Democratic socialism, continued ...
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
History
Mid-20th century, continued ...
Giuseppe Di Vittorio, General Secretary of the Italian General Confederation of Labour, repudiated the leadership position as did the prominent party members Loris Fortuna, Antonio Giolitti and many other influential communist intellectuals who later were expelled or left the party.
Pietro Nenni, the national secretary of the Italian Socialist Party, a close ally of the PCI, opposed the Soviet intervention as well.
Napolitano, elected in 2006 as President of the Italian Republic, wrote in his 2005 political autobiography that he regretted his justification of Soviet action in Hungary and that at the time he believed in party unity and the international leadership of Soviet communism.
Within the Communist Party of Great Britain, dissent that began with the repudiation of Stalin by John Saville and E. P. Thompson, influential historians and members of the Communist Party Historians Group, culminated in a loss of thousands of party members as events unfolded in Hungary.
Peter Fryer, correspondent for the party newspaper The Daily Worker, reported accurately on the violent suppression of the uprising, but his dispatches were heavily censored.
Fryer resigned from the paper upon his return and was later expelled from the party.
In France, moderates such as historian Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie resigned, questioning the policy of supporting Soviet actions by the French Communist Party.
The French anarchist philosopher and writer Albert Camus wrote an open letter titled The Blood of the Hungarians, criticising the West's lack of action.
Jean-Paul Sartre, still a determined party member, criticised the Soviets.
In the post-war years, socialism became increasingly influential throughout the so-called Third World after decolonisation.
During India's freedom movement and fight for independence, many figures in the leftist faction of the Indian National Congress organised themselves as the Congress Socialist Party.
Their politics and those of the early and intermediate periods of Jayaprakash Narayan's career combined a commitment to the socialist transformation of society with a principled opposition to the one-party authoritarianism they perceived in the Stalinist model.
Embracing a new ideology called Third World socialism, countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America often nationalised industries held by foreign owners.
In addition, the New Left, a movement composed of activists, educators, agitators and others who sought to implement a broad range of social reforms on issues such as gay rights, abortion, gender roles and drugs, in contrast to earlier leftist or Marxist movements that had taken a more vanguardist approach to social justice and focused mostly on labour unionisation and issues related to class, became prominent in the 1960s and 1970s.
The New Left rejected involvement with the labour movement and Marxism's historical theory of class struggle.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
ON DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISM
Re: ON DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISM
Democratic socialism, continued ...
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
History
Mid-20th century, concluded ...
In the United States, the New Left was associated with the anti-war and hippie movements as well as the black liberation movements such as the Black Panther Party.
While initially formed in opposition to the so-called Old Left of the Democratic Party, groups composing the New Left gradually became central players in the Democratic coalition, culminating in the nomination of the outspoken anti-Vietnam War George McGovern at the Democratic Party primaries for the 1972 United States presidential election.
The protest wave of 1968 represented a worldwide escalation of social conflicts, predominantly characterised by popular rebellions against military dicatorships, capitalists and bureaucratic elites, who responded with an escalation of political repression and authoritarianism.
These protests marked a turning point for the civil rights movement in the United States which produced revolutionary movements like the Black Panther Party.
The prominent civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. organised the Poor People's Campaign to address issues of economic and social justice while personally showing sympathy with democratic socialism.
The classic Port Huron Statement of the Students for a Democratic Society combined a stringent critique of the Stalinist model with calls for a democratic socialist reconstruction of society.
In reaction to the Tet Offensive, protests also sparked a broad movement in opposition to the Vietnam War all over the United States and even into London, Paris, Berlin and Rome.
Mass socialist or communist movements grew not only in the United States, but also in most European countries.
The most spectacular manifestation of this was the May 1968 protests in France in which students linked up with strikes of up to ten million workers and the movement seemed capable of overthrowing the government, albeit for only a few days.
In many other capitalist countries, struggles against dictatorships, state repression and colonisation were also marked by protests in 1968 such as the beginning of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, the Tlatelolco massacre in Mexico City and the escalation of guerrilla warfare against the military dictatorship in Brazil.
Countries governed by Marxist–Leninist parties had protests against bureaucratic and military elites.
In Eastern Europe, there were widespread protests that escalated particularly in the Prague Spring in Czechoslovakia.
In response, the Soviet Union occupied Czechoslovakia, but the occupation was denounced by the Italian and French communist parties as well as the Communist Party of Finland.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
History
Mid-20th century, concluded ...
In the United States, the New Left was associated with the anti-war and hippie movements as well as the black liberation movements such as the Black Panther Party.
While initially formed in opposition to the so-called Old Left of the Democratic Party, groups composing the New Left gradually became central players in the Democratic coalition, culminating in the nomination of the outspoken anti-Vietnam War George McGovern at the Democratic Party primaries for the 1972 United States presidential election.
The protest wave of 1968 represented a worldwide escalation of social conflicts, predominantly characterised by popular rebellions against military dicatorships, capitalists and bureaucratic elites, who responded with an escalation of political repression and authoritarianism.
These protests marked a turning point for the civil rights movement in the United States which produced revolutionary movements like the Black Panther Party.
The prominent civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. organised the Poor People's Campaign to address issues of economic and social justice while personally showing sympathy with democratic socialism.
The classic Port Huron Statement of the Students for a Democratic Society combined a stringent critique of the Stalinist model with calls for a democratic socialist reconstruction of society.
In reaction to the Tet Offensive, protests also sparked a broad movement in opposition to the Vietnam War all over the United States and even into London, Paris, Berlin and Rome.
