Democratic socialism, continued ...
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Philosophy
Democratic socialism involves the entire population controlling the economy through some type of democratic system, with the idea that the means of production are owned and managed by the working class as a whole.
The interrelationship between democracy and socialism extends far back into the socialist movement to The Communist Manifesto's emphasis on winning as a first step the "battle of democracy", with Karl Marx writing that democracy is "the road to socialism."
Socialist thinkers as diverse as Eduard Bernstein, Karl Kautsky, Vladimir Lenin and Rosa Luxemburg also wrote that democracy is indispensable to the realisation of socialism.
Philosophical support for democratic socialism can be found in the works of political philosophers such as Axel Honneth and Charles Taylor.
Honneth has put forward the view that political and economic ideologies have a social basis, meaning they originate from intersubjective communication between members of a society.
Honneth criticises the liberal state and ideology because it assumes that principles of individual liberty and private property are ahistorical and abstract when in fact they evolved from a specific social discourse on human activity.
In contrast to liberal individualism, Honneth has emphasised the intersubjective dependence between humans, namely that human well-being depends on recognising others and being recognised by them.
With an emphasis on community and solidarity, democratic socialism can be seen as a way of safeguarding this dependency.
While socialism is frequently used to describe socialist states and Soviet-style economies, especially in the United States due to the First and Second Red Scares, democratic socialists use socialism to refer to their own tendency that rejects the ideas of authoritarian socialism and state socialism as socialism, regarding them as a form of state capitalism in which the state undertakes commercial economic activity and where the means of production are organised and managed as state-owned enterprises, including the processes of capital accumulation, centralised management and wage labour.
Democratic socialists include those socialists who are opposed to Marxism–Leninism and social democrats who are committed to the abolishment of capitalism in favour of socialism and the institution of a post-capitalist economy.
According to Andrew Lipow, thus wrote in 1847 the editors of the Journal of the Communist League, directly influenced by Marx and Friedrich Engels, whom Lipow describes as "the founders of modern revolutionary democratic socialism":
We are not among those communists who are out to destroy personal liberty, who wish to turn the world into one huge barrack or into a gigantic workhouse.
There certainly are some communists who, with an easy conscience, refuse to countenance personal liberty and would like to shuffle it out of the world because they consider that it is a hindrance to complete harmony.
But we have no desire to exchange freedom for equality.
We are convinced that in no social order will freedom be assured as in a society based upon communal ownership.
Theoretically and philosophically, socialism itself is democratic, seen as the highest democratic form by its proponents and at one point being one and the same with democracy.
Some argue that socialism implies democracy and that democratic socialism is a redundant term.
However, others such as Michael Harrington argue that the term democratic socialism is necessary to distinguish it from that of the Soviet Union and other self-declared socialist states.
For Harrington, the major reason for this was due to the perspective that viewed the Stalinist-era Soviet Union as having succeeded in propaganda in usurping the legacy of Marxism and distorting it in propaganda to justify its politics.
Both Leninism and Marxism–Leninism have emphasised democracy, endorsing some form of democratic organisation of society and the economy whilst supporting democratic centralism, with Marxist–Leninists and others arguing that socialist states such as the Soviet Union were democratic.
Marxist–Leninists also tended to distinguish what they termed socialist democracy from democratic socialism, a term which they associated pejoratively to "reformism" and "social democracy."
Ultimately, they are considered outside the democratic socialist tradition.
On the other hand, anarchism (especially within its social anarchist tradition) and other ultra-left tendencies have been discussed within the democratic socialist tradition for their opposition to Marxism–Leninism and their support for more decentralised, direct forms of democracy.
While both anarchists and ultra-left tendencies have rejected the label as they tend to associate it to reformist and statist forms of democratic socialism, they are considered revolutionary-democratic forms of socialism and some anarchists have referred to democratic socialism.
Some Trotskyist organisations such as the Australian Socialist Alliance, Socialist Alternative and Victorian Socialists or the French New Anticapitalist Party, Revolutionary Communist League and Socialism from below have described their form of socialism as democratic and have emphasised democracy in their revolutionary development of socialism.
Similarly, several Trotskyists have emphasised Leon Trotsky's revolutionary-democratic socialism.
Some such as Hal Draper spoke of "revolutionary-democratic socialism."
Those third camp revolutionary-democratic socialists advocated a socialist political revolution that would establish or re-establish socialist democracy in deformed or degenerated workers' states.
Draper also compared social democracy and Stalinism as two forms of socialism from above, contraposed to his own socialism from below as being the purer, more Marxist version of socialism.
As a political tradition, democratic socialism represents a broad anti-Stalinist left-wing and in some cases anti-Leninist strand within the socialist movement, including anti-authoritarian socialism from below, libertarian socialism, market socialism, Marxism and certain left communist and ultra-left tendencies such as councilism and communisation as well as classical and libertarian Marxism.
It also includes the orthodox Marxism related to Karl Kautsky and Rosa Luxemburg as well as the revisionism of Eduard Bernstein.
In addition, democratic socialism is related to the trend of Eurocommunism originating between the 1950s and 1980s, referring to communist parties that adopted democratic socialism after Nikita Khrushchev's de-Stalinisation in 1956, but also that of most communist parties since the 1990s.
As a socialist tradition, social democracy is generally classified as a form of democratic socialism.
