Original title (which I find a bit too click-baity):
Socialism: Let’s Not Resuscitate the Worst Mistake of the 20th Century
The European democratic socialist model really has made people’s lives immeasurably better (and still does). It’s far from perfect but I think that’s because it’s happening in the real world, where there will always be messy compromise. For me, I choose the mess that helps people!
The thing is, and I say this living a very comfortable life in Germany: this model makes life good for (many, not all) people HERE, but it still depends on people being exploited elsewhere. Call it imperialism, dependency theory or world system theory, they all say similar things. World-wide social democracy is impossible.
This is a common sentiment, but I don’t agree. I have family in Brazil, and I know that the democratic socialists there have done a lot to improve life for the Brazilian people, too, in very different material circumstances (i.e., in a largely agrarian ‘developing’ economy). The structures and principles of democratic socialism can be applied successfully outside the developed world.
European welfare is subsidized by interest payments made by poor countries to rich countries. European social democracy works because they steal money from the developing world. Social welfare in developing countries are notably less robust precisely because of the underdevelopment.
I’ve already addressed this critique. Democratic socialism works in the developing world, too. Everything there works less well because the countries are poorer, but democratic socialism still works best.
Yeah sure, whatever. Meanwhile I’ve watched social democrats in the Philippines turn to fascism while others become the left wing of the Liberal Party.
i view the democratic socialist model as harm mitigation. It doesn’t remove the harmful structures of the state or capital, but it does reduce the harm somewhat. As such, those policies are concesions that anarchists should fight for, but the system itself is not a goal and anarchists should continue to work in opposition to it
The European democratic socialist model really has made people’s lives immeasurably better
And better only for the Europeans, while the Third World is worse off. Social democracy doesn’t erase poverty, it moves it somewhere else, it works only as long as there is a poorer country on the other side of the world that you can exploit for cheap labour.
One could argue that the social democratic strategy stood in the way of all the different approches to peoples power. in many situations social democrats actively sabotaged or withdrew support for strikes, revolutions, riots and struggles. Imo what we have in many places in europe is not because of them but despite their constant effort to undermine any actual system change.
