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I agree with the spirit of the post but disagree with how you put it.
> They cannot remain a party of workers alone and yet they can never cease to be a workers' party.
I don't think social democracy is a worker's party. Social democracy should be the party for those who cannot work, those who can, and those who want to contribute the society in other ways.
Workers sometimes would prefer to shield themselves regardless of what happens with the less privileged (minorities, immigrants, and poorer foreigners).
> but this also erodes that ideology which is the source of their strength among workers
Indeed the multi-class coalition erodes the appeal among workers. Social democracy is a multi-class ideology.
Yeah I agree, when the Linke (not exactly socdem, maybe closer to demsoc, but still) try to "focus on the working class first", the rethoric quickly turns into "White conservative industrial and trade workers unite! No icky immigrants or queers or baristas."
I mean, its class reductionism, which inevitably leads to your main support base being people who ONLY identify by their class, bc their financial situation is the only concern they have, and they view any other concern as secondary...or entirely fabricated.
Social Democrats have found it difficult in the post-industrial world where the working class is fractured and no longer identifying as working class but "white working class". The problem is that ethnic identity has trumped class identity and Social Democrats for the most part have not found a response to this. Some countries such as Portugal have had a reasonable successful Left party; around 30% of France has embraced a Left populism whilst Denmark's Social Democrats adopt right-wing populist policies and undercut the Far-Right.
I wonder to what extent this was based on an economic-industrial system where being working class meant you worked in a factory, or shipyard, or did something at the smelly end of a steam engine. Does it still hold when the working class has changed: most of the people in white collar, professional, historically 'middle class' jobs now face working class conditions - economic insecurity, precarity, poor housing etc. That's why the '99%' idea in the years immediately after the 2008 crash was so potentially powerful: it made (some) people realise that the historical working class and the historical middle class do, in fact, have common class interests against the billionaire class.
This claim seems to stand or fall with the definition of "workers". It makes sense if it purely means insustrial workers who were the traditional electorate but never a majority of course.
If you include service workers, care workers, teachers etc etc it becomes a different picture
Plenty of socdem parties that have decent success. It's the parties that try to sell their radicalism first and don't convince people that they can be the party of good governance that fail to compete.
It’s a fine book, but the thesis is a bit reductive. I suggest a better one (written in part as a response to Prazmowsky): Esping-Andersen, Politics against markets. He goes into the specific of how social democratic parties try to keep their constituency
The proletariat was not and never became a numerical majority of electorate in any country and hence to win elections, social democrats must appeal to the petty bourgeoisie, white collar employees, students etc but by mobilizing voters as "the people" or "the masses", social democratic parties weaken the general salience of class and workers are less likely to identify themselves as class members.
When social democrats extend their appeal, they promise to struggle not for objectives specific to workers - but only those which workers share as individuals with members of other classes like taxation, health, education, public transport. They are forced to go back and forth between an emphasis of class and an appeal to the nation. That is not to say, one strategy is better than the other but I found this dilemma particularly interesting. What do you all think about this?
>The proletariat was not and never became a numerical majority of electorate in any country
Ah ok then how did Austria get the Worker Council (Arbeiterkammer) and the unified general union (ÖGB)
Oh right, that was at the height of labor power when social democrats controlled the political apartus after World War 1 and World War 2
Dont be ridicilous, the proletariat had the majority in many countries
And to some degree still has.
In one point OP is right though: AK and ÖGB had this great success due to some (small) help from the Conservatives - or their lack of reaction to it in the timeframe 1918-1920.
Still, the proletariat exists in other forms
>And to some degree still has.
Sehe ich auch so, das Momentum Institut hat mir den glauben an die Macht die wir Arbeiter noch haben in Österreich wiedergegeben
They need to change the definition of working class.
Do you have to sell hours of your time to live?
If you cannot live solely off of capital, (property, assets etc) you are working class.
You are not a capitalist, you are a ‘wage slave’. That is what the capitalists call you regardless of what color your collar is. Time to get very clear-eyed about what is actually happening.
‘White collar’ workers: Rather than ‘aspiring’ to leave the working class behind because you are ‘white’ collar and trying to suck up to capitalists who are working every day to hoard more ensuring you never leave your class position, work in solidarity with the grocery clerk, the manual laborer, the food service worker. You have a lot more in common with them than the capitalists you are trying to befriend who are actively fucking you and your family every day of the year.
