Global Social Democracy

Global Social Democracy

Introduction

As a political movement, Global Social democracy describes the emergence of contemporary capitalism and the rise of the industrial proletariat. Social democracy was a liberating move that saw the development of the modern social class workers in response to the social-economic demands and political aspirations of the people. In the earlier days, the industrial working class faced many risked that had no amicable solutions considering the guided based economic system. The effort to political and economic liberation saw the formation of different social democracy to attain freedom. The first social democracy was called First International. It was an initiative of the French and British working in London to form in it in 1864. It aimed to prevent the importation of cheap labor from   France into Britain. Generally, the First International was to protect the trade union rights through solidarity among the laborers. Though the movement was not successful considering the internal division between the revolutionary Marxists and the anarchists. This witnessed the formation of the Second International. It was formed in 1899 by the European socialist parties though dissolved in 1916 seeing that it did not act to stop its members, especially the Australian and the Germans from participating in the First World war during the 1914-1918. The social-democratic movement failed as a result of the war outbreak. People decided to embrace class solidarity to support their government in the war period. The Austrian parliament was aided by the Austrian Social Democratic Party to bring down nationalism and embrace the class solidarity.

The Revisionist Debate

The German Social Democratic Party saw the birth of modern social democracy become a political ideology in the year 1897. The publication for the party was a significant contribution by Eduard Bernstein, the founder of the party who had collaborated with Karl Marx while in London. One of the books was called the Preconditions of Socialism. Bernstein questioned the central arguments of Marx and his editor Engels, which led to the revisionist debate within his party. Bernstein criticized Marx’s that it was unrealistic to predict the rapid fall of capitalism. Instead, he chose to base his notion on Immanuel Kant’s theories. To improve the condition for the working class, Bernstein insisted that his party drops the revolutionary slogan of “all-or-nothing” for a more practical strategy. He urged that the people adhere to the rule of law and a parliamentary democracy with their respective employers. Bernstein’s new ideologies sparked a mixed reaction, which saw him sent to jail in London. As a result, Bernstein reconceptualized social theory to mean the new principle of liberal democracy. His primary opponents were orthodox Marxist and Rosa Luxemburg. The main emphasize with Bernstein was that the Marxist revolutionary part is adjusted to fit in the social Democratic party-political practices that regarded negotiations with the capitalist society rather than a revolution.

In opposition, Karl Kautsky and Rosa Luxemburg held shared different views from Bernstein’s. They argued that Bernstein’s empiricist reasoning was doomed to fail, considering the nature of the capitalist society. Nonetheless, Luxemburg and Kautsky, together with other orthodox Marxists, seemed not to answer the reason why they supported the unions in advancing the lives of workers if they were doomed to fail. In contrast to their notion, modern social democracy dictates that for any approach to bear outcomes, their leaders should support its ideologies in front of their teams so that its workers can support the labor unions, as has been the case with social democratic parties.

Social Democracy Versus Orthodox Marxism

The principles governing the modern social democracy entailed the four main ideas from the orthodox Marxism. They included the support for parliamentary democracy, focus on negotiation and social compromises, willingness to adopt a new political reality, and a view of the socialist society as supporting national labor movements. According to Bernstein, the change meant everything, while the final goal was nothing. The focus on such organizational measures made countries such as Austria, Sweden, and Norway form social democratic organizations during 1939-1945 of the World War. They covered most life necessities such as culture, leisure, and sports.

After years of employing the Marxist orthodoxy, Bernstein’s idea of revisionism was finally adopted by the German Social Democratic Party. As a result, the party was able to progress politically and rise against economic depression that had existed in the 1930s.

Contemporary Social Democracy

Today, social democracy has been embraced globally as an influential international political factor. In about 110 nations of the world, there about 150 members of Socialist International. At the moment, most countries around the globe embrace social-democratic rule. On the same note, social democratic parties have often produced the majority of leaders with an international standing such as Olof Palme and Tony Blair. Social democracy has been at the front advocating for the citizens to be accorded social insurance coverage and social services. The principle established that it is the right of every citizen to benefit from state resources to create equality.

On a global scale, social democracy is today characteristic of a system provided with social services and insurances, where huge investments have been set for education and healthcare. This is contrary to the neoliberal economic perspective that regards individual spending as the best approach to spearhead personal responsibility and economic growth. Lately, social democratic movements have been at the forefront of championing women’s rights in terms of better wages and subsidized daycare for the female gender. Consequently, such aspects have been included in the social-democratic agenda. Moreover, European social democracy came also to abandon the capitalist in the 1940s and 1950s. The modern social democracy embraces Keynesianism to provide policies that can intervene in problems in the capitalist economy to avoid a repeat of the 1930s crisis on the world economy. The global market economy is usually regulated to avoid social inequalities and other related chaos. Nonetheless, it is essential to distinguish that such markets are different from the liberal market economies of the political economy.

Democratization has seen the efforts of the Socialist International and other national democratic parties. For instance, many underdeveloped nations and some southern Europe countries such as Portugal and Spain in the 1970s have made the process successful. Many countries all over the world now are led by social democratic governments. For instance, The European Socialist part is the strongest in Europe, where a significant percentage of parliamentarians are from the role.

Major ACHIEVEMENTS

On a global scale, social democracy has succeeded in establishing a system that caters to the social and insurance needs of its people. The system is covers and broad segments and is universal such that it is accessible to everyone regardless of the social status. The goal is to adhere to the principle of social solidarity as stipulated in a democracy, which is to provide equitable primary resources for its population. Such ideologies have become popular and attract the support of even the opposing parties.

Social democracy as an ideology seems to cut halfway between statism and neoliberal capitalism. Neoliberalism has always viewed the social democracy system to demand high taxes from the economy, which has not been forthcoming. Even with the high taxation, the provision of social insurance and services much speaks of the social democratic system. This can be argued by the fact that the system invests in human capital and handles the demands of social insurances efficiently as compared to the markets. The same case holds for both the developed and underdeveloped economies.

Unsolved Problems and The Future of Social Democracy

The unsolved issue with the project of social democracy is that socialism has since not bee achieved though Bernstein had projected its attainability. With the current state of the program, the Socialist international acknowledges socialism may probably not be attained. Even the initiative to nationalization some of the major industries in the 1950-1960s as a step to realize socialism for the European nations was not successful. The social democratic parties have been supporting union rights for mainstream companies, yet this has not been possible. Still, labor unions had supported workers in owning their companies as a way to minimize the reliance on unions, but this has also not worked. In this quest, during 1980, the Swedish Social Democrats tried to introduce a wage-earner funds system that could coerce organizations to contribute to unions as an investment plan for economic empowerment, but this too did not materialize. The Swedish Social Democratic decided to abandon this sort of economic democracy, seeing the ideological defeat during their twelve-year regime.

The future for social democracy may be problematic, considering the development of political challenges. Social democracy is pegged on the traditional political division of industrial capitalism. Based on its nature, it is not clear how it will handle problems with environmental protection, globalization, and immigration.