Social democracy as a concept would work if those doing it would have a spine and not be traitors of the working class.
But whatever is sold as social democracy these days (or actually the last 20 years at least), I absolutely agree is a scam.
At least in Germany, there is no left party that is both realistic (not trying to be pacifist when facing bullies, or promising unrealistic things making sure they will never get more than 15%) and also truly acting in the interest of the people, sadly. SPD is the German version of what you said, slightly softer neolibs in sheep’s clothing.
Social democracy as a concept would work if those doing it would have a spine and not be traitors of the working class.
No, it wouldn’t, because the thing they want is still capitalism, and everything they do (riding on actual workers struggle) will be inevitably dismantled as soon as capitalists gain the upper hand again, as we observe time and time again. Socialdemocracy itself is a class treason and was born from class treason.
What is it that you call capitalism is the question.
Market capitalism is a practical approach to solving a intractable optimization problem - allocating finite resources in the best way to get optimal results (whatever it may be, such as maximizing production of certain goods while minimizing waste and loss and minimizing “unfairness”, however it is defined).
The alternative to capitalism is planned economy. It could not work 100 years ago because technology was not even close to the advancement level to be able to optimize a whole economy, i.e. solve a highly complex set of equations with billions of variables.
Maybe today it would work out, technology-wise, but it is not clear in detail how a society completely without markets could work. Certainly not everything is feasible to be decided by some election or by decision of some committee. It would lead to what was seen in the soviet union - bad planning based on incomplete and unreliable data.
Markets solve this problem and the whole thing works.
The question is who controls the markets.
In capitalism = neoliberal dystopia actually the capitalists themselves all instead of competing try to transcend beyond competition by either becoming a monopolist or becoming the market itself (“platform”). The fascist US oligarchs are working towards this.
On the other hand, China has state capitalism - the government has a strong upper hand, but use capitalistic market mechanics (with the needed biases to ensure the market is working towards the goals of the state, not some wealthy class).
Now you can explain to me how I maybe use the terms all incorrectly, but what I’m saying is: what China is doing is working, what the Soviets tried to do did not.
If China was not authoritarian, but had elections, it would be democratic and capitalistic, so what wie also call social democracy. In contrast to socialism, which is supposed to be democratic and anti-capitalistic, i.e. planned economy, which never worked and probably still would not.
The problem is not capitalism as a mechanism of economy, it’s the distribution of power. Corruption and decay and abuse is possible in every coceivable economic system. The question is, who is the system working for.
Ideally the state works for the people, in the sense of a collective of respected individuals, and the economy works for the state. If that is given, details such as the exact structure and processes for decision making and resource allocation are irrelevant, as long as they are sustainable and ethical.
Social democracy as a concept would work if those doing it would have a spine and not be traitors of the working class.
But whatever is sold as social democracy these days (or actually the last 20 years at least), I absolutely agree is a scam.
At least in Germany, there is no left party that is both realistic (not trying to be pacifist when facing bullies, or promising unrealistic things making sure they will never get more than 15%) and also truly acting in the interest of the people, sadly. SPD is the German version of what you said, slightly softer neolibs in sheep’s clothing.
No, it wouldn’t, because the thing they want is still capitalism, and everything they do (riding on actual workers struggle) will be inevitably dismantled as soon as capitalists gain the upper hand again, as we observe time and time again. Socialdemocracy itself is a class treason and was born from class treason.
What is it that you call capitalism is the question.
Market capitalism is a practical approach to solving a intractable optimization problem - allocating finite resources in the best way to get optimal results (whatever it may be, such as maximizing production of certain goods while minimizing waste and loss and minimizing “unfairness”, however it is defined).
The alternative to capitalism is planned economy. It could not work 100 years ago because technology was not even close to the advancement level to be able to optimize a whole economy, i.e. solve a highly complex set of equations with billions of variables.
Maybe today it would work out, technology-wise, but it is not clear in detail how a society completely without markets could work. Certainly not everything is feasible to be decided by some election or by decision of some committee. It would lead to what was seen in the soviet union - bad planning based on incomplete and unreliable data.
Markets solve this problem and the whole thing works.
The question is who controls the markets.
In capitalism = neoliberal dystopia actually the capitalists themselves all instead of competing try to transcend beyond competition by either becoming a monopolist or becoming the market itself (“platform”). The fascist US oligarchs are working towards this.
On the other hand, China has state capitalism - the government has a strong upper hand, but use capitalistic market mechanics (with the needed biases to ensure the market is working towards the goals of the state, not some wealthy class).
Now you can explain to me how I maybe use the terms all incorrectly, but what I’m saying is: what China is doing is working, what the Soviets tried to do did not.
If China was not authoritarian, but had elections, it would be democratic and capitalistic, so what wie also call social democracy. In contrast to socialism, which is supposed to be democratic and anti-capitalistic, i.e. planned economy, which never worked and probably still would not.
The problem is not capitalism as a mechanism of economy, it’s the distribution of power. Corruption and decay and abuse is possible in every coceivable economic system. The question is, who is the system working for.
Ideally the state works for the people, in the sense of a collective of respected individuals, and the economy works for the state. If that is given, details such as the exact structure and processes for decision making and resource allocation are irrelevant, as long as they are sustainable and ethical.