Why Social Democracy is Not Enough
Why Socialism Cannot be Equated with Social Democracy
Whenever I tell someone that I am a socialist, they inevitably respond with something along the following lines: “You mean like Sweden?”
“No,” I answer. “I mean like Cuba or the Soviet Union.”
Then they stare at me wide-eyed as if I am Charles Manson or someone equally deranged. That’s when the conversation usually ends. This is why I am generally not invited to parties.
What’s in a Name?
Many Americans — including a number of newcomers to socialist politics —mistakenly equate “socialism” with social democracy. They assume “socialism” just entails having a robust social safety-net, universal health care, higher wages, ample vacation time, and strong unions. They think of the Nordic countries. They have been led to believe that socialism is merely when “The Government does stuff.”
To be clear, these social programs and workers’ rights are highly desirable. And they exist in every socialist country. No doubt, programs like Medicare for All and increased unionization rates would go a long way towards improving workers’ living conditions here in the U.S. It is little wonder then, why these concepts are so popular among working-class Americans.
But these capitalist reforms do not in and of themselves constitute socialism. Socialism (or, more precisely, its final stage — communism) is the abolition of capitalism. Socialism is a classless, stateless society in which the working class owns the means of production. It is a state in which the exploitation of man by man (a conflict that is inevitable under capitalism) has been abolished. Under socialism, goods and services are allocated not by capitalists’ desire to make a profit, but by human need.
Communism, as Karl Marx described it, is an “Association of free men, working with the means of production held in common.”
Bernie Muddies the Waters
I blame Bernie Sanders for much of this confusion between socialism and social democracy — two terms that are admittedly similar.1 Sanders, though he often describes himself as a “socialist,” is really a social democrat.2 He is not a Marxist. Sanders’ campaign platform in both 2016 and 2020 was basically calling for a new-New Deal.
Don’t take my word for it. Sanders explicitly said as much on the campaign trail, in 2016.
“When I talk about democratic socialism,” Sanders said during a candidates’ forum, “I’m not looking at Venezuela. I’m not looking at Cuba. I’m looking at countries like Denmark and Sweden.”
… 🙄
In other words, Sanders is not “looking at” socialism, at all. Neither Denmark nor Sweden is socialist. But Cuba and Venezuela, which Sanders rejects, are.
Denmark, Sweden, and Norway are all capitalist countries. Sure, they enjoy a far greater social safety-net and stronger worker protections than we do here in the U.S. But these aspects alone do not make any of these Scandinavian countries authentically socialist. The labor organizations in these countries have merely attempted to tame, contain, and constrain capitalism. They have not, however, transcended it. This is the key difference.
(Crucially, these social democratic programs are only possible through the colonialist exploitation of workers in the so-called “third world.” This is an inconvenient fact frequently overlooked by soc-dems like Sanders.)
I am not trying to be sectarian or dogmatic here. Words matter. What Sanders routinely describes as “socialist” is nothing of the sort. Indeed, in any other country (particularly those with active socialist political parties) figures like Sanders, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and New York mayoral candidate, Zohran Mamdani would be widely recognized as standard liberals. The fact that they can pass themselves off as “socialists” here in the U.S. says more about how stunted, narrow, and ultimately right-wing the range of “acceptable political opinion” is in this country.
Furthermore, the chief reason the working class in these Nordic countries was able to wrest these concessions from the wealthy elite was because the Soviet Union — the world’s first successful socialist state — was right next door. After the Bolshevik revolution of October 1917, the Scandinavian ruling-classes were terrified the workers in their own countries would attempt to follow suit with popular uprisings. Thus, the ruling-class bought them off with reformist concessions. Now, with the Soviet Union having been gone for over three decades, the bourgeoisie in the Nordic countries are slowly dismantling the welfare state.
You Can’t Skin a Tiger Paw By Paw
Indeed, this brings me to the second fundamental flaw with social democracy: It is not permanent. Without fundamentally altering workers’ relationship with the state and the means of production, any gains the working class manages to win from the wealthy elite are always in danger of being revoked or erased at a later time. Even in Western countries, like England, which have long enjoyed universal health care, both bourgeois parties (the Tories and the Labor Party) have launched neoliberal efforts to rollback and, ultimately, privatize the health care system.
As long as capitalism still exists (and, indeed, as long as it remains the dominant economic model), the bourgeoisie can reassert its power at any given time.
This is why workers cannot skip over the necessity of engaging in a socialist revolution — one that overthrows capitalism and installs what Marx and Engels termed the “dictatorship of the proletariat.” It is common for young socialists to dismiss the notion of a working-class revolution in the U.S., either based on practicality or desirability. I understand their skepticism. Nor do I personally fetishize the idea of fighting in a bloody, violent upheaval. I would certainly prefer that any transition to socialism be nonviolent.