Within democratic socialism, social democracy underwent various major forms throughout its history and is distinguished between the early trend that supported revolutionary socialism, mainly related to Marx and Engels as well as other notable social-democratic politicians and orthodox Marxist thinkers such as Bernstein, Kautsky, Luxemburg and Lenin, including more democratic and libertarian interpretations of Leninism; the revisionist trend adopted by Bernstein and other reformist socialist leaders between the 1890s and 1940s; the post-war trend that adopted or endorsed Keynesian welfare capitalism as part of a compromise between capitalism and socialism; and those opposed to the Third Way.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
ON DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISM
Re: ON DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISM
Democratic socialism, continued ...
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
History
19th century
Socialist models and ideas espousing common or public ownership have existed since antiquity, but the first self-conscious socialist movements developed in the 1820s and 1830s.
Western European social critics, including Robert Owen, Charles Fourier, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Louis Blanc, Charles Hall and Henri de Saint-Simon, were the first modern socialists who criticised the excessive poverty and inequality generated by the Industrial Revolution.
The term was first used in English in the British Cooperative Magazine in 1827 and came to be associated with the followers of Owen such as the Rochdale Pioneers, who founded the co-operative movement.
Owen's followers stressed both participatory democracy and economic socialisation in the form of consumer co-operatives, credit unions and mutual aid societies.
In the case of the Owenites, they also overlapped with a number of other working-class and labour movements such as the Chartists in the United Kingdom.
Fenner Brockway identified three early democratic socialist groups during the English Civil War in his book Britain's First Socialists, namely the Levellers, who were pioneers of political democracy and the sovereignty of the people; the Agitators, who were the pioneers of participatory control by the ranks at their workplace; and the Diggers, who were pioneers of communal ownership, cooperation and egalitarianism.
The philosophy and tradition of the Diggers and the Levellers was continued in the period described by E. P. Thompson in The Making of the English Working Class by Jacobin groups like the London Corresponding Society and by polemicists such as Thomas Paine.
Their concern for both democracy and social justice marked them out as key precursors of democratic socialism.
Democratic socialism also has its origins in the Revolutions of 1848 and the French Democratic Socialists, although Karl Marx disliked the movement because he viewed it as a party dominated by the middle class and associated to them the word Sozialdemokrat, the first recorded use of the term social democracy.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
History
19th century
Socialist models and ideas espousing common or public ownership have existed since antiquity, but the first self-conscious socialist movements developed in the 1820s and 1830s.
Western European social critics, including Robert Owen, Charles Fourier, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Louis Blanc, Charles Hall and Henri de Saint-Simon, were the first modern socialists who criticised the excessive poverty and inequality generated by the Industrial Revolution.
The term was first used in English in the British Cooperative Magazine in 1827 and came to be associated with the followers of Owen such as the Rochdale Pioneers, who founded the co-operative movement.
Owen's followers stressed both participatory democracy and economic socialisation in the form of consumer co-operatives, credit unions and mutual aid societies.
In the case of the Owenites, they also overlapped with a number of other working-class and labour movements such as the Chartists in the United Kingdom.
Fenner Brockway identified three early democratic socialist groups during the English Civil War in his book Britain's First Socialists, namely the Levellers, who were pioneers of political democracy and the sovereignty of the people; the Agitators, who were the pioneers of participatory control by the ranks at their workplace; and the Diggers, who were pioneers of communal ownership, cooperation and egalitarianism.
The philosophy and tradition of the Diggers and the Levellers was continued in the period described by E. P. Thompson in The Making of the English Working Class by Jacobin groups like the London Corresponding Society and by polemicists such as Thomas Paine.
Their concern for both democracy and social justice marked them out as key precursors of democratic socialism.
Democratic socialism also has its origins in the Revolutions of 1848 and the French Democratic Socialists, although Karl Marx disliked the movement because he viewed it as a party dominated by the middle class and associated to them the word Sozialdemokrat, the first recorded use of the term social democracy.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
Re: ON DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISM
Democratic socialism, continued ...
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
History
19th century, continued ...
The Chartists gathered significant numbers around the People's Charter of 1838 which demanded the extension of suffrage to all male adults.
Leaders in the movement also called for a more equitable distribution of income and better living conditions for the working classes.
The very first trade unions and consumers' cooperative societies also emerged in the hinterland of the Chartist movement as a way of bolstering the fight for these demands.
The first advocates of socialism favoured social levelling in order to create a meritocratic or technocratic society based on individual talent as opposed to aristocratic privilege.
Saint-Simon is regarded as the first individual to coin the term socialism.
Saint-Simon was fascinated by the enormous potential of science and technology and advocated a socialist society that would eliminate the disorderly aspects of capitalism and would be based on equal opportunities.
He advocated the creation of a society in which each person was ranked according to his or her capacities and rewarded according to his or her work.
The key focus of Saint-Simon's socialism was on administrative efficiency and industrialism and a belief that science was the key to the progress of human civilisation.
This was accompanied by a desire to implement a rationally organised economy based on planning and geared towards large-scale scientific progress and material progress, embodying a desire for a more directed or planned economy.
The British political philosopher John Stuart Mill also came to advocate a form of economic socialism within a liberal context known as liberal socialism.
In later editions of Principles of Political Economy (1848), Mill would argue that "as far as economic theory was concerned, there is nothing in principle in economic theory that precludes an economic order based on socialist policies."
Similarly, the American social reformer Henry George and his geoist movement influenced the development of democratic socialism, especially in relation to British socialism and Fabianism, along with Mill and the German historical school of economics.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
History
19th century, continued ...
The Chartists gathered significant numbers around the People's Charter of 1838 which demanded the extension of suffrage to all male adults.
Leaders in the movement also called for a more equitable distribution of income and better living conditions for the working classes.
The very first trade unions and consumers' cooperative societies also emerged in the hinterland of the Chartist movement as a way of bolstering the fight for these demands.
