:30, Dec 12, 2004 (UTC)
**An wonderful insight from someone named "Che y Marijuana."  I think that about sums it up. (comment by Thames though originally unsigned)
***Yes, I agree. (I'm in the Swedish Social Democratic party.) Starman 1976 02:27, 2004 Dec 28 (UTC)
*Philosophically, and historically, the Democrats can't really be called social democratic. Better would be "with some social democratic tendencies". Their best description is, broadly, liberal - another infuriatingly difficult term to pin down. I am of the view that including the Democrats muddies the issue somewhat and doesn't bring us closer to a good working definition. NB: Being centrist, in my view, does *not* necessarily exclude being social democrat: cf. Third Way politics. Lacrimosus 03:09, 28 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I apologize.  Where is my wikitiquette?  —thames 16:28, 28 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text:  Several problems with that, my anonymous friend. First, gay marriage has nothing whatsoever to do with socialism or social democracy (and most American Democratic politicians don't support it).  Gun control also has nothing to do with socialism or social democracy (and American Democrats mostly support gun control, but few support banning of guns altogether as you initially stated). Abortion is also not a "socialist" issue; you might notice that both the UK and Germany regulate abortion more than the US, even under the Labour Party and SPD. The only social democratic position of American Democrats is single-payer healthcare, and again, while many Democrats support it, many others do not.thx1138 11:47, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  American Democrats 

message: (1) How was the anarchist Peter Kropotkin involved in the development of social democracy? I think this line needs some clarification or it should be removed.
(2) "However, most commentators agree that social democrats have been largely successful in implementing the program of the original Communist Manifesto - with the notable exception of land reform and the abolishment of rents."
What the...? That sentence makes no sense. The program of the Manifesto was clearly revolutionary, as opposed to the reformist goals of modern-day social democrats.
* No, it makes perfect sense...examine the ten items Marx outlines for the implementation of the socialist society for Communism. Progressive income tax, confiscation of property from heirs and criminals, et cetera...it has all been implemented gradually, as tiny, incremental "reforms" over the course of generations...but it's been done. Even the abolishment of rents and land reform have come a very long way, with things like public housing. Kaz
(3) Finlander: I changed your "form a state dictatorship of working class" to "establish the dictatorship of the proletariat," as Marx was purposely vague as to the meaning of this term and I think your phraseology a bit too connotative of Soviet-style dictatorship; interestingly, even some anarchists believe in a "dictatorship of the proletariat" expressed through the working class' revolutionary struggle but not through the seizure of state power.
Spleeman 04:35, 23 Jun 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  A few comments 

message: A troll (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JRR_Trollkien) has again introduced the exact 1:1 versions of the texts I modified. Also the point (2), which Spleeman makes has been restored by someone.
Therefore I will delete all false claims from them as obvious propaganda:
"... However, most commentators agree that social democrats have been largely successful in implementing the program of the original Communist Manifesto - with the notable exception of land reform and the abolishment of rents."
"Most would also agree that late-20th-century Europe, culminating in the 1992 formation of the European Union, demonstrates that developed nations can cooperate under the general policies of social democrats to achieve a lasting peace. Whether similar policies can work elsewhere is a matter of much debate, especially in the anti-globalization movement, where advocates on both sides argue about the degree to which regulation has fostered growth and tolerance. ..."
"However, these parties too are often perceived as going too far for comfort, particularly in foreign policy, trade, and warfare, so social democrats may never disappear, even if the entire original program of socialism has been accomplished. ... The services may vary in quality but never seem to be withdrawn completely - the gains made by social democrats politically are seemingly seen by the public as public goods." 
Finlander 11:14, 27 Jun 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Revisiting the article after long time 

message: Well, they're socialists, and they operate in a democratic context (in fact they actively support democracy). Is there a specific reason that we shouldn't classify them as being social democratic (next to perhaps several other things)?
If not, well, wouldn't we be making our catagories too specific (like it'd almost be like every party gets its own catagory otherwise :-/)
Kim Bruning 11:08, 22 Jul 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Socialistische Partij 

