Socialism FAQ Part 2: What is the Difference Between Classical Socialism and Social Democracy?

Two faces of the same coin, one just dressed up a bit prettier than the other. (Image courtesy of Quora)

That about explains it. (Image from gamesmartz.com)

As noted in Part 1 of this series, there have been numerous different political tendencies over the course of the 20th Century and up to the present — from outright fascist and totalitarian to liberal and even utopian — that have claimed the mantle of Marxism and socialism.

Part 1 explained what Classical Marxism/Socialism, the system formulated by Marx and Engels in their writings, actually is. In this installment I will briefly describe one of the most popular political tendencies that frequently claims the mantle of “socialism”: Social Democracy.

Both progressive & liberal supporters of this tendency, and conservative & Libertarian opponents of it, ascribe the “socialism” appellation to it to laud or debase it in the eyes of their respective ideologies.

I will do this in FAQ format. Reading Part 1 for full context first will help, but it’s not really essential.

Do advocates of social democracy endorse a classless, stateless, and moneyless economy with full worker control and social ownership of all the industries and services?

No. They support what is essentially a liberalized and state regulated version of capitalism.

They advocate the retention of basic capitalist relations, i.e., production for profit, the requirement of money to purchase commodities or fund social services, and the wage system where workers are paid either “by the hour” or stable weekly or bi-weekly “salary” allotments that allow access to only a fraction of the full value of what we produce (even if a somewhat greater proportion than under the highly unregulated capitalism we know of in America).

However, they bequeath control of some major industries and utilities to the state, i.e., under the control of a handful of bureaucrats/politicians (not workers), so that these essential material services may be provided without the requirement of making a profit. This takes the form of various social welfare programs and redistribution of wealth to alleviate (but not end altogether) common problems afflicting workers under capitalism such as lack of ability to purchase medical services (i.e., universal health care), involuntary unemployment, homelessness, hunger due to inability to purchase food (to varying degrees), and access to utilities (e.g., heat and electricity, also to varying degrees). Certain banks are also “nationalized,” i.e., made “public” so they are under greater state scrutiny and more funds are available for investment in workers.

Psychological necessities like a guarantee of meaningful work and access to recreation are generally not provided and often considered irrelevant to survival by this mode of thinking (“Well, you’ve gotta be able to stay alive first, right?” Yes, but you also have to be in a situation where you want to stay alive; there is a difference between living and just existing).

All services are still controlled by either bureaucrats or capitalists. The latter are essentially given a deal to retain their power and privilege over society while allowing for a greater amount of amenities (read: crumbs) for the working class than under unregulated capitalism — just enough (it is hoped) to offset a potential rebellion of labor and the mass development of true class consciousness among them. This is why they are often referred to as “New Deal” policies.

Are social democrats against war and the American policy of perpetual warfare for profit?

This will vary among them, but social democratic administrations of any Western nations have never displayed an aversion to provoking wars and imperialistic behavior. Constant expansion due to ruthless competition to control (not share) resources among private sets of owners is a major hallmark of capitalism. This does not change no matter how liberal or progressive the social democratic state happens to be; its main priorities to the bottom line remain.

This is why, for example, an avowed social democrat (or democratic socialist, as he calls it) like Bernie Sanders remained very hawkish on foreign policy. This is also why he never explained how such a massive military budget would leave room for money spent on the domestic social programs he claimed to support, whereas European social democracies had comparatively small “defense” budgets despite their own ventures into colonialism and imperialism that the constant need for expansion of capitalist markets compels them to do.

Can Classical Socialists and Social Democrats work together?

The two can indeed work together, because Classical Socialists do not oppose any policies that may afford short-term gains to workers within the framework of the capitalist system. And social democratic policies certainly do this (albeit to varying degrees).

What we oppose regarding social democratic programs — often referred to as “New Deal” policies — is the idea that they should be ultimate goals of the working class instead of simply immediate goals. We also make a point to remind workers that contrary to conservative mythology, Roosevelt and other politicians like him across the globe initiated social democratic policies to save and preserve capitalism and the privileges of the capitalist class, not to help workers or destroy capitalism.