The first advocates of socialism favoured social levelling in order to create a meritocratic or technocratic society based on individual talent as opposed to aristocratic privilege.
Saint-Simon is regarded as the first individual to coin the term socialism.
Saint-Simon was fascinated by the enormous potential of science and technology and advocated a socialist society that would eliminate the disorderly aspects of capitalism and would be based on equal opportunities.
He advocated the creation of a society in which each person was ranked according to his or her capacities and rewarded according to his or her work.
The key focus of Saint-Simon's socialism was on administrative efficiency and industrialism and a belief that science was the key to the progress of human civilisation.
This was accompanied by a desire to implement a rationally organised economy based on planning and geared towards large-scale scientific progress and material progress, embodying a desire for a more directed or planned economy.
The British political philosopher John Stuart Mill also came to advocate a form of economic socialism within a liberal context known as liberal socialism.
In later editions of Principles of Political Economy (1848), Mill would argue that "as far as economic theory was concerned, there is nothing in principle in economic theory that precludes an economic order based on socialist policies."
Similarly, the American social reformer Henry George and his geoist movement influenced the development of democratic socialism, especially in relation to British socialism and Fabianism, along with Mill and the German historical school of economics.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
Re: ON DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISM
Democratic socialism, continued ...
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
History
19th century, continued ...
In the United Kingdom, the democratic socialist tradition was represented by William Morris's Socialist League and in the 1880s by the Fabian Society and later the Independent Labour Party founded by Keir Hardie in the 1890s, of which writer George Orwell would later become a prominent member.
In the early 1920s, the guild socialism of G. D. H. Cole attempted to envision a socialist alternative to Soviet-style authoritarianism while council communism articulated democratic socialist positions in several respects, notably through renouncing the vanguard role of the revolutionary party and holding that the system of the Soviet Union was not authentically socialist.
The Fabian Society is a British socialist organisation which was established with the purpose of advancing the principles of socialism via gradualist and reformist means.
Today, the society functions primarily as a think tank and is one of the fifteen socialist societies affiliated with the Labour Party.
Similar societies exist in Australia (the Australian Fabian Society), in Canada (the Douglas-Coldwell Foundation and the now disbanded League for Social Reconstruction) and in New Zealand.
The society laid many of the foundations of the Labour Party and subsequently affected the policies of states emerging from the decolonisation of the British Empire, most notably India and Singapore.
Originally, the Fabian Society was committed to the establishment of a socialist economy, alongside a commitment to British imperialism and colonialism as a progressive and modernising force.
In 1889 (the centennial of the French Revolution of 1789), the Second International was founded, with 384 delegates from twenty countries representing about 300 labour and socialist organisations.
It was termed the Socialist International and Friedrich Engels was elected honorary president at the third congress in 1893.
Anarchists were ejected and not allowed in mainly due to pressure from Marxists.
It has been argued that at some point the Second International turned "into a battleground over the issue of libertarian versus authoritarian socialism."
"Not only did they effectively present themselves as champions of minority rights; they also provoked the German Marxists into demonstrating a dictatorial intolerance which was a factor in preventing the British labour movement from following the Marxist direction indicated by such leaders as H. M. Hyndman."
TO BE CONTINUED ...
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
History
19th century, continued ...
In the United Kingdom, the democratic socialist tradition was represented by William Morris's Socialist League and in the 1880s by the Fabian Society and later the Independent Labour Party founded by Keir Hardie in the 1890s, of which writer George Orwell would later become a prominent member.
In the early 1920s, the guild socialism of G. D. H. Cole attempted to envision a socialist alternative to Soviet-style authoritarianism while council communism articulated democratic socialist positions in several respects, notably through renouncing the vanguard role of the revolutionary party and holding that the system of the Soviet Union was not authentically socialist.
The Fabian Society is a British socialist organisation which was established with the purpose of advancing the principles of socialism via gradualist and reformist means.
Today, the society functions primarily as a think tank and is one of the fifteen socialist societies affiliated with the Labour Party.
Similar societies exist in Australia (the Australian Fabian Society), in Canada (the Douglas-Coldwell Foundation and the now disbanded League for Social Reconstruction) and in New Zealand.
The society laid many of the foundations of the Labour Party and subsequently affected the policies of states emerging from the decolonisation of the British Empire, most notably India and Singapore.
Originally, the Fabian Society was committed to the establishment of a socialist economy, alongside a commitment to British imperialism and colonialism as a progressive and modernising force.
In 1889 (the centennial of the French Revolution of 1789), the Second International was founded, with 384 delegates from twenty countries representing about 300 labour and socialist organisations.
It was termed the Socialist International and Friedrich Engels was elected honorary president at the third congress in 1893.
Anarchists were ejected and not allowed in mainly due to pressure from Marxists.
It has been argued that at some point the Second International turned "into a battleground over the issue of libertarian versus authoritarian socialism."
"Not only did they effectively present themselves as champions of minority rights; they also provoked the German Marxists into demonstrating a dictatorial intolerance which was a factor in preventing the British labour movement from following the Marxist direction indicated by such leaders as H. M. Hyndman."
TO BE CONTINUED ...
Re: ON DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISM
Democratic socialism, continued ...
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
History
19th century, concluded ...
In Germany, democratic socialism became a prominent movement at the end of the 19th century, when the Eisenach's Social Democratic Workers' Party of Germany merged with Lassalle's General German Workers' Association in 1875 to form the Social Democratic Party of Germany.
Reformism arose as an alternative to revolution, with leading social democrat Eduard Bernstein proposing the concept of evolutionary socialism.