Mass socialist or communist movements grew not only in the United States, but also in most European countries.
The most spectacular manifestation of this was the May 1968 protests in France in which students linked up with strikes of up to ten million workers and the movement seemed capable of overthrowing the government, albeit for only a few days.
In many other capitalist countries, struggles against dictatorships, state repression and colonisation were also marked by protests in 1968 such as the beginning of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, the Tlatelolco massacre in Mexico City and the escalation of guerrilla warfare against the military dictatorship in Brazil.
Countries governed by Marxist–Leninist parties had protests against bureaucratic and military elites.
In Eastern Europe, there were widespread protests that escalated particularly in the Prague Spring in Czechoslovakia.
In response, the Soviet Union occupied Czechoslovakia, but the occupation was denounced by the Italian and French communist parties as well as the Communist Party of Finland.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
Re: ON DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISM
Democratic socialism, continued ...
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
History
Late 20th century
In Latin America, liberation theology is a socialist tendency within the Roman Catholic Church that emerged in the 1960s.
In Chile, Salvador Allende, a physician and candidate for the Socialist Party of Chile, became the first democratically elected Marxist President after presidential elections were held in 1970.
However, his government was ousted three years later in a military coup backed by the CIA and the United States government, instituting the right-wing dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet which lasted until the late 1980s.
In addition, Michael Manley, a self-described democratic socialist, served as the fourth Prime Minister of Jamaica from 1972 to 1980 and from 1989 to 1992.
According to opinion polls, he remains one of Jamaica's most popular Prime Ministers since independence.
Eurocommunism became a trend in the 1970s and 1980s in various Western European communist parties which intended to develop a modernised theory and practice of social transformation that was more relevant for a Western European country and less aligned to the influence or control of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
Outside of Western Europe, it is sometimes referred to as neocommunism.
Some communist parties with strong popular support, notably the Italian Communist Party and the Communist Party of Spain, enthusiastically adopted Eurocommunism and the Communist Party of Finland was dominated by Eurocommunists.
In the late 1970s and in the 1980s, the Socialist International had extensive contacts and held discussion with the two powers of the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union, regarding the relations between the East and West, along with arms control.
Since then, the Socialist International has admitted as member parties the Nicaraguan Sandinista National Liberation Front and the left-wing Puerto Rican Independence Party as well as former communist parties such as the Italian Democratic Party of the Left and the Front for the Liberation of Mozambique.
The Socialist International aided social democratic parties in re-establishing themselves after right-wing dictatorships were toppled in Portugal and Spain, respectively in 1974 and 1975.
Until its 1976 congress in Geneva, the Socialist International had few members outside Europe and no formal involvement with Latin America.
In the United States, the Social Democrats, USA, an association of reformist social democrats and democratic socialists, was founded in 1972.
The Socialist Party of America had stopped running independent presidential candidates and begun reforming itself towards democratic socialism.
Consequently, the party's name was changed because it had confused the public.
With the name change in place, the Social Democrats, USA clarified its vision to Americans who confused democratic socialism with Marxism–Leninism, harsly opposed by the organisation.
In 1983, the Democratic Socialists of America was founded as a merger of the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee with the New American Movement, an organization of New Left veterans.
Earlier in 1973, Michael Harrington and Irving Howe formed the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee which articulated a democratic socialist message while a smaller faction associated with peace activist David McReynolds formed the Socialist Party USA.
Harrington and the socialist-feminist author Barbara Ehrenreich were elected as the first co-chairs of the organisation which does not stand its own candidates in elections and instead "fights for reforms [...] that will weaken the power of corporations and increase the power of working people."
TO BE CONTINUED ...
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
History
Late 20th century
In Latin America, liberation theology is a socialist tendency within the Roman Catholic Church that emerged in the 1960s.
In Chile, Salvador Allende, a physician and candidate for the Socialist Party of Chile, became the first democratically elected Marxist President after presidential elections were held in 1970.
However, his government was ousted three years later in a military coup backed by the CIA and the United States government, instituting the right-wing dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet which lasted until the late 1980s.
In addition, Michael Manley, a self-described democratic socialist, served as the fourth Prime Minister of Jamaica from 1972 to 1980 and from 1989 to 1992.
According to opinion polls, he remains one of Jamaica's most popular Prime Ministers since independence.
Eurocommunism became a trend in the 1970s and 1980s in various Western European communist parties which intended to develop a modernised theory and practice of social transformation that was more relevant for a Western European country and less aligned to the influence or control of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
Outside of Western Europe, it is sometimes referred to as neocommunism.
Some communist parties with strong popular support, notably the Italian Communist Party and the Communist Party of Spain, enthusiastically adopted Eurocommunism and the Communist Party of Finland was dominated by Eurocommunists.
In the late 1970s and in the 1980s, the Socialist International had extensive contacts and held discussion with the two powers of the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union, regarding the relations between the East and West, along with arms control.
Since then, the Socialist International has admitted as member parties the Nicaraguan Sandinista National Liberation Front and the left-wing Puerto Rican Independence Party as well as former communist parties such as the Italian Democratic Party of the Left and the Front for the Liberation of Mozambique.
The Socialist International aided social democratic parties in re-establishing themselves after right-wing dictatorships were toppled in Portugal and Spain, respectively in 1974 and 1975.
Until its 1976 congress in Geneva, the Socialist International had few members outside Europe and no formal involvement with Latin America.
In the United States, the Social Democrats, USA, an association of reformist social democrats and democratic socialists, was founded in 1972.