Once you have identified and internalized your class position, politics and life in general becomes a lot more clear. The capitalists have made it impossible for anyone to move up. Let’s work together as working people so we can all live with dignity
I'm amazed more people are not pointing this out. We need to have an agreeable definition of working class or these statements are meaningless at best.
The creation of the middle class/upper middle class illusion has been successful in dividing the working class and getting part of them (white collar) to actively punish the others on behalf of capital.
But what has that gotten us? We’re still all struggling daily to not be serfs in a world becoming exponentially more unequal every year.
Time to cut the bullshit and wake the fuck up.
Here in the US, we can solve that problem by turning the Democratic Party into a Social Democratic Party. The current coalition of college-educated whites and ethnic minorities with any level of education will remain, but we will also advertise heavily to the white working class and highlight our pro-worker policies in order to appeal to the Rust Belt. Thus, instead of a social democratic party becoming eroded by other interests, a non-Social Democratic Party will instead expand into a Social Democratic Party by appealing to the working class.
Note: Working class minorities tend to already vote for the Democratic Party, so there isn't really a need to "expand" into that demographic; I was not implying that the non-white working class is unimportant, merely that it's a part of the Democratic coalition already.
Those white people who proudly call themselves "workers" are also quite socially conservative.
Its not as if the Democrats are completely unpopular among poor whites...just among certain sections of the group of poor whites. Those in the trades, or in traditional industries. Who have been fed the lie that the progressives are at fault for neoliberal market policies, and that their beloved Republicans are the only solution. The brainwashing goes deep, these people will most likely not stand with you as long as you also openly work with working class minorities and progressives with college degrees. They'll start crying against better trans and queer rights, better abortion access, prosecution of far-right terrorists, more humane immigration laws, whatever, they'll find something to whine about if it mainly benefits someone who isn't them.
Both parties were responsible for Neoliberal market policies - it was (and largely still is) the elite consensus.
Each party offers a only a partial story to the white working class. The Republican story is that competition from immigrants, along with the (supposed) drain on government resources that they cause, is holding them back. A second thing holding them back, or at least threatens too, is the Democrats favoritism toward minorities. This along with a little tough talk on trade (and minimal action) is enough to attract some votes.
The Democratic story is mostly one of uplift through education along with marginal increases in poor relief. While there had been some appeal to this message, the decades have shown it to be an inadequate at best. Moreover, while not intentional, the message conveyed is one that the party does not honor blue collar work - it is seen by the party elite as a condition to be escaped.
The Democrats, by offering so little for the working class, have made it very easy for the Republicans’ scapegoating approach to gain traction.
This seems to align pretty well to what happened to the Workers Party in Brazil. Since the redemocratization in 89, the Workers Party have won 5 of the 9 elections we had, and they always went to the second turn.
Lula in 2002 needed to create a huge alliance with the elites, having his vice president being a wealthy capitalist in the Brazilian textile industry.
The pacts he made were solely to maintain the economic control imposed by former president FHC in his neoliberal agenda. And the gov. efforts were centered around focusing efforts on ending extreme poverty while Brazil was surfing a huge commodity boom.
To summarize, the former govs of the Workers Party centered their efforts in assisting the poor and putting close to little effort on the working class. Most of these efforts were because Brazil has some many structural problems that is very hard to put the effort in everything.
The result was a turn of the working class to the far right, and now in Lula 3rd administration I think he is trying to get again the workers attention.
In the end, the alliance with the capitalists payed a gigantic price. A price payed with human lives.
> the capitalists *paid* a gigantic
FTFY.
Although *payed* exists (the reason why autocorrection didn't help you), it is only correct in:
* Nautical context, when it means to paint a surface, or to cover with something like tar or resin in order to make it waterproof or corrosion-resistant. *The deck is yet to be payed.*
* *Payed out* when letting strings, cables or ropes out, by slacking them. *The rope is payed out! You can pull now.*
Unfortunately, I was unable to find nautical or rope-related words in your comment.
