There is a longer more complicated history around the term social democracy, but the short version is that beginning in the later 1800s, there arose two camps: reformist / pacifist / bourgeios socialists, and revolutionary ones. The reformist ones formed parties who, in every country they did so, ended up joining forces with capitalists to repress and put down the revolutionary ones. Every country has a long history of socdems doing this, as its been occurring since the 1800s when Marx and Engels noted this tendency.
Gotcha, that makes sense and definitely helps explain some of the tensions I’ve seen between y’all and other leftists on the threadiverse, at least in terms of where y’all are coming from. Maybe I’ll bug some folks from the other sort of faction and see if I can learn what their deal is. I really appreciate you providing all the links and the historical context! I watched a bit of the first one and it was interesting, I can see now how much of northern Europe would fit into that camp you’re describing- thanks for teaching me the term “Nordic model” that is helpful to know!
If you’d be open to chatting more and discussing kind of a broad question I’ve had- As I’ve explored a bit I’ve found I most intuitively relate to anarchism, but there are problems or social needs I can see anarchism potentially struggling to fill, so I have wanted to learn more about other leftist ideology and see where I end up. A lot of what I find intimidating about ideologies or governments that might fall into the revolutionary communist category is that through the perspective I have now, they seem authoritarian. What kind of actual governmental structure (or structures) in terms of power do revolutionary communists seek? How does power get organized? Are there ways that they structurally seek to counterbalance the way that concentrated power leads to overreach (like in western capitalist society democracy is ostensibly supposed to fill that role)? Like can revolutionary communism be Democratic (I know many folks feel electoralism is somewhat of a trap)? Are there reasons that doesnt seem like a concern to you for other reasons I may not have considered? (I don’t really mean to ask 30 seperate questions, I just wanna leave things open ended to whatever kind of answer makes the most sense, and I don’t know what kinda answer that might be)
Either way, thank you for your time and for collecting some reading for me, I will have to sit down and at least skim through them :)
There is a longer more complicated history around the term social democracy, but the short version is that beginning in the later 1800s, there arose two camps: reformist / pacifist / bourgeios socialists, and revolutionary ones. The reformist ones formed parties who, in every country they did so, ended up joining forces with capitalists to repress and put down the revolutionary ones. Every country has a long history of socdems doing this, as its been occurring since the 1800s when Marx and Engels noted this tendency.
What about social democracy / democratic socialism / the Nordic model? Isn’t Sweden socialist?
Some more links:
Gotcha, that makes sense and definitely helps explain some of the tensions I’ve seen between y’all and other leftists on the threadiverse, at least in terms of where y’all are coming from. Maybe I’ll bug some folks from the other sort of faction and see if I can learn what their deal is. I really appreciate you providing all the links and the historical context! I watched a bit of the first one and it was interesting, I can see now how much of northern Europe would fit into that camp you’re describing- thanks for teaching me the term “Nordic model” that is helpful to know!
If you’d be open to chatting more and discussing kind of a broad question I’ve had- As I’ve explored a bit I’ve found I most intuitively relate to anarchism, but there are problems or social needs I can see anarchism potentially struggling to fill, so I have wanted to learn more about other leftist ideology and see where I end up. A lot of what I find intimidating about ideologies or governments that might fall into the revolutionary communist category is that through the perspective I have now, they seem authoritarian. What kind of actual governmental structure (or structures) in terms of power do revolutionary communists seek? How does power get organized? Are there ways that they structurally seek to counterbalance the way that concentrated power leads to overreach (like in western capitalist society democracy is ostensibly supposed to fill that role)? Like can revolutionary communism be Democratic (I know many folks feel electoralism is somewhat of a trap)? Are there reasons that doesnt seem like a concern to you for other reasons I may not have considered? (I don’t really mean to ask 30 seperate questions, I just wanna leave things open ended to whatever kind of answer makes the most sense, and I don’t know what kinda answer that might be)
Either way, thank you for your time and for collecting some reading for me, I will have to sit down and at least skim through them :)