The Socialist Party of America had stopped running independent presidential candidates and begun reforming itself towards democratic socialism.
Consequently, the party's name was changed because it had confused the public.
With the name change in place, the Social Democrats, USA clarified its vision to Americans who confused democratic socialism with Marxism–Leninism, harsly opposed by the organisation.
In 1983, the Democratic Socialists of America was founded as a merger of the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee with the New American Movement, an organization of New Left veterans.
Earlier in 1973, Michael Harrington and Irving Howe formed the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee which articulated a democratic socialist message while a smaller faction associated with peace activist David McReynolds formed the Socialist Party USA.
Harrington and the socialist-feminist author Barbara Ehrenreich were elected as the first co-chairs of the organisation which does not stand its own candidates in elections and instead "fights for reforms [...] that will weaken the power of corporations and increase the power of working people."
TO BE CONTINUED ...
Re: ON DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISM
Democratic socialism, continued ...
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
History
Late 20th century, continued ...
In Greece, the Panhellenic Socialist Movement, better known as PASOK, was founded on 3 September 1974 by Andreas Papandreou as a democratic socialist, left-wing nationalist, Venizelist and social democratic party following the collapse of the military dictatorship of 1967–1974.
As a result of the 1981 legislative election, PASOK became Greece's first centre-left party to win a majority in the Hellenic Parliament and the party would later pass several important economic and social reforms that would reshape Greece in the years ahead until its collapse in the 2010s.
During the 1980s, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev intended to move the Soviet Union towards democratic socialism in the form of Nordic-style social democracy, calling it a "socialist beacon for all mankind."
Prior to its dissolution in 1991, the Soviet Union had the second largest economy in the world after the United States.
After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the economic integration of the Soviet republics was dissolved and industrial activity suffered a substantial decline.
A lasting legacy of the Soviet Union remains physical infrastructure created during decades of policies geared towards the construction of heavy industry and widespread environmental destruction.
The rapid transition to neoliberal capitalism and privatisation in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc was accompanied by a steep fall in standards of living as poverty, unemployment, income inequality and excess mortality rose sharply as Russia would be in recession until the depths of the 1998 Russian financial crisis.
This was further accompanied by the entrenchment of a newly established business oligarchy in the former countries of the Soviet Union.
The average post-communist country returned to 1989 levels of per-capita GDP only by 2005.
In a 2001 study by economist Steven Rosefielde, he calculated that there were 3.4 million premature deaths in Russia from 1990 to 1998 which he partly blames on the "shock therapy" that came with the Washington Consensus.
GDP in Russia began rising rapidly around 1999 after currency devaluation, tax reforms, further deregulation of small and medium-sized businesses and increasing commodity prices.
It would surpass 1989 levels only in 2007, with poverty decreasing from 30% in 2000 to 14% in 2008, after adopting a mixed economy approach.
In the decades following the end of the Cold War, only five or six of the post-communist states are on a path to joining the wealthy capitalist West while most are falling behind, some to such an extent that it will take over fifty years to catch up to where they were before the end of the Soviet system.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
History
Late 20th century, continued ...
In Greece, the Panhellenic Socialist Movement, better known as PASOK, was founded on 3 September 1974 by Andreas Papandreou as a democratic socialist, left-wing nationalist, Venizelist and social democratic party following the collapse of the military dictatorship of 1967–1974.
As a result of the 1981 legislative election, PASOK became Greece's first centre-left party to win a majority in the Hellenic Parliament and the party would later pass several important economic and social reforms that would reshape Greece in the years ahead until its collapse in the 2010s.
During the 1980s, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev intended to move the Soviet Union towards democratic socialism in the form of Nordic-style social democracy, calling it a "socialist beacon for all mankind."
Prior to its dissolution in 1991, the Soviet Union had the second largest economy in the world after the United States.
After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the economic integration of the Soviet republics was dissolved and industrial activity suffered a substantial decline.
A lasting legacy of the Soviet Union remains physical infrastructure created during decades of policies geared towards the construction of heavy industry and widespread environmental destruction.
The rapid transition to neoliberal capitalism and privatisation in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc was accompanied by a steep fall in standards of living as poverty, unemployment, income inequality and excess mortality rose sharply as Russia would be in recession until the depths of the 1998 Russian financial crisis.
This was further accompanied by the entrenchment of a newly established business oligarchy in the former countries of the Soviet Union.
The average post-communist country returned to 1989 levels of per-capita GDP only by 2005.
In a 2001 study by economist Steven Rosefielde, he calculated that there were 3.4 million premature deaths in Russia from 1990 to 1998 which he partly blames on the "shock therapy" that came with the Washington Consensus.
GDP in Russia began rising rapidly around 1999 after currency devaluation, tax reforms, further deregulation of small and medium-sized businesses and increasing commodity prices.
It would surpass 1989 levels only in 2007, with poverty decreasing from 30% in 2000 to 14% in 2008, after adopting a mixed economy approach.
In the decades following the end of the Cold War, only five or six of the post-communist states are on a path to joining the wealthy capitalist West while most are falling behind, some to such an extent that it will take over fifty years to catch up to where they were before the end of the Soviet system.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
Re: ON DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISM
Democratic socialism, continued ...
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
History
Late 20th century, continued ...
Many social-democratic parties, particularly after the Cold War, adopted neoliberal economic policies, including austerity, deregulation, financialisation, free trade, privatisation and welfare reforms such as workfare, experiencing a drastic decline in the 2010s after their successes in the 1990s and 2000s in a phenomenon known as Pasokification.