*Beep, boop, I'm a bot*
Thank you for submitting a picture or video to r/SocialDemocracy. We require that you post a short explanation or summary of your image/video explaining its contents and relevance, and inviting discussion. You have 15 minutes to post this as a top level comment or your submission will be removed. Thank you! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/SocialDemocracy) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I agree with the spirit of the post but disagree with how you put it. > They cannot remain a party of workers alone and yet they can never cease to be a workers' party. I don't think social democracy is a worker's party. Social democracy should be the party for those who cannot work, those who can, and those who want to contribute the society in other ways. Workers sometimes would prefer to shield themselves regardless of what happens with the less privileged (minorities, immigrants, and poorer foreigners). > but this also erodes that ideology which is the source of their strength among workers Indeed the multi-class coalition erodes the appeal among workers. Social democracy is a multi-class ideology.
Yeah I agree, when the Linke (not exactly socdem, maybe closer to demsoc, but still) try to "focus on the working class first", the rethoric quickly turns into "White conservative industrial and trade workers unite! No icky immigrants or queers or baristas." I mean, its class reductionism, which inevitably leads to your main support base being people who ONLY identify by their class, bc their financial situation is the only concern they have, and they view any other concern as secondary...or entirely fabricated.
Social Democrats have found it difficult in the post-industrial world where the working class is fractured and no longer identifying as working class but "white working class". The problem is that ethnic identity has trumped class identity and Social Democrats for the most part have not found a response to this. Some countries such as Portugal have had a reasonable successful Left party; around 30% of France has embraced a Left populism whilst Denmark's Social Democrats adopt right-wing populist policies and undercut the Far-Right.
I wonder to what extent this was based on an economic-industrial system where being working class meant you worked in a factory, or shipyard, or did something at the smelly end of a steam engine. Does it still hold when the working class has changed: most of the people in white collar, professional, historically 'middle class' jobs now face working class conditions - economic insecurity, precarity, poor housing etc. That's why the '99%' idea in the years immediately after the 2008 crash was so potentially powerful: it made (some) people realise that the historical working class and the historical middle class do, in fact, have common class interests against the billionaire class.
This claim seems to stand or fall with the definition of "workers". It makes sense if it purely means insustrial workers who were the traditional electorate but never a majority of course. If you include service workers, care workers, teachers etc etc it becomes a different picture
Plenty of socdem parties that have decent success. It's the parties that try to sell their radicalism first and don't convince people that they can be the party of good governance that fail to compete.
this from Olle Tornquist book?
this is from capitalism and social democracy by adam przeworski
It’s a fine book, but the thesis is a bit reductive. I suggest a better one (written in part as a response to Prazmowsky): Esping-Andersen, Politics against markets. He goes into the specific of how social democratic parties try to keep their constituency
The proletariat was not and never became a numerical majority of electorate in any country and hence to win elections, social democrats must appeal to the petty bourgeoisie, white collar employees, students etc but by mobilizing voters as "the people" or "the masses", social democratic parties weaken the general salience of class and workers are less likely to identify themselves as class members. When social democrats extend their appeal, they promise to struggle not for objectives specific to workers - but only those which workers share as individuals with members of other classes like taxation, health, education, public transport. They are forced to go back and forth between an emphasis of class and an appeal to the nation. That is not to say, one strategy is better than the other but I found this dilemma particularly interesting. What do you all think about this?
> The proletariat was not and never became a numerical majority of electorate in any country Citation needed.
>The proletariat was not and never became a numerical majority of electorate in any country Ah ok then how did Austria get the Worker Council (Arbeiterkammer) and the unified general union (ÖGB) Oh right, that was at the height of labor power when social democrats controlled the political apartus after World War 1 and World War 2 Dont be ridicilous, the proletariat had the majority in many countries
And to some degree still has. In one point OP is right though: AK and ÖGB had this great success due to some (small) help from the Conservatives - or their lack of reaction to it in the timeframe 1918-1920. Still, the proletariat exists in other forms
>And to some degree still has. Sehe ich auch so, das Momentum Institut hat mir den glauben an die Macht die wir Arbeiter noch haben in Österreich wiedergegeben
Nicht nur dir
They need to change the definition of working class. Do you have to sell hours of your time to live? If you cannot live solely off of capital, (property, assets etc) you are working class. You are not a capitalist, you are a ‘wage slave’. That is what the capitalists call you regardless of what color your collar is. Time to get very clear-eyed about what is actually happening. ‘White collar’ workers: Rather than ‘aspiring’ to leave the working class behind because you are ‘white’ collar and trying to suck up to capitalists who are working every day to hoard more ensuring you never leave your class position, work in solidarity with the grocery clerk, the manual laborer, the food service worker. You have a lot more in common with them than the capitalists you are trying to befriend who are actively fucking you and your family every day of the year. Once you have identified and internalized your class position, politics and life in general becomes a lot more clear. The capitalists have made it impossible for anyone to move up. Let’s work together as working people so we can all live with dignity
I'm amazed more people are not pointing this out. We need to have an agreeable definition of working class or these statements are meaningless at best.