message: Just a heads-up: I'm planning a rewrite to more clearly enunciate the difference between democratic socialism and social democracy. Otherwise, there's no point in having seperate articles. Lacrimosus 20:59, 11 Sep 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Odd! I thought we'd done a merge and redirect. Hmm, must have been mistaken. The current democratic socialism article is kind of strange though. Is "democratic socialism" an Americanism? Kim Bruning 21:27, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

text: Googled for it, wikipedia&mirrors along first few pages of hits. Proceeding accordingly. I'm going to have to oppose a rewrite for now. Kim Bruning 21:33, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: It's not purely an American term.  It's used in Britain too.  Some people consider "social democracy" and "democratic socialism" to be the same thing, and there is certainly no clear distinction.  Some people adopt the term "democratic socialism" to indicate their opposition to the rightwing shift in social democracy in the last 20, 50, or 100 years.  On the other hand, the British Social Democratic Party adopted the term "social democracy" in a deliberate attempt to distance itself from Labour's avowed "socialism", but the same can't be said of the German Social Democrats, which adopted their party name more than 100 years ago and were convinced socialists. Interestingly, the Constitution of the British Labour Party - as revised by Blair - still describes the party as "a democratic socialist party", a formulation introduced by Blair himself.
As I've understood it, (and I'm a member of the Swedish Social Democratic Labour Party), Democratic socialism and Socialdemocracy is the same thing. Only two different synonyms used to describe the same thing. Socialism however is another thing than Social Democracy (= Reformistic Evolutionary Socialism). Some Social Democrat/Democratic Socialist parties has adopted the Third Way, and can thus not really be called to be socialists anymore, but being social liberal. All this is complicated by that the Third Way parties still likes to call themselves Social Democratic, and that some Revolutionistic Socialists (could also be called Communists?) are calling themselves Democratic Socialists, although when reading their agendas and their party programs, clearly are not.
- Starman 1976 05:00, 2005 Jan 3 (UTC)
Is it clear though? The fact in particular that social democratic parties throughout the world have had similar policy shifts in the past few decades make me wonder. Have they essentially redefined what it means to be Social Democratic? If eg. Blair, Schröder, and Latham aren't social democrats, what are they? It's so complicated. . . some are proud to be called "socialists", some are offended; some claim they are but others deny it. Lacrimosus 05:50, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Rewrite

message: I'm going to remove this list. Unless we can establish that the list is of people who are actually leaders/promininent members of social democratic parties, ie. parties with "Social Democratic" in their title, I think it's pretty arbitrary and not very helpful to compile it. Lacrimosus 03:22, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I have to agree.  Having watched this page for a few months, it seems like no substantive work gets done on the actual article content itself.  Instead people simply add their favorite lefty politician to the list, get it removed arbitrarily, and then get in a fight over it.  It contributes nothing to the article itself.  If Social Democrats were a small distict identifiable group it might be acceptable to put a list of them on the page (the U.S. neoconservatives are small and identifiable enough, for example).  But there are many many social democrat parties with many many leaders.  It's just not a worthwhile feature for the article.  Meanwhile, the rest of it needs work—let's stop obsessing over the useless list and get the article content into a less embarrasing shape. —thames 14:34, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: List of Social Democrats

message: The article does not give due justice to the recent Socialist International's councils and the groups statutues and principles. The article just discusses the old school meaning during the turn of the 20th century which was even pre-cold war, not the 21st, which is the priority and up to date. SI redefined social democracy and Democratic Socialism. Today, DS forms the ideology and theory, meanwhile SD forms the application and integration with the real world. Issues like welfare, etc, were already reconciled between the 2 former ideologies. These were completely ignored by the article, it was not even considered in the start. SD now is the ideal representative democracy and objective, and not a political ideology. DS is the ideology. See SI Principles in the web
:I think that's an entirely valid view, and does deserve a place in the article. But SI isn't the be-all and end-all on the definition: they're a helpful guide rather than being the sole authority. Slac speak up! 05:36, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: NPOV

message: Social democracy doesn't advocate the transition to socialism anymore. Rather, it accepts the market economy, with social safeguards that can make a capitalist society more just and equitable.
Describing it as a branch of socialism is misleading and clearly POV.Caleiva 00:56, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Social democracy under "Socialism"??? 