As monetarists and neoliberals attacked social welfare systems as impediments to private entrepreneurship, prominent social-democratic parties abandoned their pursuit of moderate socialism in favour of economic liberalism.
This resulted in the rise of more left-wing and democratic socialist parties that rejected neoliberalism and the Third Way.
In the United Kingdom, prominent democratic socialists within the Labour Party such as Michael Foot and Tony Benn put forward democratic socialism into an actionable manifesto during the 1970s and 1980s, but this was voted overwhelmingly against in the 1983 general election after Margaret Thatcher's victory in the Falklands War and the manifesto was referred to as "the longest suicide note in history."
By the 1980s, with the rise of conservative neoliberal politicians such as Ronald Reagan in the United States, Margaret Thatcher in Britain, Brian Mulroney in Canada and Augusto Pinochet in Chile, the Western welfare state was attacked from within, but state support for the corporate sector was maintained.
According to Kristen Ghodsee, the triumphalist attitudes of Western powers at the end of the Cold War and the fixation with linking all leftist and socialist ideals with the excesses of Stalinism allowed neoliberalism to fill the void.
This undermined democratic institutions and reforms, leaving a trail of economic misery, unemployment, hopelessness and rising economic inequality throughout the former Eastern Bloc and much of the West in the following decades.
With democracy weakened and the anti-capitalist left marginalised, the anger and resentment which followed the period of neoliberalism was channeled into extremist nationalist movements in both the former and the latter.
As a result of the party's shift, Labour Party leader Neil Kinnock made a public attack against the entryist group Militant at the 1985 Labour Party conference in Bournemouth.
The Labour Party ruled that Militant was ineligible for affiliation with the Labour Party and the party gradually expelled Militant supporters.
The Kinnock leadership had refused to support the 1984–1985 miner's strike over pit closures, a decision that the party's left-wing and the National Union of Mineworkers blamed for the strike's eventual defeat.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
History
Late 20th century, continued ...
Many social-democratic parties, particularly after the Cold War, adopted neoliberal economic policies, including austerity, deregulation, financialisation, free trade, privatisation and welfare reforms such as workfare, experiencing a drastic decline in the 2010s after their successes in the 1990s and 2000s in a phenomenon known as Pasokification.
As monetarists and neoliberals attacked social welfare systems as impediments to private entrepreneurship, prominent social-democratic parties abandoned their pursuit of moderate socialism in favour of economic liberalism.
This resulted in the rise of more left-wing and democratic socialist parties that rejected neoliberalism and the Third Way.
In the United Kingdom, prominent democratic socialists within the Labour Party such as Michael Foot and Tony Benn put forward democratic socialism into an actionable manifesto during the 1970s and 1980s, but this was voted overwhelmingly against in the 1983 general election after Margaret Thatcher's victory in the Falklands War and the manifesto was referred to as "the longest suicide note in history."
By the 1980s, with the rise of conservative neoliberal politicians such as Ronald Reagan in the United States, Margaret Thatcher in Britain, Brian Mulroney in Canada and Augusto Pinochet in Chile, the Western welfare state was attacked from within, but state support for the corporate sector was maintained.
According to Kristen Ghodsee, the triumphalist attitudes of Western powers at the end of the Cold War and the fixation with linking all leftist and socialist ideals with the excesses of Stalinism allowed neoliberalism to fill the void.
This undermined democratic institutions and reforms, leaving a trail of economic misery, unemployment, hopelessness and rising economic inequality throughout the former Eastern Bloc and much of the West in the following decades.
With democracy weakened and the anti-capitalist left marginalised, the anger and resentment which followed the period of neoliberalism was channeled into extremist nationalist movements in both the former and the latter.
As a result of the party's shift, Labour Party leader Neil Kinnock made a public attack against the entryist group Militant at the 1985 Labour Party conference in Bournemouth.
The Labour Party ruled that Militant was ineligible for affiliation with the Labour Party and the party gradually expelled Militant supporters.
The Kinnock leadership had refused to support the 1984–1985 miner's strike over pit closures, a decision that the party's left-wing and the National Union of Mineworkers blamed for the strike's eventual defeat.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
Re: ON DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISM
Democratic socialism, continued ...
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
History
Late 20th century, concluded ...
In 1989, the Socialist International adopted a new Declaration of Principles at its 18th congress in Stockholm, Sweden, stating: "Democratic socialism is an international movement for freedom, social justice, and solidarity."
"Its goal is to achieve a peaceful world where these basic values can be enhanced and where each individual can live a meaningful life with the full development of his or her personality and talents, and with the guarantee of human and civil rights in a democratic framework of society."
Within the Labour Party, the democratic socialist label was used historically by those who identified with the tradition represented by the Independent Labour Party, the soft left of non-Marxist socialists such as Michael Foot around the Tribune magazine and some of the hard left in the Campaign Group around Tony Benn.
The Campaign Group, along with the Socialist Society led by Raymond Williams and others, formed the Socialist Movement in 1987 which now produces the magazine Red Pepper.
In the late 1990s, the Labour Party under the leadership of Tony Blair enacted policies based on the liberal market economy with the intention of delivering public services via the private finance initiative.
Influential in these policies was the idea of a Third Way which called for a re-evaluation and reduction of welfare state policies.
In 1995, the Labour Party re-defined its position on socialism by re-wording Clause IV of their Constitution, effectively removing all references to public, direct worker or municipal ownership of the means of production and now reading: "The Labour Party is a democratic socialist party."
