ON DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISM

thelivyjr
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Democratic socialism, continued ...

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Asia

In Japan, the Japanese Communist Party (JPC) does not advocate for a violent revolution, instead proposing a parliamentary democratic revolution to achieve "democratic change in politics and the economy."

There has been a resurgent interest in the JPC among workers and the Japanese youth due to the financial crisis of 2007–2008.

After the 2008 Malaysian general election, the Socialist Party of Malaysia got Michael Jeyakumar Devaraj as its first Member of Parliament.

In the Philippines, the main political party campaigning for democratic socialism is the Akbayan Citizens' Action Party which was founded by Joel Rocamora in January 1998 as a democratic socialist and progressive political party.

The Akbayan Citizens' Action Party has consistently won seats in the House of Representatives, with Etta Rosales becoming its first representative.

It won its first Senate seat in 2016, when its chairwoman, senator and Nobel Peace Prize nominee Risa Hontiveros was elected.

In 2010, there were 270 kibbutzim in Israel.

Their factories and farms account for 9% of Israel's industrial output, worth US$8 billion and 40% of its agricultural output, worth over $1.7 billion.

Some kibbutzim had also developed substantial high-tech and military industries.

Also in 2010, Kibbutz Sasa, containing some 200 members, generated $850 million in annual revenue from its military-plastics industry.

Other democratic socialist parties in Asia include the National United Party of Afghanistan in Afghanistan, the April Fifth Action in Hong Kong, the All India Trinamool Congress, the Samajwadi Party, the Samta Party and the Sikkim Democratic Front in India, the Progressive Socialist Party in Lebanon, the Federal Socialist Forum and the Naya Shakti Party in Nepal, the Labor Party in South Korea and the Syrian Democratic People's Party and the Democratic Arab Socialist Union in Syria.

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Re: ON DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISM

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Democratic socialism, continued ...

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Europe

The United Nations World Happiness Report shows that the happiest nations are concentrated in Northern Europe, where the Nordic model (which democratic socialists want to strengthen against austerity and neoliberalism) is employed, with the list being topped by Denmark, where the Social Democrats led their first government in 1924 and governed Denmark for most of the 20th century.

The Norwegian Labour Party, the Swedish Social Democratic Party and the Social Democratic Party of Finland also led the majority of governments and were the most popular political parties in their respective countries during the 20th century.

While not as popular like its counterparts, the Icelandic Social Democratic Party and the Social Democratic Alliance have also led several governments and have been part of numerous coalitions.

This success is at times attributed to the social-democratic Nordic model in the region, where the aforementioned democratic socialist, labourist and social-democratic political parties have dominated the political scene and laid the ground to universalistic welfare states in the 20th century, fitting the social-democratic type of "high socialism" which is described as favouring "a high level of decommodification and a low degree of stratification."

The Nordic countries, including Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden as well as Greenland and the Faroe Islands, also ranked highest on the metrics of real GDP per capita, economic equality, healthy life expectancy, public health, having someone to count on, education, perceived freedom to make life choices, generosity and human development.

The Nordic countries have ranked high on indicators such as civil liberties, democracy, press, labour and economic freedoms, peace and freedom from corruption.

Numerous studies and surveys have indicated that people tend to live happier lives in social democracies and welfare states as opposed to neoliberal and free-market economies.

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Democratic socialism, continued ...

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Europe, continued ...

The objectives of the Party of European Socialists, the European Parliament's social democratic bloc, are now "to pursue international aims in respect of the principles on which the European Union is based, namely principles of freedom, equality, solidarity, democracy, respect of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, and respect for the Rule of Law."

As a result, today the rallying cry of the French Revolution—Liberté, égalité, fraternité—is promoted as essential socialist values.

To the left of the European Socialists at the European level is the Party of the European Left, a political party at the European level and an association of democratic socialist and communist parties in the European Union and other European countries.

It was formed for the purposes of running in the 2004 European Parliament election.

The European Left was founded on 8–9 May 2004 in Rome.

Elected MEPs from member parties of the European Left sit in the European United Left–Nordic Green Left group in the European Parliament.

The democratic socialist Left Party in Germany grew in popularity after popular dissatisfaction with the increasingly neoliberal policies of the Social Democratic Party of Germany after Gerhard Schröder's tenure as Chancellor, becoming the fourth biggest party in parliament in the general election on 27 September 2009.

In 2008, the Progressive Party of Working People candidate Dimitris Christofias won a crucial presidential runoff in Cyprus, defeating his conservative rival with a majority of 53%.

In 2007, the Danish Socialist People's Party more than doubled its parliamentary representation to 23 seats from 11, making it the fourth-largest party.

In 2011, the Social Democrats, the Socialist People's Party and the Danish Social Liberal Party formed a government after a slight victory over the main rival political coalition.

They were led by Helle Thorning-Schmidt and had the Red–Green Alliance as a supporting party.

In Norway, the red–green alliance consists of the Labour Party, the Socialist Left Party and the Centre Party and governed the country as a majority government from 2005 to 2013.

