Social Democracy

IN THE 19th century, social democracy was widely associated with radical or revolutionary socialist parties and political movements, many of which actually included the term social democracy in their names. In Britain for example, a Social Democratic Federation was established in 1884, explicitly based on the theories of Karl Marx, as was the Social Democratic Party that was formed in Germany in 1875. Many other European social democratic parties, such as those formed in Austria and Scandinavia during this period, were also strongly imbued with Marxist ideology.

However, during the 20th century, social democracy dispensed with its Marxist precepts, and thereby consciously was transformed into a moderate, anti-revolutionary, ultra-constitutional, political philosophy, and array of left-of-center political parties. Indeed, so moderate has European social democracy become that many on the left alleged that 20th-century social democratic parties became devoid of any genuine socialist content and became, instead, bourgeois reformists merely seeking to humanize capitalism on behalf of the working class, rather than replace it with socialism through the active involvement of the working class.

Since eschewing its Marxist origins and outlook, social democracy has pursued avowedly socialist objectives: a fairer society with greater equality and the eradication of poverty, modest wealth redistribution (primarily via progressive taxation, whereby higher rates of tax are paid on higher salaries and other sources of income), equal treatment and respect for all citizens, including the eradication of all forms of discrimination, government regulation of the economy to ensure stability, stable growth and the creation of full employment, and a welfare state to provide free (paid for via taxes) education, healthcare, pensions, and other forms of social security for those in material need.

[Page 395]Crucially, however, social democracy has pursued these goals through parliamentary democracy, having totally rejected revolutionary or syndicalist means of effecting political change or overthrowing capitalism. Democratic elections, not direct action, became social democracy's chosen means of securing political power in order to create a fairer society. Only political power derived from winning a parliamentary majority through the ballot box is considered to be legitimate by social democrats.

Social democracy also maintains that the goal of establishing a fairer, more egalitarian society, should be pursued on an incremental basis, through policies and reforms that gradually, but peacefully, transform capitalism, without ever constituting an all-out direct assault on the capitalist system or bourgeoisie. In this respect, social democracy has accepted “the inevitability of gradualness,” believing that social and economic reforms can be cumulative, each building on preceding reforms, and thereby becoming embedded, to the extent that they become virtually irreversible.