"It believes that, by the strength of our common endeavour we achieve more than we achieve alone, so as to create, for each of us, the means to realise our true potential, and, for all of us, a community in which power, wealth, and opportunity are in the hands of the many, not the few."
New Labour eventually won the 1997 United Kingdom general election in a landslide and Blair described New Labour as a "left of centre party, pursuing economic prosperity and social justice as partners and not as opposites."
It has been argued that the Labour Party under the Blair ministry effectively governed from the radical centre, something which Blair had promised to do in the 1997 general election.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
History
Late 20th century, concluded ...
In 1989, the Socialist International adopted a new Declaration of Principles at its 18th congress in Stockholm, Sweden, stating: "Democratic socialism is an international movement for freedom, social justice, and solidarity."
"Its goal is to achieve a peaceful world where these basic values can be enhanced and where each individual can live a meaningful life with the full development of his or her personality and talents, and with the guarantee of human and civil rights in a democratic framework of society."
Within the Labour Party, the democratic socialist label was used historically by those who identified with the tradition represented by the Independent Labour Party, the soft left of non-Marxist socialists such as Michael Foot around the Tribune magazine and some of the hard left in the Campaign Group around Tony Benn.
The Campaign Group, along with the Socialist Society led by Raymond Williams and others, formed the Socialist Movement in 1987 which now produces the magazine Red Pepper.
In the late 1990s, the Labour Party under the leadership of Tony Blair enacted policies based on the liberal market economy with the intention of delivering public services via the private finance initiative.
Influential in these policies was the idea of a Third Way which called for a re-evaluation and reduction of welfare state policies.
In 1995, the Labour Party re-defined its position on socialism by re-wording Clause IV of their Constitution, effectively removing all references to public, direct worker or municipal ownership of the means of production and now reading: "The Labour Party is a democratic socialist party."
"It believes that, by the strength of our common endeavour we achieve more than we achieve alone, so as to create, for each of us, the means to realise our true potential, and, for all of us, a community in which power, wealth, and opportunity are in the hands of the many, not the few."
New Labour eventually won the 1997 United Kingdom general election in a landslide and Blair described New Labour as a "left of centre party, pursuing economic prosperity and social justice as partners and not as opposites."
It has been argued that the Labour Party under the Blair ministry effectively governed from the radical centre, something which Blair had promised to do in the 1997 general election.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
Re: ON DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISM
Democratic socialism, continued ...
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
History
21st century
By the 21st century, democratic socialism became a synonym in American politics for social democracy due to social-democratic policies being adopted by progressive-liberal intellectuals and politicians, causing the New Deal coalition to be the main entity spearheading left-wing reforms of capitalism, rather than by socialists like elsewhere.
Democratic socialists see the welfare state "not merely to provide benefits but to build the foundation for emancipation and self-determination."
Despite the long history of overlap between the two, with social democracy considered a form of democratic or parliamentary socialism and social democrats calling themselves democratic socialists, this is considered a misnomer in the United States.
One issue is that social democracy is equated with wealthy countries in the Western world while democratic socialism is conflated either with the pink tide in Latin America or with Marxist–Leninist socialism as practised in the Soviet Union and other self-declared socialist states.
Democratic socialism has been described as representing the left-wing or socialist New Deal tradition.
The Progressive Alliance is a political international organisation founded on 22 May 2013 by left-wing political parties, the majority of which are current or former members of the Socialist International.
The organisation states that its aim is becoming the global network of "the progressive, democratic, social-democratic, socialist and labour movement."
On 30 November 2018, The Sanders Institute and the Democracy in Europe Movement 2025 founded the Progressive International, an international political organisation which unites democratic socialists with labour unionists, progressives and social democrats.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
History
21st century
By the 21st century, democratic socialism became a synonym in American politics for social democracy due to social-democratic policies being adopted by progressive-liberal intellectuals and politicians, causing the New Deal coalition to be the main entity spearheading left-wing reforms of capitalism, rather than by socialists like elsewhere.
Democratic socialists see the welfare state "not merely to provide benefits but to build the foundation for emancipation and self-determination."
Despite the long history of overlap between the two, with social democracy considered a form of democratic or parliamentary socialism and social democrats calling themselves democratic socialists, this is considered a misnomer in the United States.
One issue is that social democracy is equated with wealthy countries in the Western world while democratic socialism is conflated either with the pink tide in Latin America or with Marxist–Leninist socialism as practised in the Soviet Union and other self-declared socialist states.
Democratic socialism has been described as representing the left-wing or socialist New Deal tradition.
The Progressive Alliance is a political international organisation founded on 22 May 2013 by left-wing political parties, the majority of which are current or former members of the Socialist International.
The organisation states that its aim is becoming the global network of "the progressive, democratic, social-democratic, socialist and labour movement."
On 30 November 2018, The Sanders Institute and the Democracy in Europe Movement 2025 founded the Progressive International, an international political organisation which unites democratic socialists with labour unionists, progressives and social democrats.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
Re: ON DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISM
Democratic socialism, continued ...
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
History
Africa
African socialism has been a major ideology around the continent and remains so in the present day.
Although affiliated with the Socialist International, the African National Congress (ANC) in South Africa abandoned its socialist ideology after gaining power in 1994 and followed a neoliberal route.
From 2005 until 2007, the country was wracked by thousands of protests from poor working-class communities.
One of these gave rise to a mass democratic socialist movement of shack dwellers called Abahlali baseMjondolo which continues to work for popular people's planning and against the proliferation of capitalism in land and housing, despite experiencing repression at the hands of the police.
