Social democracy

Not to be confused with democratic socialism.

Social democracy is an ideology which advocates for reforming capitalism and using the state to favour the working class over the capitalist class without abolishing capitalism or bourgeois rule itself. This entails liberal democracy, the creation of a welfare state, the implementation of social programmes, a mixed market economy with state regulation and intervention, and wealth redistribution. Examples of modern-day social democracies include the Nordic countries and Western Europe. The most well-known social democrat in the United States is Bernie Sanders.

Social democrats are sometimes called "social fascists" because, like fascists, they seek to preserve capitalism, and whenever bourgeois rule is threatened, they generally side with the fascists against revolutionary socialists (as in Germany in 1919). The similarities between social democrats and fascists (particularly national socialists) are vexing. Both assert that communist states are a gross distortion of socialism, that socialism does not involve the abolition of private property, and that "true socialism" is about subordinating one's individual interests to the interests of the nation as a whole and people of different classes working together for the common good. Both advocate for a state-corporate partnership and some degree of welfare, and both are guilty of imperialism.

Etymology

The term "social democracy" has a complicated history. Many communists identified with the term in the late 19th and early 20th century. The Communist Party of the Soviet Union was formed from the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. Following the October Revolution, the Bolsheviks rejected the term "social democracy" because democracy is a form of state power and the higher stage of communism will be stateless.

The term was only ever popular in western Europe, and thus its association with communism or Marxism died with the rise of liberal economics in western Europe.

Lenin

In 1918 March, Lenin made the distinction between Social-Democrats and communists as follows,

"...As we begin socialist reforms we must have a clear conception of the goal towards which these reforms are in the final analysis directed, that is, the creation of a communist society that does not limit itself to the expropriation of factories, the land and the means of production, does not confine itself to strict accounting for, and control of, production and distribution of products, but goes farther towards implementing the principle “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs”. That is why the name of Communist Party is the only one that is scientifically correct. The objection that it may cause us to be confused with the anarchists was immediately rejected by the Central Committee on the grounds that the anarchists never call themselves simply Communists but always add something to that name. In this respect we may mention the many varieties of socialism, but they do not cause the confusion of the Social-Democrats with social reformers, or national socialists, or any similar parties."