Revolutionary socialists, encompassing multiple social and political movements that may define revolution differently from one another, quickly targeted the nascent ideology of reformism and Rosa Luxemburg condemned Bernstein's Evolutionary Socialism in her 1900 essay titled Social Reform or Revolution?
The Social Democratic Party of Germany became the largest and most powerful socialist party in Europe despite being an illegal organisation until the anti-socialist laws were officially repealed in 1890.
In the 1893 German federal election, the party gained about 1,787,000 votes, a quarter of the total votes cast according to Engels.
In 1895, the year of his death, Engels highlighted The Communist Manifesto's emphasis on winning as a first step the "battle of democracy."
In his introduction to the 1895 edition of Karl Marx's The Class Struggles in France, Engels attempted to resolve the division between gradualist reformist and revolutionary socialists in the Marxist movement by declaring that he was in favour of short-term tactics of electoral politics that included gradualist and evolutionary socialist policies while maintaining his belief that revolutionary seizure of power by the proletariat should remain a key goal of the socialist movement.
In spite of this attempt by Engels to merge gradualism and revolution, his effort only diluted the distinction of gradualism and revolution and had the effect of strengthening the position of the revisionists.
Engels' statements in the French newspaper Le Figaro in which he argued that "revolution" and the "so-called socialist society" were not fixed concepts, but rather constantly changing social phenomena and said that this made "us [socialists] all evolutionists", increased the public perception that Engels was gravitating towards evolutionary socialism.
Engels also wrote that it would be "suicidal" to talk about a revolutionary seizure of power at a time when the historical circumstances favoured a parliamentary road to power which he predicted could happen "as early as 1898."
Engels' stance of openly accepting gradualist, evolutionary and parliamentary tactics while claiming that the historical circumstances did not favour revolution caused confusion among political commentators and the public.
Bernstein interpreted this as indicating that Engels was moving towards accepting parliamentary reformist and gradualist stances, but he ignored that Engels' stances were tactical as a response to the particular circumstances at that time and that Engels was still committed to revolutionary socialism.
Engels was deeply distressed when he discovered that his introduction to a new edition of The Class Struggles in France had been edited by Bernstein and Karl Kautsky in a manner which left the impression that he had become a proponent of a peaceful road to socialism.
On 1 April 1895, four months before his death, Engels responded to Kautsky:
I was amazed to see today in the Vorwärts an excerpt from my 'Introduction' that had been printed without my knowledge and tricked out in such a way as to present me as a peace-loving proponent of legality [at all costs].
Which is all the more reason why I should like it to appear in its entirety in the Neue Zeit in order that this disgraceful impression may be erased.
I shall leave Liebknecht in no doubt as to what I think about it and the same applies to those who, irrespective of who they may be, gave him this opportunity of perverting my views and, what's more, without so much as a word to me about it.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
History
19th century, concluded ...
In Germany, democratic socialism became a prominent movement at the end of the 19th century, when the Eisenach's Social Democratic Workers' Party of Germany merged with Lassalle's General German Workers' Association in 1875 to form the Social Democratic Party of Germany.
Reformism arose as an alternative to revolution, with leading social democrat Eduard Bernstein proposing the concept of evolutionary socialism.
Revolutionary socialists, encompassing multiple social and political movements that may define revolution differently from one another, quickly targeted the nascent ideology of reformism and Rosa Luxemburg condemned Bernstein's Evolutionary Socialism in her 1900 essay titled Social Reform or Revolution?
The Social Democratic Party of Germany became the largest and most powerful socialist party in Europe despite being an illegal organisation until the anti-socialist laws were officially repealed in 1890.
In the 1893 German federal election, the party gained about 1,787,000 votes, a quarter of the total votes cast according to Engels.
In 1895, the year of his death, Engels highlighted The Communist Manifesto's emphasis on winning as a first step the "battle of democracy."
In his introduction to the 1895 edition of Karl Marx's The Class Struggles in France, Engels attempted to resolve the division between gradualist reformist and revolutionary socialists in the Marxist movement by declaring that he was in favour of short-term tactics of electoral politics that included gradualist and evolutionary socialist policies while maintaining his belief that revolutionary seizure of power by the proletariat should remain a key goal of the socialist movement.
In spite of this attempt by Engels to merge gradualism and revolution, his effort only diluted the distinction of gradualism and revolution and had the effect of strengthening the position of the revisionists.
Engels' statements in the French newspaper Le Figaro in which he argued that "revolution" and the "so-called socialist society" were not fixed concepts, but rather constantly changing social phenomena and said that this made "us [socialists] all evolutionists", increased the public perception that Engels was gravitating towards evolutionary socialism.
Engels also wrote that it would be "suicidal" to talk about a revolutionary seizure of power at a time when the historical circumstances favoured a parliamentary road to power which he predicted could happen "as early as 1898."
Engels' stance of openly accepting gradualist, evolutionary and parliamentary tactics while claiming that the historical circumstances did not favour revolution caused confusion among political commentators and the public.
Bernstein interpreted this as indicating that Engels was moving towards accepting parliamentary reformist and gradualist stances, but he ignored that Engels' stances were tactical as a response to the particular circumstances at that time and that Engels was still committed to revolutionary socialism.
Engels was deeply distressed when he discovered that his introduction to a new edition of The Class Struggles in France had been edited by Bernstein and Karl Kautsky in a manner which left the impression that he had become a proponent of a peaceful road to socialism.
