In the recent discussion about electoral tactics in tomorrow's US
election, (never mind on Iran, Venzuela, China, Brazil and Cuba) a
number of barbs were directed towards social democracy, in particular
against the neo-liberal direction many post-Communist countries and
social democratic parties in Europe have taken in the last couple of
decades. This got me thinking about whether or not there is, or could
be, a non-revolutionary, or evolutionary, path to socialism. i.e. is
there any point to a third party strategy in the US since virtually
everyone agrees that revolutionary conditions are totally absent from
the North American/European scene these days?
This, in turn, got me thinking about why the social democratic move
toward a socialist society in Europe got derailed during the
1970s-1980s. Is social democracy a barrier to a socialist transition or
a pathway that met a (temporary?) dead end in the period of the
expansion of global capitalism which we call globalism? If the latter
is the case, then the coming crises of global warming, overpopulation,
peak oil, and water shortages with the resultant reversal of globalism,
should open up new opportunities for social democracy and progress
within social democracy towards socialism and socialist societies.
It seems to me that in Sweden, the most advanced social democratic
state in Europe, for instance, the dead-end was reached by the defeat of
the wage-earner fund strategy in 1983 which has been attributed to
opposition from capital and the splitting of the working class into
essentially blue-collar (supporting the wage-earner funds) and white
collar/professional (opposed to the funds) camps. (See Gregg Olsen, _The
Struggle for Economic Democracy in Sweden_) "Free Trade globalism" also
played a major role, not only in Sweden but also throughout the
developed world, because it allowed capital to flee social democratic
countries/goverments who legislated/regulated redistribution or social
ownership and by threatening to do so undermined support from workers
whose jobs were threatened but who otherwise would have supported the
socialization of income and wealth.
If global warming and peak oil are imminent, as I believe to be the
case, capitalist globalism must necessarily begin to retreat. This will
not only open up more opportunity to unblock the social democratic path
toward socialism but will create the economic pressures on the general
population moving governments in that direction.
Is this utopian dreaming, or is this a realistic possibility?
Paul P
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