In 2013, the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa, the country's biggest trade union, voted to withdraw support from the AFC and the South African Communist Party and to form an independent socialist party to protect the interests of the working class, resulting in the creation of the United Front.
Other democratic socialist parties in Africa include the Movement of Socialist Democrats, the Congress for the Republic, the Movement of Socialist Democrats and the Democratic Patriots' Unified Party in Tunisia, the Berber Socialism and Revolution Party in Algeria, the Congress of Democrats in Namibia, the National Progressive Unionist Party, the Socialist Party of Egypt, the Workers and Peasants Party, the Workers Democratic Party, the Revolutionary Socialists and the Socialist Popular Alliance Party in Egypt and the Socialist Democratic Vanguard Party in Morocco.
Democratic socialists played a major role in the Arab Spring of 2011, especially in Egypt and Tunisia.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
History
Africa
African socialism has been a major ideology around the continent and remains so in the present day.
Although affiliated with the Socialist International, the African National Congress (ANC) in South Africa abandoned its socialist ideology after gaining power in 1994 and followed a neoliberal route.
From 2005 until 2007, the country was wracked by thousands of protests from poor working-class communities.
One of these gave rise to a mass democratic socialist movement of shack dwellers called Abahlali baseMjondolo which continues to work for popular people's planning and against the proliferation of capitalism in land and housing, despite experiencing repression at the hands of the police.
In 2013, the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa, the country's biggest trade union, voted to withdraw support from the AFC and the South African Communist Party and to form an independent socialist party to protect the interests of the working class, resulting in the creation of the United Front.
Other democratic socialist parties in Africa include the Movement of Socialist Democrats, the Congress for the Republic, the Movement of Socialist Democrats and the Democratic Patriots' Unified Party in Tunisia, the Berber Socialism and Revolution Party in Algeria, the Congress of Democrats in Namibia, the National Progressive Unionist Party, the Socialist Party of Egypt, the Workers and Peasants Party, the Workers Democratic Party, the Revolutionary Socialists and the Socialist Popular Alliance Party in Egypt and the Socialist Democratic Vanguard Party in Morocco.
Democratic socialists played a major role in the Arab Spring of 2011, especially in Egypt and Tunisia.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
Re: ON DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISM
Democratic socialism, continued ...
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Americas
North America
In North America, Canada and the United States represent an unusual case in the Western world in that they were not governed by a socialist party at the federal level.
However, the democratic socialist Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF), the precursor to the social-democratic New Democratic Party (NDP), had significant success in provincial Canadian politics.
In 1944, the Saskatchewan CCF formed the first socialist government in North America and its leader Tommy Douglas is known for having spearheaded the adoption of Canada's nationwide system of universal healthcare called Medicare.
At the federal level, the NDP was the Official Opposition (2011–2015).
In the United States, Bernie Sanders, who was the 37th Mayor of Burlington, became the first self-described democratic socialist to be elected to the Senate from Vermont in 2006.
In 2016, Sanders made a bid for the Democratic Party presidential candidate, thereby gaining considerable popular support, particularly among the younger generation and the working class.
Although he ultimately lost the nomination to Hillary Clinton, a centrist candidate who was later defeated by Donald Trump, Sanders ran again in the 2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries, briefly becoming the front-runner in February until Super Tuesday in March and suspending his campaign in April.
Sanders would remain on the ballot in states that had not yet voted to further influence the Democratic Party's platform as he did in 2016.
Since his praise of the Nordic model indicated focus on social democracy as opposed to views involving social ownership, it has been argued that the term democratic socialism has become a misnomer for social democracy in American politics.
Nonetheless, Sanders has explicitly advocated for some form of public ownership as well as workplace democracy, an expansion of worker cooperatives and the democratisation of the economy.
Sanders' proposed legislation include worker-owned business, the Workplace Democracy Act, employee ownership as alternative to corporations and a package to encourage employee-owned companies.
Called a "decent, honest New Dealer", Sanders associates Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal and Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society as part of the democratic socialist tradition and claimed the New Deal's legacy to "take up the unfinished business of the New Deal and carry it to completion."
While opponents of Sanders have used the democratic socialist label to accuse him of being too left-leaning for American politics, the theoretical and practical applications of it are based on the precept of shifting responsibility away from the national level to local decision-makers, a fundamental principle shared by the system of federalism in the United States.
A democratic socialist perspective on government investment in infrastructure would support more projects with smaller-sized budgets on a local level instead of a few highly expensive ones.
This view aligns with the Republican Party's fundamental identity, philosophy and agenda of local people exerting control over their own affairs.
In a 2018 poll conducted by Gallup, a majority of people under the age of 30 in the United States stated that they approve of socialism.
57% of Democratic-leaning voters viewed socialism positively and 47% saw capitalism positively while 71% of Republican-leaning voters who were polled saw capitalism under a positive light and 16% viewed socialism in a positive light.
A 2019 YouGov poll found that 7 out of 10 millennials in the United States would vote for a socialist presidential candidate and 36% had a favorable view of communism.
An earlier 2019 Harris Poll found that socialism is more popular with women than men, with 55% of women between the ages of 18 and 54 preferring to live in a socialist society while a majority of men surveyed in the poll chose capitalism over socialism.
Although there is no agreement on the meaning of socialism in those polls, there has been a steady increase of support for progressive reforms such as the United States National Health Care Act to enact universal single-payer health care and the Green New Deal.