On 1 April 1895, four months before his death, Engels responded to Kautsky:
I was amazed to see today in the Vorwärts an excerpt from my 'Introduction' that had been printed without my knowledge and tricked out in such a way as to present me as a peace-loving proponent of legality [at all costs].
Which is all the more reason why I should like it to appear in its entirety in the Neue Zeit in order that this disgraceful impression may be erased.
I shall leave Liebknecht in no doubt as to what I think about it and the same applies to those who, irrespective of who they may be, gave him this opportunity of perverting my views and, what's more, without so much as a word to me about it.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
Re: ON DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISM
Democratic socialism, continued ...
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
History
Early 20th century
In Argentina, the Socialist Party was established in the 1890s, being led by Juan B. Justo and Nicolás Repetto, among others, becoming the first mass party in the country and in Latin America.
The party affiliated itself with the Second International.
Between 1924 and 1940, it was one of the many socialist party members of the Labour and Socialist International (LSI), the forerunner of the present-day Socialist International.
In 1904, Australians elected Chris Watson as the first Prime Minister from the Australian Labor Party, becoming the first democratic socialist elected into office.
The British Labour Party first won seats in the House of Commons in 1902.
By 1917, the patriotism of World War I changed into political radicalism in Australia, most of Europe and the United States.
Other socialist parties from around the world who were beginning to gain importance in their national politics in the early 20th century included the Italian Socialist Party, the French Section of the Workers' International, the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party, the Swedish Social Democratic Party, the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, the Socialist Party of America and the Chilean Socialist Workers' Party.
The International Socialist Commission (ISC) was formed in February 1919 at a meeting in Bern, Switzerland by parties that wanted to resurrect the Second International.
The socialist industrial unionism of Daniel De Leon in the United States represented another strain of early democratic socialism in this period.
It favoured a form of government based on industrial unions, but it also sought to establish a socialist government after winning at the ballot box.
Democratic socialism continued to flourish in the Socialist Party of America, especially under the leadership of Norman Thomas.
The Socialist Party of America was formed in 1901 after a merger between the three-year-old Social Democratic Party of America and disaffected elements of the Socialist Labor Party of America which had split from the main organisation in 1899.
The Socialist Party of America was also known at various times in its long history as the Socialist Party of the United States (as early as the 1910s) and Socialist Party USA (as early as 1935, most common in the 1960s), but the official party name remained Socialist Party of America.
Eugene V. Debs twice won over 900,000 votes in the 1912 presidential elections and increased his portion of the popular vote to over 1,000,000 in the 1920 presidential election despite being imprisoned for alleged sedition.
The Socialist Party of America also elected two Representatives (Victor L. Berger and Meyer London), dozens of state legislators, more than hundred mayors and countless minor officials.
Furthermore, the city of Milwaukee has been led by a series of democratic socialist mayors in the early 20th century, namely Frank Zeidler, Emil Seidel and Daniel Hoan.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
History
Early 20th century
In Argentina, the Socialist Party was established in the 1890s, being led by Juan B. Justo and Nicolás Repetto, among others, becoming the first mass party in the country and in Latin America.
The party affiliated itself with the Second International.
Between 1924 and 1940, it was one of the many socialist party members of the Labour and Socialist International (LSI), the forerunner of the present-day Socialist International.
In 1904, Australians elected Chris Watson as the first Prime Minister from the Australian Labor Party, becoming the first democratic socialist elected into office.
The British Labour Party first won seats in the House of Commons in 1902.
By 1917, the patriotism of World War I changed into political radicalism in Australia, most of Europe and the United States.
Other socialist parties from around the world who were beginning to gain importance in their national politics in the early 20th century included the Italian Socialist Party, the French Section of the Workers' International, the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party, the Swedish Social Democratic Party, the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, the Socialist Party of America and the Chilean Socialist Workers' Party.
The International Socialist Commission (ISC) was formed in February 1919 at a meeting in Bern, Switzerland by parties that wanted to resurrect the Second International.
The socialist industrial unionism of Daniel De Leon in the United States represented another strain of early democratic socialism in this period.
It favoured a form of government based on industrial unions, but it also sought to establish a socialist government after winning at the ballot box.
Democratic socialism continued to flourish in the Socialist Party of America, especially under the leadership of Norman Thomas.
The Socialist Party of America was formed in 1901 after a merger between the three-year-old Social Democratic Party of America and disaffected elements of the Socialist Labor Party of America which had split from the main organisation in 1899.
The Socialist Party of America was also known at various times in its long history as the Socialist Party of the United States (as early as the 1910s) and Socialist Party USA (as early as 1935, most common in the 1960s), but the official party name remained Socialist Party of America.
Eugene V. Debs twice won over 900,000 votes in the 1912 presidential elections and increased his portion of the popular vote to over 1,000,000 in the 1920 presidential election despite being imprisoned for alleged sedition.
The Socialist Party of America also elected two Representatives (Victor L. Berger and Meyer London), dozens of state legislators, more than hundred mayors and countless minor officials.
Furthermore, the city of Milwaukee has been led by a series of democratic socialist mayors in the early 20th century, namely Frank Zeidler, Emil Seidel and Daniel Hoan.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
Re: ON DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISM
Democratic socialism, continued ...
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
History
Early 20th century, concluded ...
In February 1917, revolution broke out in Russia in which workers, soldiers and peasants established soviets, the monarchy was forced into exile fell and a provisional government was formed until the election of a constituent assembly.
Alexander Kerensky, a Russian lawyer and revolutionary, became a key political figure in the Russian Revolution of 1917.
After the February Revolution, Kerensky joined the newly formed Russian Provisional Government, first as Minister of Justice, then as Minister of War and after July as the government's second Minister-Chairman.
