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[redwallzyl]

That's great, not all democratic socialists pine for the nationalisation of everything or spout Marxist theories.

What exactly would you, as somebody who calls themselves a social democrat, say is the difference between social democratism and democratic socialism?

One wants to reform capitalism the other would rather replace it. both would rather reform and democracy then revolution and both care about the well being of people over the state or private interests. similar but different. standard socialism and communism I would say are revolutionary and not reformist and not inclined go through the democratic system.

[smjjames]

Don't you have a newspaper called Die Linke? Or am I thinking of something else?

Things are currently offtopic, but there isn't really anything AmeriPol related to talk about atm, at least nothing I want to bring up.

[WealthyRadish]

I'd say the key difference is that social democrats hope to use the state to mitigate the ills of capitalism while keeping it essentially the same, while democratic socialists hope to use the state to democratically transition out of capitalism. A modern social democrat would never consider institutions like private property or wage labor to be a problem, for instance, while a democratic socialist would likely consider them incompatible with a fully democratic society.

[smjjames]

And some people in the US will just see the socialist part whether social democrats or democrat socialists and scream because to them, socialist=communist.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Nationalization and markets as the exception and not the rule are necessary characteristics; after all, we should strive for a usage of the word that aligns with 150 years of Leftist thought, including Marx.

"Ideologies based on societal alteration and progression away from ingrained structures should be bound to a traditional definition set down by our ancestors."

Also why is everybody willingly having a semantic debate? We stopped doing this for atheism, for the love of Poststructural Christ just describe what you mean and assume everyone else means about what their context suggests.

[Descan]

I mean, a newspaper named after (and probably run by) a political party isn't exactly unheard of.

[smjjames]

A modern social democrat would never consider institutions like private property or wage labor to be a problem, for instance, while a democratic socialist would likely consider them incompatible with a fully democratic society.

I think you have it backwards.

Nationalization and markets as the exception and not the rule are necessary characteristics; after all, we should strive for a usage of the word that aligns with 150 years of Leftist thought, including Marx.

"Ideologies based on societal alteration and progression away from ingrained structures should be bound to a traditional definition set down by our ancestors."

Also why is everybody willingly having a semantic debate? We stopped doing this for atheism, for the love of Poststructural Christ just describe what you mean and assume everyone else means about what their context suggests.

Because socialism is such a broad thing that Marxism is only one facet of it? Besides, socialism is a trigger word for a lot of Americans, so, the words Democrat Socialist and Socialist Democrat confuse us. Or rather, we mainly associate it with the Nordic countries and we haven't defined it for ourselves (thus Bernie Sanders having to explain how it's not socialism OR communism).

[redwallzyl]

Nationalization and markets as the exception and not the rule are necessary characteristics; after all, we should strive for a usage of the word that aligns with 150 years of Leftist thought, including Marx.

"Ideologies based on societal alteration and progression away from ingrained structures should be bound to a traditional definition set down by our ancestors."

Also why is everybody willingly having a semantic debate? We stopped doing this for atheism, for the love of Poststructural Christ just describe what you mean and assume everyone else means about what their context suggests.

No need to go post modernist. Concert definitions all the way! Next up Neo liberalism!

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Nationalization and markets as the exception and not the rule are necessary characteristics; after all, we should strive for a usage of the word that aligns with 150 years of Leftist thought, including Marx.

"Ideologies based on societal alteration and progression away from ingrained structures should be bound to a traditional definition set down by our ancestors."

Also why is everybody willingly having a semantic debate? We stopped doing this for atheism, for the love of Poststructural Christ just describe what you mean and assume everyone else means about what their context suggests.

Because socialism is such a broad thing that Marxism is only one facet of it? Besides, socialism is a trigger word for a lot of Americans, so, the words Democrat Socialist and Socialist Democrat confuse us. Or rather, we mainly associate it with the Nordic countries and we haven't defined it for ourselves (thus Bernie Sanders having to explain how it's not socialism OR communism).

Why are you talking to me like I'm a European? I haven't Freaky Friday'd LW just yet.

Also that's all kind of irrelevant to my point? People have specific policies in mind behind the vague political labels they're using, and that's more important than the goddamn ordering of Social Democracy and Democratic Socialism. In a discussion like this one it is madness to rely upon unarticulated ideology.


Like, "I'm an economic conservative". What the fuck does that even mean? Should the government not exist? Should the Constitution be amended to not allow national debt? Is your Bible second only to Atlas Shrugged and The Critique of Pure Reason? Or do you just want the EPA, PBS, and USAID ground down into a fine powder and snorted by executive shareholders, regardless of all else?