In November 2018, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rashida Tlaib, who are members of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), a democratic socialist organization which advocates progressive reforms that "will weaken the power of corporations and increase the power of working people", were elected to the House of Representatives while eleven DSA candidates were elected to state legislatures.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Americas
North America
In North America, Canada and the United States represent an unusual case in the Western world in that they were not governed by a socialist party at the federal level.
However, the democratic socialist Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF), the precursor to the social-democratic New Democratic Party (NDP), had significant success in provincial Canadian politics.
In 1944, the Saskatchewan CCF formed the first socialist government in North America and its leader Tommy Douglas is known for having spearheaded the adoption of Canada's nationwide system of universal healthcare called Medicare.
At the federal level, the NDP was the Official Opposition (2011–2015).
In the United States, Bernie Sanders, who was the 37th Mayor of Burlington, became the first self-described democratic socialist to be elected to the Senate from Vermont in 2006.
In 2016, Sanders made a bid for the Democratic Party presidential candidate, thereby gaining considerable popular support, particularly among the younger generation and the working class.
Although he ultimately lost the nomination to Hillary Clinton, a centrist candidate who was later defeated by Donald Trump, Sanders ran again in the 2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries, briefly becoming the front-runner in February until Super Tuesday in March and suspending his campaign in April.
Sanders would remain on the ballot in states that had not yet voted to further influence the Democratic Party's platform as he did in 2016.
Since his praise of the Nordic model indicated focus on social democracy as opposed to views involving social ownership, it has been argued that the term democratic socialism has become a misnomer for social democracy in American politics.
Nonetheless, Sanders has explicitly advocated for some form of public ownership as well as workplace democracy, an expansion of worker cooperatives and the democratisation of the economy.
Sanders' proposed legislation include worker-owned business, the Workplace Democracy Act, employee ownership as alternative to corporations and a package to encourage employee-owned companies.
Called a "decent, honest New Dealer", Sanders associates Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal and Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society as part of the democratic socialist tradition and claimed the New Deal's legacy to "take up the unfinished business of the New Deal and carry it to completion."
While opponents of Sanders have used the democratic socialist label to accuse him of being too left-leaning for American politics, the theoretical and practical applications of it are based on the precept of shifting responsibility away from the national level to local decision-makers, a fundamental principle shared by the system of federalism in the United States.
A democratic socialist perspective on government investment in infrastructure would support more projects with smaller-sized budgets on a local level instead of a few highly expensive ones.
This view aligns with the Republican Party's fundamental identity, philosophy and agenda of local people exerting control over their own affairs.
In a 2018 poll conducted by Gallup, a majority of people under the age of 30 in the United States stated that they approve of socialism.
57% of Democratic-leaning voters viewed socialism positively and 47% saw capitalism positively while 71% of Republican-leaning voters who were polled saw capitalism under a positive light and 16% viewed socialism in a positive light.
A 2019 YouGov poll found that 7 out of 10 millennials in the United States would vote for a socialist presidential candidate and 36% had a favorable view of communism.
An earlier 2019 Harris Poll found that socialism is more popular with women than men, with 55% of women between the ages of 18 and 54 preferring to live in a socialist society while a majority of men surveyed in the poll chose capitalism over socialism.
Although there is no agreement on the meaning of socialism in those polls, there has been a steady increase of support for progressive reforms such as the United States National Health Care Act to enact universal single-payer health care and the Green New Deal.
In November 2018, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rashida Tlaib, who are members of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), a democratic socialist organization which advocates progressive reforms that "will weaken the power of corporations and increase the power of working people", were elected to the House of Representatives while eleven DSA candidates were elected to state legislatures.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
Re: ON DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISM
Democratic socialism, continued ...
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Americas
Latin America
According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, "the attempt by Salvador Allende to unite Marxists and other reformers in a socialist reconstruction of Chile is most representative of the direction that Latin American socialists have taken since the late 20th century."
"[...] Several socialist (or socialist-leaning) leaders have followed Allende's example in winning election to office in Latin American countries."
Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, Bolivian President Evo Morales and Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa refer to their political programmes as socialist and Chávez adopted the term socialism of the 21st century.
After winning re-election in December 2006, Chávez stated: "Now more than ever, I am obliged to move Venezuela's path towards socialism."
Chávez was re-elected in October 2012 for his third six-year term as president, but he suddenly died in March 2013 from advanced cancer.
After Chávez's death, Nicolás Maduro, the Vice President of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela, assumed the powers and responsibilities of the President on 5 March 2013.
A special election to elect a new president was held on 14 April 2013 which Maduro won by a tight margin as the candidate of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela.
He was formally inaugurated on 19 April 2013.
Most democratic socialist scholars and analysts have been sceptical of Latin America's examples.
While citing their progressive role, they argue that the appropriate label for these governments is populism rather than socialism due to their authoritarian characteristics and occasional cults of personality.
On the socialist development in Venezuela, Chávez argued with the second government plan (Plan de la Patria [es]) that "socialism has just begun to implant its internal dynamism among us" whilst acknowledging that "the socio-economic formation that still prevails in Venezuela is capitalist and rentier."
This same thesis is defended by Maduro, who acknowledges that he has failed in the development of the productive forces while admitting that "the old model of corrupt and inefficient state capitalism" typical of traditional Venezuelan oil rentism has contradictorily combined with a statist model that "pretends to be a socialist."
The pink tide is a term being used in contemporary 21st-century political analysis in the media and elsewhere to describe the perception that left-wing politics are becoming increasingly influential in Latin America.
The Foro de São Paulo is a conference of leftist political parties and other organisations from Latin America and the Caribbean.
It was launched in 1990 by the Brazilian Workers' Party in São Paulo.