Social democratic programs that attempt to put a leash on capitalism or try to force a mercilessly competitive system that thrives on material inequality, war, wild consumption, and constant expansion to work for everyone have never lasted, however. And they are dependent upon certain economic conditions in the market for the capitalist class to tolerate them, which is why governments across the world are gradually kowtowing to demands by global capitalists to de-regulate and dispense with these social welfare programs.

The “we can’t afford them any longer” mantra is often used as a rationalization despite the fact that the government always seems able to afford sending countless billions to fight wars, colonize other lands, and bail out the capitalists when they cause periodic catastrophes in the market. In fact, it’s a common myth pushed by American conservatives that the government “can’t afford” these social programs and that we would “go broke” if we initiated them here. Of course, it’s quite obvious that the government cannot actually “go broke” in the sense that common citizens can thanks to the National Reserve via the Treasury Department that simply prints up new money as needed; the capitalist class and its government simply do not want to do this for the working class.

The limited New Deal social democratic programs enacted in the U.S. by Franklin Delano Roosevelt during the Great Depression only prospered for about three decades. And they only did so after World War II came along and devastated industrial infrastructure across the globe, thus eliminating most competition to American business. This, of course, did nothing to halt wars — including the Korean War and the Vietnam war — while these reforms were still going strong. Once these foreign nations recovered from the destruction wrought by the Second World War by the time of the Carter administration those New Deal programs were rapidly done away with in America.

Since Thatcher and her various counterparts in other European nations were elected towards the end of the Carter era and beginning of the Reagan administration, social democracy has likewise been under constant attack in Europe, Canada, and Australia. Most such reforms still exist in these places, but in increasingly weakened form and very much on the defensive with more and more governments pushing for de-regulation and the adoption of neoliberal capitalist policies.

Moreover, the hegemonic rivalry between America and the Soviet Union’s system of state-controlled class divisions resulted in the first Cold War (the second is going on right now). This lasted for decades and encouraged the massive growth of the vastly profitable war industry that ensured the eventual dissolution of domestic social democratic programs to make way for the heavily unregulated neoliberal capitalism of the 1980s onwards.

I described the Soviet system of faux “socialism” in some detail over in Part 1.

Can we go back to an earlier form of capitalism so Social Democracy can thrive once again?

No. The level of development that capitalism and industry were at between the 1930s and early 1970s that allowed capitalists in America and Europe to tolerate jobs that provided high wages and good benefits, and which provided upward mobility to certain demographics of labor into a well-paid “middle class” sub-category, have long since vanished. Inflation does not reverse itself and 40 years of neoliberal capitalism have resulted in the high wage & good benefits factory economy of the quasi-prosperous decades to transform into a low wage & low-to-no benefit service sector and gig economy.

Why have Social Democrats become satisfied with such a limited conception of class consciousness and continued loyalty to capitalism?

For various reasons. Some have not been exposed to the actual works of Marx and Engels, including The Communist Manifesto and Capital, and thus believe that Social Democracy was actually what Marx and Engels promoted, or at least a variation thereof. Few people on either the Left or the Right who know differently can be expected to correct them on this. That’s what Classical Socialists like me are here for.

Others are genuine progressives who want beneficial change for the working class but continue to harbor a stubborn loyalty to capitalism and the world working according to its terms because it’s all they know and they are used to it. As Thomas Jefferson himself noted irately in the Declaration of Independence, “… all experience hath shewn that mankind is more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.”

Hence, such activists engage in futile efforts to “improve” capitalism, while insisting that it’s simply an “imperfect” system in need of a few strategic reforms. They refuse to accept that it’s an archaic system that has passed its productive usefulness to society and is now destructive to the world and absolutely rotten to the core. A useful expression here that these activists refuse to grasp regarding capitalism is, “no matter how hard you try, you just can’t polish a turd.” The once-progressive system is now a rotten tree that must be uprooted and replaced with a new one rather than simply having its branches pruned here and there.

There is also a strong, socially ingrained fetishism for money in our culture that pervades the psyches of even many Social Democrats, with people seeing this paper in their hands or digital displays as they peruse their bank accounts on a computer monitor as representing wealth and power. Such is the case even though $500,000.00 would not grant the same access to the collective material wealth all workers produce as would a classical Marxian system providing us with the full fruit of our labor.

This emotional, knee-jerk attitude is perhaps best encapsulated by what one Social Democrat I used to know told me: “Noooo! I don’t want full access to the social store! I want to make money!”