In the January 2015 legislative election, the Coalition of the Radical Left led by Alexis Tsipras and better known as Syriza won a legislative election for the first time while the Communist Party of Greece won 15 seats in parliament.

Syriza has been characterised as an anti-establishment party, whose success sent "shock-waves across the EU."

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Democratic socialism, continued ...

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Europe, continued ...

In the United Kingdom, the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT) put forward a slate of candidates in the 2009 European Parliament election under the banner of No to EU – Yes to Democracy, a broad left-wing Eurosceptic, alter-globalisation coalition involving socialist groups such as the Socialist Party, aiming to offer a leftist alternative among Eurosceptics to the anti-immigration and pro-business policies of the UK Independence Party.

In the subsequent 2010 general election, the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition, launched in January 2010 and backed by Bob Crow, the leader of the RMT, along with other union leaders and the Socialist Party among other socialist groups, stood against the Labour Party in forty constituencies.

The Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition contested the 2011 local elections, having gained the endorsement of the RMT June 2010 conference, but it won no seats.

Left Unity was also founded in 2013 after the film director Ken Loach appealed for a new party of the left to replace the Labour Party which he claimed had failed to oppose austerity and had shifted towards neoliberalism.

Following a second consecutive defeat in the 2015 general election, self-described democratic socialist Jeremy Corbyn succeeded Ed Miliband as the Leader of the Labour Party.

This led some to comment that New Labour is "dead and buried."

In the 2017 general election, Labour increased its share of the vote to 40%, with Labour's 9.6% vote swing being its largest since the 1945 general election.

Under Corbyn, Labour achieved a net gain of 30 seats and a hung parliament, but the party remained in Opposition.

In the 2019 general election, Labour's vote share of 32% fell by 7.8% compared with 2017, although it was higher than for the two previous elections, leading to a net loss of 60 seats and leaving it with 202, its fewest since 1935.

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Democratic socialism, continued ...

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Europe, concluded ...

In France, Olivier Besancenot, the Revolutionary Communist League candidate in the 2007 presidential election, received 1,498,581 votes (4.08%), double that of the candidate from the French Communist Party candidate.

The party abolished itself in 2009 to initiate a broad anti-capitalist movement within a new party called the New Anticapitalist Party, whose stated aim is to "build a new socialist, democratic perspective for the twenty-first century."


In Germany, The Left was founded in 2007 out of a merger of the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS) and the Labour and Social Justice – The Electoral Alternative (WASG), a breakaway faction from the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) which rejected then-SPD leader and German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder for his Third Way policies.

These parties adopted policies to appeal to democratic socialists, greens, feminists and pacifists.

Former SPD chairman Oskar Lafontaine has noted that the founding of The Left in Germany has resulted in emulation in other countries, with several Left parties being founded in Greece, Portugal, Netherlands and Syria.

Lafontaine claims that a de facto British Left movement exists, identifying the Green Party of England and Wales as holding similar values.

Nonetheless, a democratic socialist faction remains within the SPD.

The SPD's latest Hamburg Programme (2007) describes democratic socialism as "an order of economy, state and society in which the civil, political, social and economic fundamental rights are guaranteed for all people, all people live a life without exploitation, oppression and violence, that is in social and human security" and as a "vision of a free, just and solidary society", the realisation of which is emphasised as a "permanent task."

Social democracy serves as the "principle of action."

On 25 May 2014, the Spanish left-wing party Podemos entered candidates for the 2014 European parliamentary election, some of which were unemployed.

In a surprise result, it won 7.98% of the vote and was awarded five seats out of 54 while the older United Left was the third largest overall force, obtaining 10.03% and five seats, four more than the previous elections.

Although losing seats in both the April 2019 and November 2019 general elections, the result of the latter being a failure of negotiations with the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE), Podemos reached an agreement with the PSOE for a full four-year coalition government, the first such government since the country's transition to democracy in 1976.

While failing to get the necessary 176 out of 350 majority investiture vote on 5 January 2020, the PSOE–Unidas Podemos coalition government was able to get a simple majority (167–165) on 7 January 2020 and the new cabinet was sworn into office the following day.

The government of Portugal established on 26 November 2015 was a left-wing minority government led by Prime Minister António Costa Socialist Party, who succeeded in securing support for the government by the Left Bloc, the Portuguese Communist Party and the Ecologist Party "The Greens".

This was largely confirmed in the 2019 legislative election, where the Socialist Party returned to first place, forming another left-wing minority government, this time led only by the Socialist Party.

Nonetheless, Costa said he would look to continue the confidence-and-supply agreement with the Left Bloc and the Unitary Democratic Coalition.

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Democratic socialism, continued ...

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Oceania

In Australia, the labourist and socialist movements were gaining traction and the Australian Labor Party (ALP) was formed in Barcaldine, Queensland in 1891 by striking pastoral workers.