Or maybe you just fucking hate your garbageman because he won't take the goddamn wicker chairs away there's NO FUCKING RULE JERRY ENJOY YOUR PAYCUT BITCH

Semantic discussions are death. Burn the dictionaries.

[scriver]

Yeah, it's pretty much flat-out wrong. Especially when you consider that here in Germany we have a hard-left party - Die Linke - which sees itself as standing in the tradition of socialism in the proper sense of the word, and has a large fraction of members openly pushing that sort of ideology. And that's not even mentioning the deep and bitter historical rifts that still are present today. Wer hat uns verraten is something those people take seriously.

Yes, Sweden has several socialist parties as well. Having several parties that are all different brands of socialist does not make any of them not socialist. We also have several liberal and conservative parties.

Socialism means wishing to subjugate the bourgeoisie. Nationalization and markets as the exception and not the rule are necessary characteristics; after all, we should strive for a usage of the word that aligns with 150 years of Leftist thought, including Marx.

The 150 years of usage of socialism includes it's usage in social democratism. The social in "social democrat" means socialist.

Social Democracy on the other hand means accepting reformism as the most successful road to the people's welfare, and in the process giving up on revolution - whether political or economic - as a viable instrument.

Democratic socialism is the result of the split between democratic and revolutionary socialists. Democratic socialists favoured change through reforms and democratic opinionising instead of violence. This does not make it not socialism, except maybe for people who have an Ayn Randian view of what socialism is, like "subjugating the burgeoise".

If you subsume my Social Democacy under your Socialism, you end up with the weird result that there is not a single position that all those you would describe as socialist could agree on, apart from 'It's good to help the workers and the poor'.

Yes, socialism is an extremely broad category of thought that has historically been very prone to splintering and infighting.

And I have absolutely no doubt that your social democracy would not be covered under it because I have seen absolutely no signs through our history on this site that you are in any way social democrat.

Fun fact though: Your own party have no trouble subsuming themselves under socialism alongside just about every other socialist party in the world, be they revolutionary or democratic.

[Helgoland]

Well, if you say so. Honestly I don't care about being excluded from a club where membership apparently literally means nothing.

Also that's all kind of irrelevant to my point? People have specific policies in mind behind the vague political labels they're using, and that's more important than the goddamn ordering of Social Democracy and Democratic Socialism. In a discussion like this one it is madness to rely upon unarticulated ideology.

Yeah, it is madness - and the remedy is to articulate those ideology by defining your semantics. If you banish semantics, all you're left with is syntax. And that means you're reduced to just pushing around words.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

And semantics isn't just pushing around words? Look, any affiliation is going to be filled to the brim with people who twist it in crazy directions and interpretations, so it's pointless to discuss affiliation labels as a consistent thing in politics with one definition to rule them all. It's as pointless to make a basis in historical precedent as it is anything else, because anybody who set a label or invented a word is doing the same goddamn thing!

The only thing that produces discussion that matters is policy specificity that is materially grounded. This discussion? Is pointless. We could literally argue until we all die as to if the SDP are Real Socialism or if only ex-Stasi officers who got kicked out of Die Linke for being too continuous revolutionary fervor are allowed to be Real Socialism, and never discuss anything of consequence the entire time.

Just stop! Get off the Ferris Wheel of Ideology! Go ride something else!

[WealthyRadish]

But what about national socialists?

[Helgoland]

Nonononono, that's precisely the difference between syntax and semantics: The former is the set of rules governing the symbols themselves, the latter is the assignment of meaning to these symbols. To be able to communicate at all you need to work out your semantics, because a lot of the time the structure of your thoughts is shaped by the way you choose your central concepts.

Regarding the importance of using terminology that agrees with common and historic use, as far as that is possible: While I have a high degree of confidence in the brilliance of Bay12's minds, I do think that it would behoove us to consider what folks have come up with elsewhere and in earlier times. Redefining words without good reason introduces great obstacles here. In particular any discussion about leftist issues should at the very least be compatible with Marxist terms, simply because of his great influence on almost all thinkers that followed.

Ninjaedit: Oh come on, let's not open that barrel of rotten, partially disintegrated fish...

[scriver]

Helgoland, you are the one who's literally trying to redefine socialism out of social democratism while not even removing the word from the term. That is some grade A history revision right there.