The creation of the middle class/upper middle class illusion has been successful in dividing the working class and getting part of them (white collar) to actively punish the others on behalf of capital. But what has that gotten us? We’re still all struggling daily to not be serfs in a world becoming exponentially more unequal every year. Time to cut the bullshit and wake the fuck up.
The myth of the middle class has contributed to this. Proles think they are “middle class” and vote for bourgeois parties against their own interest
Here in the US, we can solve that problem by turning the Democratic Party into a Social Democratic Party. The current coalition of college-educated whites and ethnic minorities with any level of education will remain, but we will also advertise heavily to the white working class and highlight our pro-worker policies in order to appeal to the Rust Belt. Thus, instead of a social democratic party becoming eroded by other interests, a non-Social Democratic Party will instead expand into a Social Democratic Party by appealing to the working class. Note: Working class minorities tend to already vote for the Democratic Party, so there isn't really a need to "expand" into that demographic; I was not implying that the non-white working class is unimportant, merely that it's a part of the Democratic coalition already.
Those white people who proudly call themselves "workers" are also quite socially conservative. Its not as if the Democrats are completely unpopular among poor whites...just among certain sections of the group of poor whites. Those in the trades, or in traditional industries. Who have been fed the lie that the progressives are at fault for neoliberal market policies, and that their beloved Republicans are the only solution. The brainwashing goes deep, these people will most likely not stand with you as long as you also openly work with working class minorities and progressives with college degrees. They'll start crying against better trans and queer rights, better abortion access, prosecution of far-right terrorists, more humane immigration laws, whatever, they'll find something to whine about if it mainly benefits someone who isn't them.
Not entirely sure. Many working-class whites in the Rust Belt voted for Biden, just not Hillary
Both parties were responsible for Neoliberal market policies - it was (and largely still is) the elite consensus. Each party offers a only a partial story to the white working class. The Republican story is that competition from immigrants, along with the (supposed) drain on government resources that they cause, is holding them back. A second thing holding them back, or at least threatens too, is the Democrats favoritism toward minorities. This along with a little tough talk on trade (and minimal action) is enough to attract some votes. The Democratic story is mostly one of uplift through education along with marginal increases in poor relief. While there had been some appeal to this message, the decades have shown it to be an inadequate at best. Moreover, while not intentional, the message conveyed is one that the party does not honor blue collar work - it is seen by the party elite as a condition to be escaped. The Democrats, by offering so little for the working class, have made it very easy for the Republicans’ scapegoating approach to gain traction.
Well yeah thats a success. Destroying class was the goal all along. Individuality should always be the number 1 focus
You have to appeal to lots of different people to win democratic elections? Color me shocked.
This seems to align pretty well to what happened to the Workers Party in Brazil. Since the redemocratization in 89, the Workers Party have won 5 of the 9 elections we had, and they always went to the second turn. Lula in 2002 needed to create a huge alliance with the elites, having his vice president being a wealthy capitalist in the Brazilian textile industry. The pacts he made were solely to maintain the economic control imposed by former president FHC in his neoliberal agenda. And the gov. efforts were centered around focusing efforts on ending extreme poverty while Brazil was surfing a huge commodity boom. To summarize, the former govs of the Workers Party centered their efforts in assisting the poor and putting close to little effort on the working class. Most of these efforts were because Brazil has some many structural problems that is very hard to put the effort in everything. The result was a turn of the working class to the far right, and now in Lula 3rd administration I think he is trying to get again the workers attention. In the end, the alliance with the capitalists payed a gigantic price. A price payed with human lives.
> the capitalists *paid* a gigantic FTFY. Although *payed* exists (the reason why autocorrection didn't help you), it is only correct in: * Nautical context, when it means to paint a surface, or to cover with something like tar or resin in order to make it waterproof or corrosion-resistant. *The deck is yet to be payed.* * *Payed out* when letting strings, cables or ropes out, by slacking them. *The rope is payed out! You can pull now.* Unfortunately, I was unable to find nautical or rope-related words in your comment. *Beep, boop, I'm a bot*