A leader of the moderate socialist Trudovik faction of the Socialist Revolutionary Party known as the Labour Group, Kerensky was also the Vice-Chairman of the powerful Petrograd Soviet.
After failing to sign a peace treaty with the German Empire to exit from World War I which led to massive popular unrest against the government cabinet, Kerensky's government was overthrown on 7 November by the Bolsheviks led by Vladimir Lenin in the October Revolution.
Soon after the October Revolution, the Russian Constituent Assembly elected Socialist-Revolutionary leader Victor Chernov as President of a Russian Republic, but it rejected the Bolshevik proposal that endorsed the Soviet decrees on land, peace and workers' control and acknowledged the power of the Soviets of Workers', Soldiers' and Peasants' Deputies.
As a result of the 1917 Russian Constituent Assembly election which saw a landslide victory for the Socialist-Revolutionaries, the Bolsheviks declared on the next day that the assembly was elected based on outdated party lists which did not reflect the Socialist Revolutionary Party split into Left and Right Socialist-Revolutionary factions.
The Left Socialist-Revolutionaries were allied with the Bolsheviks.
The All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the Soviets promptly dissolved the Russian Constituent Assembly.
At a conference held on 27 February 1921 in Vienna, parties which did not want to be a part of the Communist International or the resurrected Second International formed the International Working Union of Socialist Parties (IWUSP).
The ISC and the IWUSP eventually joined to form the LSI in May 1923 at a meeting held in Hamburg.
Left-wing groups which did not agree to the centralisation and abandonment of the soviets by the Bolshevik Party led left-wing uprisings against the Bolsheviks.
Such groups included anarchists, Left Socialist-Revolutionaries, Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries.
Amidst this left-wing discontent, the most large-scale events were the workers' Kronstadt rebellion and the anarchist-led Revolutionary Insurrectionary Army of Ukraine uprising which controlled an area known as the Free Territory.
In 1922, the 4th World Congress of the Communist International took up the policy of the united front, urging communists to work with rank and file social democrats while remaining critical of their party leaders, whom they criticised for betraying the working class by supporting the war efforts of their respective capitalist classes.
For their part, the social democrats pointed to the dislocation and chaos caused by revolution and later the growing authoritarianism of the communist parties after they achieved power.
When the Communist Party of Great Britain applied to affiliate with the Labour Party in 1920, it was turned down.
On seeing the Soviet Union's growing coercive power in 1923, a dying Lenin stated that Russia had reverted to a "bourgeois tsarist machine [...] barely varnished with socialism."
After Lenin's death in January 1924, the communist party, increasingly falling under the control of Joseph Stalin, rejected the theory that socialism could not be built solely in the Soviet Union in favour of the concept of socialism in one country.
In other parts of Europe, many democratic socialist parties were united in the IWUSP in the early 1920s and in the London Bureau in the 1930s, along with many other socialists of different tendencies and ideologies.
These socialist internationals sought to steer a centrist course between the revolutionaries and the social democrats of the Second International and the perceived anti-democratic Communist International.
In contrast, the social democrats of the Second International were seen as insufficiently socialist and had been compromised by their support for World War I.
The key movements within the IWUSP were the Austromarxists and the British Independent Labour Party while the main forces in the London Bureau were the Independent Labour Party and the Workers' Party of Marxist Unification.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
History
Early 20th century, concluded ...
In February 1917, revolution broke out in Russia in which workers, soldiers and peasants established soviets, the monarchy was forced into exile fell and a provisional government was formed until the election of a constituent assembly.
Alexander Kerensky, a Russian lawyer and revolutionary, became a key political figure in the Russian Revolution of 1917.
After the February Revolution, Kerensky joined the newly formed Russian Provisional Government, first as Minister of Justice, then as Minister of War and after July as the government's second Minister-Chairman.
A leader of the moderate socialist Trudovik faction of the Socialist Revolutionary Party known as the Labour Group, Kerensky was also the Vice-Chairman of the powerful Petrograd Soviet.
After failing to sign a peace treaty with the German Empire to exit from World War I which led to massive popular unrest against the government cabinet, Kerensky's government was overthrown on 7 November by the Bolsheviks led by Vladimir Lenin in the October Revolution.
Soon after the October Revolution, the Russian Constituent Assembly elected Socialist-Revolutionary leader Victor Chernov as President of a Russian Republic, but it rejected the Bolshevik proposal that endorsed the Soviet decrees on land, peace and workers' control and acknowledged the power of the Soviets of Workers', Soldiers' and Peasants' Deputies.
As a result of the 1917 Russian Constituent Assembly election which saw a landslide victory for the Socialist-Revolutionaries, the Bolsheviks declared on the next day that the assembly was elected based on outdated party lists which did not reflect the Socialist Revolutionary Party split into Left and Right Socialist-Revolutionary factions.
The Left Socialist-Revolutionaries were allied with the Bolsheviks.
The All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the Soviets promptly dissolved the Russian Constituent Assembly.
At a conference held on 27 February 1921 in Vienna, parties which did not want to be a part of the Communist International or the resurrected Second International formed the International Working Union of Socialist Parties (IWUSP).
The ISC and the IWUSP eventually joined to form the LSI in May 1923 at a meeting held in Hamburg.
Left-wing groups which did not agree to the centralisation and abandonment of the soviets by the Bolshevik Party led left-wing uprisings against the Bolsheviks.
Such groups included anarchists, Left Socialist-Revolutionaries, Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries.