Our culture is also pervaded by an ingrained admiration for the rich, or at the very least the acceptance of material inequality.

For instance, there are many liberals who have been conditioned to insist that “even the rich have rights.” This basically translates to: “the rich have the right to have power and privilege over others” and they defend this ability to hoard grossly disproportionate levels of wealth as a fundamental “freedom.”

That sounds very much like Libertarian ideology, but I have seen some who identify as liberals and Social Democrats say this too. They cannot get past the social indoctrination to respect the wealthy and powerful. These individuals also likely harbor the hope of someday becoming wealthy and privileged themselves despite the tremendous odds against “earning” rather than inheriting this status.

Finally, there are those who have no faith in humanity’s capabilities and believe that achieving a truly classless and moneyless society is “too idealistic.” They seem to blame the negative behavior patterns displayed by human beings that are rampant under capitalism and all class-divided systems existing prior to it on character or genetic flaws innate to humanity.

They do not see this behavior as being the logical and expected result of living under a system that normalizes and thrives on ruthless competition; desperation & mental illness due to widespread material want; and the glorification of greed & war… along with the essential nature of the latter two phenomena in order for people to even function under this economic order. Hence, they believe Social Democracy is the best humanity can hope to achieve due to our inherently awful nature, and this mass acceptance of such a grim status quo creates a collective self-fulfilling prophecy and learned helplessness.

So, how do Classical Socialists ultimately feel about Social Democracy?

While Classical Socialists support most efforts of social democratic progressives to enact their programs into law, we realize they cannot be permanent solutions to working class issues.

The capitalist class that is allowed to remain intact (however weakened) will still have tremendous power. They will use the still tolerated power of money to eventually succeed in bribing the bureaucrats who are also allowed to remain intact and in control of making or retracting laws to gradually nullify the social democratic programs. The corporate controlled and state influenced media will continue to create periodic moral panics, medical panics, and calls to war that will emotionally manipulate the workers into accepting the dissolution of these worker-friendly social welfare programs — just as these privileged narcissists always have in the past.

Also, as noted above, the acceptance and tolerance of social democratic programs by capitalists is contingent upon certain specific material and market conditions that are products of an earlier era in capitalist development, specifically the few decades immediately following World War II when we still had a thriving factory-based economy.

One last important point.

As Paul G. Kingsley noted on Quora, “Social-democracy is a form of capitalism, and capitalism is inherently exploitative. Social democracy makes [First World] workers’ lives better by exploiting [Third World] workers. The extra profits received from the exploitation of the [Third World] are used to pay for welfare programs. That is why social democracy is as bad as capitalism [that is, capitalism in any form]. It cannot be better than capitalism because it merely exports all of capitalism’s problems abroad.”

This exploitation of less industrially developed nations by the capitalist classes of the more advanced countries is one major reason why adopting social democratic reforms does not curb war or colonialism. A class-divided system operates on a zero-sum game where some benefit at the expense of others, and in the modern world this disparity of wealth is no longer materially justified and the scarcity still experienced by so many in the world is now entirely artificial in nature.

If we established a classless and moneyless society in the “First World” nations who are advanced enough to produce an abundance for all we would have the capacity to rapidly develop these technical advances in the “Third World” nations with no strings attached. In fact, this would benefit workers across the entire world, since the more participating in producing this abundance, the more we would each have. The zero-sum game would be ended and your gain would be my gain, and such would be the case for every worker on the planet.

Social Democracy would improve our lives in many ways, but it must not be an end point for our class-unified endeavors towards fundamental change. These social programs would still not improve our lives nearly to the extent that modern technology makes possible and it would leave a very venomous serpent around that does not deserve such a level of respect; and that snake would immediately get to work at gradually infecting and sucking the life out of these modest gains. 

We also must not succumb to the misguided belief that we as a species and as a civilization are not capable of achieving more than this. Human nature/behavior is eminently adaptable and a great improvement of our collective character by establishing a far better system that brings out the best in us will only be impossible or a “pipe dream” for as long as most of us continue to believe it so, and thus do not put in the effort to achieve it. This is not striving for “perfection” but simply improvement, and at this point not only our species but our entire planet depends on us moving past this self-imposed apathy towards needed change.