In 1889, a minority government led by the party was formed in Queensland, with Anderson Dawson as the Premier of Queensland, where it was founded and was in power for one week, becoming the world's first government led by democratic socialists.

The ALP has been the main driving force for workers' rights and the welfare state in Australia, backed by Australian trade unions, in particular the Australian Workers' Union.

Since the end of the Whitlam government, the ALP has moved towards centrist policies and Third Way ideals which are supported by the ALP's Right Faction members while the supporters of democratic socialism and social democracy lie within the ALP's Left Faction.

There has been an increase in interest for socialism in recent years, especially among young adults.

Interest is strongest in Victoria, where the Victorian Socialists party was founded.

Current Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern of the democratic socialist New Zealand Labour Party, who has called capitalism a "blatant failure" due to the extent of homelessness in New Zealand, has been described and identified herself as democratic socialist, although others have disputed this.

In Melanesia, Melanesian socialism was inspired by African socialism and developed in the 1980s.

It aims to achieve full independence from Britain and France in Melanesian territories and creation of a Melanesian federal union.

It is very popular with the New Caledonia independence movement.

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Views on compatibility of democracy and socialism

Support


One of the major scholars who have argued that socialism and democracy are compatible is the Austrian-born American economist Joseph Schumpeter, who was hostile to socialism.

In his book Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy (1942), Schumpeter emphasised that "political democracy was thoroughly compatible with socialism in its fullest sense", although it has been noted that he did not believe that democracy was a good political system and advocated republican values.

In a 1963 address to the All India Congress Committee, Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru stated: "Political democracy has no meaning if it does not embrace economic democracy."

"And economic democracy is nothing but socialism."

Political historian Theodore Draper wrote: "I know of no political group which has resisted totalitarianism in all its guises more steadfastly than democratic socialists."

Historian and economist Robert Heilbroner argued that "(t)here is, of course, no conflict between such a socialism and freedom as we have described it; indeed, this conception of socialism is the very epitome of these freedoms", referring to open association of individuals in political and social life; the democratization and humanization of work; and the cultivation of personal talents and creativity.

Bayard Rustin, long-time member of the Socialist Party of America and National Chairman of the Social Democrats, USA, wrote: "For me, socialism has meaning only if it is democratic."

"Of the many claimants to socialism only one has a valid title — that socialism which views democracy as valuable per se, which stands for democracy unequivocally, and which continually modifies socialist ideas and programs in the light of democratic experience."

"This is the socialism of the labor, social-democratic, and socialist parties of Western Europe."

Economist and political theorist Kenneth Arrow argued: "We cannot be sure that the principles of democracy and socialism are compatible until we can observe a viable society following both principles."

"But there is no convincing evidence or reasoning which would argue that a democratic-socialist movement is inherently self-contradictory."

"Nor need we fear that gradual moves in the direction of increasing government intervention will lead to an irreversible move to 'serfdom.'"


Journalist William Pfaff wrote: "It might be argued that socialism ineluctably breeds state bureaucracy, which then imposes its own kinds of restrictions upon individual liberties."

"This is what the Scandinavians complain about."

"But Italy's champion bureaucracy owes nothing to socialism."

"American bureaucracy grows as luxuriantly and behaves as officiously as any other."

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Democratic socialism, concluded ...

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Views on compatibility of democracy and socialism

Oppose


Some politicians, economists and theorists have argued that socialism and democracy are incompatible.

According to them, history is full of instances of self-declared socialist states that at one point were committed to the values of personal liberty, freedom of speech, freedom of the press and freedom of association, but then found themselves clamping down on such freedoms as they end up being viewed as inconvenient or contrary towards their political or economic goals.


Chicago School economist Milton Friedman argued that a "society which is socialist cannot also be democratic" in the sense of "guaranteeing individual freedom."

Sociologist Robert Nisbet, a philosophical conservative who began his career as a leftist, argued in 1978 that there is "not a single free socialism to be found anywhere in the world."

Neoconservative Irving Kristol argued: "Democratic socialism turns out to be an inherently unstable compound, a contradiction in terms."

"Every social-democratic party, once in power, soon finds itself choosing, at one point after another, between the socialist society it aspires to and the liberal society that lathered it."

Kristol added that "socialist movements end up [in] a society where liberty is the property of the state, and is (or is not) doled out to its citizens along with other contingent 'benefits.'"

Similarly, anti-communist academic Richard Pipes argued: "The merger of political and economic power implicit in socialism greatly strengthens the ability of the state and its bureaucracy to control the population."

"Theoretically, this capacity need not be exercised and need not lead to growing domination of the population by the state."

"In practice, such a tendency is virtually inevitable."

"For one thing, the socialization of the economy must lead to a numerical growth of the bureaucracy required to administer it, and this process cannot fail to augment the power of the state."

"For another, socialism leads to a tug of war between the state, bent on enforcing its economic monopoly, and the ordinary citizen, equally determined to evade it; the result is repression and the creation of specialized repressive organs."


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_socialism
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