message: For example, the debate over detention of terrorist suspects without trial in the UK in 2004-05 pitted the Liberal Democrat party, who supported the right to a fair trial, against the Labour government, who argued that curtailing human rights was justified if it served a social end.
********
This must be a joke, totally outrageous POV. The current english Labour Party has only as much to do with social democracy as the current US Democratic Party has to do with slave-holding, which is exactly zero. The current labour and its Blair boss is the true-to-blood party of Iron Lady Thatcher. The faithful social democratic countries and parties of Europe (germans, swede, frenchies) were the most loud protestors against incommunicando detentions in USA and UK! This must be righted!
::Um, what? Detention without trial is not an economic policy. Social democracy does not require respect for human rights (indeed, it routinely violates them in order to "serve social ends" as you put it). Blair has massively increased the tax and regulatory burden in Britain, put a lot more money into socialist public services, introduced the minimum wage, Etc. Etc. He is undeniably a social democrat. Maybe not as lefty as you would like, but just because a blue chair could be bluer doesnt mean it isnt blue. 88.105.244.162 20:25, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This is all too black-and-white. The Blair government has introduced a raft of human rights based legislation, and has been criticised for it. It has also issued criticsm, admittedly muted, of Guantanamo.1Z 16:25, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Leave the Tony Blair  clown out of this article. 

message: This may be a good image for this page. Could someone with knowledge of image inserting please uncover whether or not this is copywritted?
Canadianism 20:36, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Image 

message: Blair doesn't belongs to the List of famous Social democrats. He's a centrist. PhDP 12:36, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Blair in the List of famous Social democrats 

message: I'd like to draw attention to instances of POV throughout this article, as I have put the notice on this page:
#"system in order to make it more equitable and "humane" - This is hardly neutral (and a POV of liberal capitalism)
#"and the democratic socialists are in favour of humanizing capitalism" - As before, heavily tinged with the assumption that social democ. is more humane.
#"gradually corrupted" - Capitalism is now corrupting!  (a moral POV)
#"the fact that usually the lowest classes are the ones sent into the war to fight, and die, putting the cause at the side" - While this may be true, it betrays a sentimentality for the working class in the article and is POV.
#"principles out of corruption" - again, capitalists being accused of corruption, assuming that socialist ideals are the bastion of purity.
Obviously, all that needs to be done to remedy this is to rewrite the sections and remove the bias rather than delete the content. --Knucmo2 14:59, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  NPOV 

message: The same that is questioned by Knucmo2 could be questioned of other political options. Could be some moralist, and the user can edit the more moral "words". But if you read liberalism can find some unneutrality like "the really oppositors to totalitarist". 
The acusation about the corruption of capitalism, not is focused about the capitalism is corrupting now, I understand that "the capitalism get some degree of corruption", that's no moral is a observation of some practices and attitudes of some capitalist and some governments. Is a fact that the capitalism (like others economic organizations) have some degree of corruption, some "free riders" that exploit the aventages of the capitalist system without obey the law or pay the fees. Enterprises that exploit the natural recourses and not take care of contamination that produces. Is a fact that without rules, agencys, organizations or negotiation between stake-holders this "free-rider" problem of capitalism do not stop.
If Knucmo2 could modify the more "moral" expressions i agree with him, but i don't agree with the POV of this article. Then i ask to Knucmo2 to modify this moral expressions and then took out the alert of no-neutrality.
:Yeah, I understand that the other articles might be POV too.  But the point I was trying to make was that when you say "capitalism corrupts" then it means that capitalism is inherently corrupt, which is a moralistic POV, and something has to be pure, ethical and uncorrupt before it is corrupted (which is socialism is inherently not, but ideally so).  As you say, capitalism can become corrupt. --Knucmo2 15:03, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Cool, when I can get round to it, I'll make the changes, but by posting it here on talk it can draw attention to editors, to promote discussion, and will draw attention to editors who are probably much better at writing than me. --Knucmo2 17:22, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  I'm not agree with no "neutrality" 