The Forum of São Paulo was founded in 1990, when the Workers' Party approached other parties and social movements of Latin America and the Caribbean with the objective of debating the new international scenario after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the consequences of the implementation of what were taken as neoliberal policies adopted at the time by contemporary right-leaning governments in the region, with the stated main objective of the conference being to argue for genuine alternatives to neoliberalism.
Among its members, it includes democratic socialist and social democratic parties in the region such as Bolivia's Movement for Socialism, Brazil's Workers' Party, the Ecuadorian PAIS Alliance, the Venezuelan United Socialist Party of Venezuela, the Socialist Party of Chile, the Uruguayan Broad Front, the Nicaraguan Sandinista National Liberation Front and the Salvadoran Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front.
Former members included the Brazilian Socialist Party and the Popular Socialist Party.
In Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador of the National Regeneration Movement was elected in a landslide victory in the 2018 Mexican general election.
Many of his policy proposals include traditionally labour based and decentralised democratic socialist reforms such as increased social spending, increases in financial aid for students and doubling the pension for the elderly as well as the minimum wage, construction of 100 universities and universal access to public colleges, an amnesty for non-violent drug criminals with the end of the war on drugs and the legalization of some drugs like marijuana, cancellation of the Mexico City New International Airport project surrounded with scandals and environmental irregularities, the construction of more oil refineries and a referendum on past energy reforms implemented in 2013 that ended Pemex's 75-year state-own control of the oil company the profits of which represented 18% of the total budget revenues of the public sector, extensive stimulation of the country's agricultural sector, delay of the renegotiation of NAFTA until after the elections and slashing politicians' exorbitant salaries and perks as well as the decentralisation of the executive cabinet by moving some key government departments and agencies from the capital to the states.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Americas
Latin America
According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, "the attempt by Salvador Allende to unite Marxists and other reformers in a socialist reconstruction of Chile is most representative of the direction that Latin American socialists have taken since the late 20th century."
"[...] Several socialist (or socialist-leaning) leaders have followed Allende's example in winning election to office in Latin American countries."
Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, Bolivian President Evo Morales and Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa refer to their political programmes as socialist and Chávez adopted the term socialism of the 21st century.
After winning re-election in December 2006, Chávez stated: "Now more than ever, I am obliged to move Venezuela's path towards socialism."
Chávez was re-elected in October 2012 for his third six-year term as president, but he suddenly died in March 2013 from advanced cancer.
After Chávez's death, Nicolás Maduro, the Vice President of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela, assumed the powers and responsibilities of the President on 5 March 2013.
A special election to elect a new president was held on 14 April 2013 which Maduro won by a tight margin as the candidate of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela.
He was formally inaugurated on 19 April 2013.
Most democratic socialist scholars and analysts have been sceptical of Latin America's examples.
While citing their progressive role, they argue that the appropriate label for these governments is populism rather than socialism due to their authoritarian characteristics and occasional cults of personality.
On the socialist development in Venezuela, Chávez argued with the second government plan (Plan de la Patria [es]) that "socialism has just begun to implant its internal dynamism among us" whilst acknowledging that "the socio-economic formation that still prevails in Venezuela is capitalist and rentier."
This same thesis is defended by Maduro, who acknowledges that he has failed in the development of the productive forces while admitting that "the old model of corrupt and inefficient state capitalism" typical of traditional Venezuelan oil rentism has contradictorily combined with a statist model that "pretends to be a socialist."
The pink tide is a term being used in contemporary 21st-century political analysis in the media and elsewhere to describe the perception that left-wing politics are becoming increasingly influential in Latin America.
The Foro de São Paulo is a conference of leftist political parties and other organisations from Latin America and the Caribbean.
It was launched in 1990 by the Brazilian Workers' Party in São Paulo.
The Forum of São Paulo was founded in 1990, when the Workers' Party approached other parties and social movements of Latin America and the Caribbean with the objective of debating the new international scenario after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the consequences of the implementation of what were taken as neoliberal policies adopted at the time by contemporary right-leaning governments in the region, with the stated main objective of the conference being to argue for genuine alternatives to neoliberalism.
Among its members, it includes democratic socialist and social democratic parties in the region such as Bolivia's Movement for Socialism, Brazil's Workers' Party, the Ecuadorian PAIS Alliance, the Venezuelan United Socialist Party of Venezuela, the Socialist Party of Chile, the Uruguayan Broad Front, the Nicaraguan Sandinista National Liberation Front and the Salvadoran Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front.
Former members included the Brazilian Socialist Party and the Popular Socialist Party.
In Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador of the National Regeneration Movement was elected in a landslide victory in the 2018 Mexican general election.
Many of his policy proposals include traditionally labour based and decentralised democratic socialist reforms such as increased social spending, increases in financial aid for students and doubling the pension for the elderly as well as the minimum wage, construction of 100 universities and universal access to public colleges, an amnesty for non-violent drug criminals with the end of the war on drugs and the legalization of some drugs like marijuana, cancellation of the Mexico City New International Airport project surrounded with scandals and environmental irregularities, the construction of more oil refineries and a referendum on past energy reforms implemented in 2013 that ended Pemex's 75-year state-own control of the oil company the profits of which represented 18% of the total budget revenues of the public sector, extensive stimulation of the country's agricultural sector, delay of the renegotiation of NAFTA until after the elections and slashing politicians' exorbitant salaries and perks as well as the decentralisation of the executive cabinet by moving some key government departments and agencies from the capital to the states.
TO BE CONTINUED ...