But I am also not naïve about the lengths the ruling class will go to maintain their power. The bourgeoisie has demonstrated time and time again that it has no qualms about employing the violence of the state (in the form of the military, the police, the National Guard, and the “useful idiots” that make up Trump’s petty-bourgeois “MAGA” supporters) to kill protesters and crush left-wing movements. No ruling class throughout history has ever relinquished its power peacefully. It is called “class struggle” for a reason.
Nor can we simply vote socialist politicians into power and call it a day. This is another political dead-end that, sadly, too many young socialists get sucked into. The working class tried the electoral path to socialism in Chile, in the 1970s. TL;DR, as the kids say, it did not work out so well…
Reform or Revolution…? It’s Both, Actually
To be clear, this is not to suggest the left should not fight for reforms to improve workers’ material conditions in the here and now. We absolutely should. Successful local campaigns to raise the minimum wage, or establish rent control can, at best, raise workers’ consciousness about what more they could accomplish. These sorts of campaigns can have a further radicalizing effect on workers.
But, as Rosa Luxemburg observed in her classic 1900 essay, Reform or Revolution?, the working class cannot fall into the trap of substituting the fight for capitalist reforms for the broader goal of socialism.
Luxemburg’s polemic is directed against the opportunism of Eduard Bernstein, a leading member of the German Social Democratic Party (SPD), the largest socialist party in Germany at the time. Bernstein argued that a socialist revolution was not necessary. Capitalism, he insisted, would gradually and naturally give way to socialism. In the meantime, Bernstein wrote, socialists should merely focus on the “trade-union” and “economic” struggles facing the working class.
Luxemburg saw Bernstein’s eclecticism and blatant disregard for Marxist theory as a dangerous trend for the socialist movement.
“Legislative reform and revolution are not different methods of historic development that can be picked out at pleasure from the counter of history, just as one chooses hot or cold sausages,” writes Luxemburg. “Legislative reform and revolution are different factors in the development of class society…” [Emphasis in the original.]
She continues:
… That is why people who pronounce themselves in favor of the method of legislative reform in place and in contradistinction to the conquest of political power and social revolution do not really choose a more tranquil, calmer, and slower road to the same goal, but a different goal. Instead of taking a stand for the establishment of a new society they take a stand for surface modifications of the old society. If we follow the political conceptions of revisionism, we arrive at the same conclusion that is reached when we follow the economic theories of revisionism. Our program becomes not the realization of socialism, but the reform of capitalism: not the suppression of the system of wage labor, but the diminution of the exploitation, that is, the suppression of the abuses of capitalism instead of the suppression of capitalism itself. [Emphasis hers.]
Sadly, Luxemburg’s assessment of the pitfalls of revisionism proved all too prescient. In the end, the SPD was completely taken over by revisionism and opportunism. And Luxemburg and her close comrade, Karl Liebknecht, ultimately paid for that party corruption with their lives. This history, incidentally, is what online leftists are referencing when they post memes stating, “Bernie [Sanders] Killed Rosa.”
Let’s not make that mistake again. Communism is our movement’s ultimate goal. We must not stray from it.
Further adding to the confusion is the fact that socialists in the early 20th century, like Lenin and Rosa Luxemburg, initially referred to their politics as “social democracy.” Prior to the Bolshevik revolution in Russia, in October of 1917, “social democracy” was widely understood to mean socialism. After the revolution, however, Lenin and the Bolsheviks intentionally abandoned the phrase for “communism,” as they believed “social democracy” had been co-opted and sullied by the opportunists within the German Social Democratic Party (SPD). Basically, in the early 20th century, the phrase “social democracy” did not have the negative connotation it holds among Marxists, today. As a result, it can be confusing for contemporary readers when Lenin, in What is to Be Done? champions social democracy as his goal.
Actually, Sanders usually refers to himself as a “democratic socialist.” This phrase — “democratic socialism” — invokes the history of figures like Michael Harrington, the founder of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA).
Harrington was a follower of Trotskyite, Max Shachtman. As such, he employed a “democratic interpretation” of Marx, “while rejecting the ‘actually existing’” socialism of China, the Soviet Union, and the Eastern Bloc. The signifier, “democratic” is, I suspect, meant to distance proponents from the “authoritarian” (read: siege socialism) socialist states. For all intents and purposes, social-democracy and democratic socialism represent the same reformist, anticommunist trend, albeit with the words flipped around.