Amidst this left-wing discontent, the most large-scale events were the workers' Kronstadt rebellion and the anarchist-led Revolutionary Insurrectionary Army of Ukraine uprising which controlled an area known as the Free Territory.
In 1922, the 4th World Congress of the Communist International took up the policy of the united front, urging communists to work with rank and file social democrats while remaining critical of their party leaders, whom they criticised for betraying the working class by supporting the war efforts of their respective capitalist classes.
For their part, the social democrats pointed to the dislocation and chaos caused by revolution and later the growing authoritarianism of the communist parties after they achieved power.
When the Communist Party of Great Britain applied to affiliate with the Labour Party in 1920, it was turned down.
On seeing the Soviet Union's growing coercive power in 1923, a dying Lenin stated that Russia had reverted to a "bourgeois tsarist machine [...] barely varnished with socialism."
After Lenin's death in January 1924, the communist party, increasingly falling under the control of Joseph Stalin, rejected the theory that socialism could not be built solely in the Soviet Union in favour of the concept of socialism in one country.
In other parts of Europe, many democratic socialist parties were united in the IWUSP in the early 1920s and in the London Bureau in the 1930s, along with many other socialists of different tendencies and ideologies.
These socialist internationals sought to steer a centrist course between the revolutionaries and the social democrats of the Second International and the perceived anti-democratic Communist International.
In contrast, the social democrats of the Second International were seen as insufficiently socialist and had been compromised by their support for World War I.
The key movements within the IWUSP were the Austromarxists and the British Independent Labour Party while the main forces in the London Bureau were the Independent Labour Party and the Workers' Party of Marxist Unification.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
Re: ON DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISM
Democratic socialism, continued ...
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
History
Mid-20th century
After World War II, democratic socialist, labourist and social-democratic governments introduced social reforms and wealth redistribution via welfare state social programmes and progressive taxation.
Those parties dominated post-war politics in the Nordic countries and countries such as Belgium, Czechoslovakia, France, Italy and the United Kingdom.
At one point, France claimed the world's most state-controlled capitalist country, starting a period of unprecedented economic growth known as the Trente Glorieuses, part of the post-war economic boom set in motion by the Keynesian consensus.
The public utilities and industries nationalised by the French government included Air France, the Bank of France, Charbonnages de France, Électricité de France, Gaz de France and Régie Nationale des Usines Renault.
In 1945, the British Labour Party led by Clement Attlee was elected to office based on a radical, democratic socialist programme.
The Labour government nationalised major public utilities and industries such as mining, gas, coal, electricity, rail, iron, steel and the Bank of England.
British Petroleum was officially nationalised in 1951.
In 1956, Anthony Crosland stated that at least 25% of British industry was nationalised and that public employees, including those in nationalised industries, constituted a similar proportion of the country's total workforce.
The 1964–1970 and 1974–1979 Labour governments strengthened the policy of nationalisation.
These Labour governments renationalised steel (British Steel) in 1967 after the Conservatives had privatised it and nationalised car production (British Leyland) in 1976.
The 1945–1951 Labour government also established National Health Service which provided taxpayer-funded health care to Every British citizen, free at the point of use.
High-quality housing for the working class was provided in council housing estates and university education became available to every citizen via a school grant system.
The 1945–1951 Labour government has been described as being transformative democratic socialist.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
History
Mid-20th century
After World War II, democratic socialist, labourist and social-democratic governments introduced social reforms and wealth redistribution via welfare state social programmes and progressive taxation.
Those parties dominated post-war politics in the Nordic countries and countries such as Belgium, Czechoslovakia, France, Italy and the United Kingdom.
At one point, France claimed the world's most state-controlled capitalist country, starting a period of unprecedented economic growth known as the Trente Glorieuses, part of the post-war economic boom set in motion by the Keynesian consensus.
The public utilities and industries nationalised by the French government included Air France, the Bank of France, Charbonnages de France, Électricité de France, Gaz de France and Régie Nationale des Usines Renault.
In 1945, the British Labour Party led by Clement Attlee was elected to office based on a radical, democratic socialist programme.
The Labour government nationalised major public utilities and industries such as mining, gas, coal, electricity, rail, iron, steel and the Bank of England.
British Petroleum was officially nationalised in 1951.
In 1956, Anthony Crosland stated that at least 25% of British industry was nationalised and that public employees, including those in nationalised industries, constituted a similar proportion of the country's total workforce.
The 1964–1970 and 1974–1979 Labour governments strengthened the policy of nationalisation.
These Labour governments renationalised steel (British Steel) in 1967 after the Conservatives had privatised it and nationalised car production (British Leyland) in 1976.
The 1945–1951 Labour government also established National Health Service which provided taxpayer-funded health care to Every British citizen, free at the point of use.
High-quality housing for the working class was provided in council housing estates and university education became available to every citizen via a school grant system.
The 1945–1951 Labour government has been described as being transformative democratic socialist.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
Re: ON DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISM
Democratic socialism, continued ...
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
History
Mid-20th century, continued ...
During most of the post-war era, democratic socialist, labourist and social-democratic parties dominated the political scene and laid the ground to universalistic welfare states in the Nordic countries.
For much of the mid- and late 20th century, Sweden was governed by the Swedish Social Democratic Party largely in cooperation with trade unions and industry.
Tage Erlander was the leader of the Social Democratic Party and led the government from 1946 until 1969, an uninterrupted tenure of twenty-three years, one of the longest in any democracy.
From 1945 until 1962, the Norwegian Labour Party held an absolute majority in the parliament led by Einar Gerhardsen, who served Prime Minister for seventeen years.