message: This article like most on wikipedia are works of paranoid gun crazy individualist anglo-saxon adamsmithians. They want to hide the fact that social democracy is not a philosophy or ideology, it is an existing reality. Nowhere there is a paragraph on Sweden and many other european countries where social democracy is the form of governance and has always been since the end of WWII or even before, the 1930s. Social democratic countries have the best quality of life in the whole word and their industries have a lot of profit.
There should definitely be a split to en-us.wikipedia.org and en-en.wikipedia.org, because the perception of reality differs irreconcibly between the anglo-saxon race and "the rest of the world". Yankee never admit anything successful or wise may exist beyond the two oceans. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.70.32.136 (talk • contribs) 
:From the article:
:#"The prime example of social democracy is Sweden, which prospered considerably in the 1990s and 2000s, against the predictions of those who suggested Sweden's 57% top tax bracket would slow its economy. Instead, Sweden has produced a robust economy from sole proprietorships up through to multinationals (e.g., Saab, Ikea, and Ericsson), while maintaining the longest life expectancy in the world, low unemployment, inflation, infant mortality, national debt, and cost of living, all while registering sizable economic growth. [citation needed] On the other hand, Sweden experiences welfare dependency of around 20% of the working age population according to the Swedish Trade Union Confederation. Likewise, crime has been steadily rising since the 1960s, and during the past decade has grown ever more violent."
:#Page also links to a separate, specialist article on social welfare in Sweden.
:By the way, Sweden in 1996 suffered from 14% unemployment and problems with absent workers.  It is not all plain sailing under social democracy, nor is it under any system. --Knucmo2 15:02, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Hello!  Granted, but read my above post for why I inserted the NPOV template.  Don't take this personally that I put the template in there. --Knucmo2 00:27, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Biased article pretends this is just another commie ideology 

message: What does this fork between "social democracy" and "democratic socialism" means? The strange expression of "democratic socialism" might have been used in certain places or by certain theorists, but it certainly isn't common! Beside, the theoretical distinction itself is more than discutable. I've come to this page, because it was described in the introduction of the French Socialist Party entry that "although it historically considered itself as a democratic socialist party, it had became recently a social-democrat party". This is simply false. The expression "democratic socialism" has, in the case of France, never been used. The Section Française de l'Internationale Ouvrière (SFIO) defines itself as a "social-democrat" party, and this, in its eyes, did certainly not meant that it accepted capitalism and liberal democracy! By this, I mean that the PS, as most declared social-democrats party, have all considered themselves, in theory, as "democratic socialists", if I have to follow this strange distinction. Since the distinction isn't proven, I suggest we merge the two articles, and address any eventual debate here. I don't think this distinction which has been probably be made up by some theorists warrants two different articles! Lapaz 23:42, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: They are different things. How on earth can you merge them? FearÉIREANN\(caint) 00:16, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

text: They are entirely separate concepts - they are not to be merged.--cj | talk 05:05, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

text: They are widely felt to be different by their respective supporters. I, for one, am a democratic socialist who would not feel comfortable being labelled as a social democrat. To speak in general terms, social democrats think we're delusional dreamers; democratic socialists think they're useless sell-outs. As the democratic socialism article makes clear, there can be some overlap between social democracy and democratic socialism – but that's certainly no grounds for an outright merge. QuartierLatin1968  16:13, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