The Danish Social Democrats governed Denmark for most of the 20th century and since the 1920s and through the 1940s and the 1970s a large majority of Prime Ministers were members of the Social Democrats, the largest and most popular political party in Denmark.
This particular adaptation of the mixed economy, better known as the Nordic model, is characterised by more generous welfare states (relative to other developed countries) which are aimed specifically at enhancing individual autonomy, ensuring the universal provision of basic human rights and stabilising the economy.
It is distinguished from other welfare states with similar goals by its emphasis on maximising labour force participation, promoting gender equality, egalitarian and extensive benefit levels, large magnitude of redistribution and expansionary fiscal policy.
In the 1950s, popular socialism emerged as a vital current of the left in Nordic countries could be characterised as a democratic socialism in the same vein as it placed itself between communism and social democracy.
In the 1960s, Gerhardsen established a planning agency and tried to establish a planned economy.
Prominent Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme identified himself as a democratic socialist.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
History
Mid-20th century, continued ...
During most of the post-war era, democratic socialist, labourist and social-democratic parties dominated the political scene and laid the ground to universalistic welfare states in the Nordic countries.
For much of the mid- and late 20th century, Sweden was governed by the Swedish Social Democratic Party largely in cooperation with trade unions and industry.
Tage Erlander was the leader of the Social Democratic Party and led the government from 1946 until 1969, an uninterrupted tenure of twenty-three years, one of the longest in any democracy.
From 1945 until 1962, the Norwegian Labour Party held an absolute majority in the parliament led by Einar Gerhardsen, who served Prime Minister for seventeen years.
The Danish Social Democrats governed Denmark for most of the 20th century and since the 1920s and through the 1940s and the 1970s a large majority of Prime Ministers were members of the Social Democrats, the largest and most popular political party in Denmark.
This particular adaptation of the mixed economy, better known as the Nordic model, is characterised by more generous welfare states (relative to other developed countries) which are aimed specifically at enhancing individual autonomy, ensuring the universal provision of basic human rights and stabilising the economy.
It is distinguished from other welfare states with similar goals by its emphasis on maximising labour force participation, promoting gender equality, egalitarian and extensive benefit levels, large magnitude of redistribution and expansionary fiscal policy.
In the 1950s, popular socialism emerged as a vital current of the left in Nordic countries could be characterised as a democratic socialism in the same vein as it placed itself between communism and social democracy.
In the 1960s, Gerhardsen established a planning agency and tried to establish a planned economy.
Prominent Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme identified himself as a democratic socialist.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
Re: ON DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISM
Democratic socialism, continued ...
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
History
Mid-20th century, continued ...
The Rehn–Meidner model was adopted by the Swedish Social Democratic Party in the late 1940s.
This economic model allowed capitalists who owned very productive and efficient firms to retain excess profits at the expense of the firm's workers, exacerbating income inequality and causing workers in these firms to agitate for a better share of the profits in the 1970s.
Women working in the state sector also began to assert pressure for better and equal wages.
In 1976, economist Rudolf Meidner established a study committee that came up with a proposal called the Meidner Plan which entailed the transferring of the excess profits into investment funds controlled by the workers in said efficient firms, with the goal that firms would create further employment and pay workers higher wages in return rather than unduly increasing the wealth of company owners and managers.
Capitalists immediately denounced the proposal as socialism and launched an unprecedented opposition and smear campaign against it, threatening to terminate the class compromise established in the 1938 Saltsjöbaden Agreement.
The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 was a spontaneous nationwide revolt by democratic socialists against the Marxist–Leninist government of the People's Republic of Hungary and its dictatorial Stalinist policies of repression, lasting from 23 October until 10 November 1956.
Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev's denunciation of the excesses of Stalin's regime during the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union that same year as well as the revolt in Hungary produced ideological fractures and disagreements within the communist and socialist parties of Western Europe.
A split ensued within the Italian Communist Party (PCI), with most ordinary members and the PCI leadership, including Giorgio Napolitano and Palmiro Togliatti, regarding the Hungarian insurgents as counter-revolutionaries as reported in l'Unità, the official PCI newspaper.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
History
Mid-20th century, continued ...
The Rehn–Meidner model was adopted by the Swedish Social Democratic Party in the late 1940s.
This economic model allowed capitalists who owned very productive and efficient firms to retain excess profits at the expense of the firm's workers, exacerbating income inequality and causing workers in these firms to agitate for a better share of the profits in the 1970s.
Women working in the state sector also began to assert pressure for better and equal wages.
In 1976, economist Rudolf Meidner established a study committee that came up with a proposal called the Meidner Plan which entailed the transferring of the excess profits into investment funds controlled by the workers in said efficient firms, with the goal that firms would create further employment and pay workers higher wages in return rather than unduly increasing the wealth of company owners and managers.
Capitalists immediately denounced the proposal as socialism and launched an unprecedented opposition and smear campaign against it, threatening to terminate the class compromise established in the 1938 Saltsjöbaden Agreement.
The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 was a spontaneous nationwide revolt by democratic socialists against the Marxist–Leninist government of the People's Republic of Hungary and its dictatorial Stalinist policies of repression, lasting from 23 October until 10 November 1956.
Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev's denunciation of the excesses of Stalin's regime during the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union that same year as well as the revolt in Hungary produced ideological fractures and disagreements within the communist and socialist parties of Western Europe.
A split ensued within the Italian Communist Party (PCI), with most ordinary members and the PCI leadership, including Giorgio Napolitano and Palmiro Togliatti, regarding the Hungarian insurgents as counter-revolutionaries as reported in l'Unità, the official PCI newspaper.
TO BE CONTINUED ...