text: All right, political classifications, especially  when we have to take into account the multiple senses words have in different countries, is just too messy. I'll abandon the merge, but I do request that sources are provided on the democratic socialism section, more than currently used, in order to prove that it is a recognized and international expression, not just somebody's classification. I've had enough trouble myself with other users concerning labelling of some political groups to understand your concerns, but this does not mean that sources mustn't explain the term. Else, I'm sure someone else is going to have the same reaction as me, because to tell you the truth, hopefully there's Wikipedia out there to teach you new words and concepts like that! Lapaz 23:24, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Furthermore, I don't think users should use it to qualify French parties, as it is completely foreign to the context. For this reason also, I created :Category:Left-wing parties in France and :Category:Right-wing parties in France, so not to be forced to use the US classification of liberals/conservatives which has no sense out there (the most "leftist" US deputies in the Democrat party would probably be considered center-left, Socialist Party here...) Lapaz 23:26, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  MERGE [[Democratic socialism]] into here 

message: :When discussing the recent reversal of social democratic policy it is important to bear in mind that what many people refer to as 'traditional' social democracy is now generally regarded to have been possible only because of the prevailing international climate - the post-war Bretton Woods consensus. What is of interest to contemporary social democrats, therefore, is why this consensus itself collapsed, whether it would be possible to rebuild it, and how.
Can anyone elaborate on this?  To me this is the most fascinating part of the article, but after shoring up my understanding of Bretton Woods I still can't say I understand it.  Also, while I don't want to see this paragraph go (it just inspired several hours of research), I would suggest that not all "contemporary social democrats" are nostalgic for the traditional social democracy that sought to replace rather than just moderate the capitalist system. Kyle Cronan 10:03, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Relationship with Bretton Woods 

message: Does anyone feel able to create a stub on Tribunite (sub-set of the mid-20th century British Left)?The only sources I have are 
http://www.allwords.com/word-Tribunite.html 
(and other pages with identical text)
and this from Guardian
http://books.guardian.co.uk/news/articles/0,6109,1530801,00.html
"According to his biographer, Professor Bernard Crick, Orwell saw himself as a Tribunite socialist whose experiences in the Spanish civil war had left him sharply disillusioned with Soviet communism."
-- 201.50.123.251 12:48, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Requesting article "[[Tribunite]]"

message: I have just removed the following from the pre-war section:
:Two key figures within the socialist movement at this time were César de Paepe of the Belgian International Working Men's Association and Jean Jaures (Who led the French Socialist Party until his assassination on July 31, 1914, one day before the general mobilization of forces that began World War I).
They seem quite arbitrary to me - the first little known, the second very important. EITHER there should be a longer list of key figures in this period (Karl Kautsky, Kier Hardy, George Plekhanov, etc) OR no list. BobFromBrockley 15:21, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Key figures 

message: I oppose the proposed merge (both pages have been tagged for a while now, though I can't find any comment about it on either talk page).  "Social capitalism" (a phrase I've never encountered outside Wikipedia, for what it's worth) seems to be significantly different from social democracy, particularly in its quasi-libertarian reliance on the "invisible hand" of the free market.  More importantly, I find the social capitalism article poorly written, confusing, completely unsourced, borderline-neologistic and probably original research.  I think merging it into this article would make the concept of "social capitalism" even less clear (to me, at least) and reduce the quality and coherence of the social democracy article.  Since the merge tags have been up for so long without activity, I'll remove them if I don't hear any objections in the next day or two.  -David Schaich Talk/Cont 21:26, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Merging those two articles is absolutely nonsense. Democracy is no synonym for capitalism. That's why Social democracy and social capitalisms are not synonymous either. 87.123.81.201 08:57, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

text: Tags removed. -David Schaich Talk/Cont 17:59, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Proposed merge with [[Social capitalism]]