178.41.129.82

You appear to be edit-warring to insert text opposed by multiple editors. Please desist. If you want to discuss the wording, please do so in order to gain consensus. --Pete (talk) 05:13, 10 November 2019 (UTC)

Social democracy

Thanks for leaving a message to my talk page. I'm sure @The Four Deuces: didn't merely mean parties describing themselves as socialists and have actual, reliable sources. I don't know where you come from, but just here in Europe most centre-left parties come from the socialist tradition, albeit reformist. Just because most social democratic parties adopted the Third Way, it doesn't mean social democracy itself did it too. Jeremy Corbyn and Bernie Sanders are actual, committed social democrats; they simply reperesent the pre-1970s, or anti-Third Way, trend. You seem to reduce social democracy merely to the Third Way, when in reality social democracy is a branch of socialism and democratic socialism itself is a strand of both social democracy and socialism. You also don't seem to distinguigh socialism as an ideology and socialism as an economic system. Both social democracy and "Communist" systems are socialist ideologies, yet neither are or represent a socialist economic system.--Davide King (talk) 23:59, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

I am an European myself, Davide, and I can tell you that no European social democratic party is advocating socialism (The definition of socialism is clearly and definitively listed on the Oxford English Dictionary, and your alleged distinction between ideology and economic policy is non-existent. The core doctrine of virtually every school of socialism is the replacement of capitalism by a egalitarian, proletarian, socially just, and democratic system, whether its traditional Marxism-Leninism or the decentralized grassroots model of anarcho-communists and democratic socialists), seizure of the means of production, or an proletarian revolution. Social democracy's history is already sufficiently clarified in the following segment:

"Social democracy originated as a political ideology that advocated an evolutionary and peaceful transition from capitalism to socialism using established political processes in contrast to the revolutionary approach to transition associated with orthodox Marxism.[6] In the early post-war era in Western Europe, social democratic parties rejected the Stalinist political and economic model then current in the Soviet Union, committing themselves either to an alternative path to socialism or to a compromise between capitalism and socialism.[7] In this period, social democrats embraced a mixed economy based on the predominance of private property, with only a minority of essential utilities and public services under public ownership.

As a result, social democracy became associated with Keynesian economics, state interventionism and the welfare state while abandoning the prior goal of replacing the capitalist system (factor markets, private property and wage labour)[4] with a qualitatively different socialist economic system.[8][9][10] With the rise of popularity for neoliberalism and the New Right by the 1980s,[11] many social democratic parties incorporated the Third Way ideology,[12] aiming to fuse liberal economics with social democratic welfare policies.[13][14] By the 2010s, the Third Way had generally fallen out of favour in a phenomenon known as PASOKification.[15]"

And you seem to have a fundamental misunderstanding of what the Third Way actually is (Essentially centrist social and economic liberalism and masquerading as social democracy), because its clearly described here:

"The Third Way is a position akin to centrism that tries to reconcile right-wing and left-wing politics by advocating a varying synthesis of centre-right and centrist economic platforms with some centre-left social policies.[1][2] The Third Way was created as a re-evaluation of political policies within various centre-left progressive movements in response to doubt regarding the economic viability of the state and the overuse of economic interventionist policies that had previously been popularised by Keynesianism, but which at that time contrasted with the rise of popularity for neoliberalism and the New Right starting in the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s.[3] The Third Way is promoted by social liberals[4] and some social democratic parties.[5]"

It clearly describes its skepticism of Keynesian policy, acceptance of austerity, and advocacy of centrist triangulation, as seen with New Labour in Britain or the Democratic Party in America. Therefore, using the term Third Way as a umbrella classification for social democratic welfare states or mixed economies is not only erroneous, its also misleading, considering actual Third Way politicians have more often than not attempted to dismantle Keynesian policies and welfare. Likewise, social democrats who are opposed to austerity measures but do not advocate elimination of capitalism are not socialists, no matter what way you look at it.

PS: Here is a relevant article to read in case you want to learn why exactly social democracy is not democratic socialism:

https://jacobinmag.com/2018/08/democratic-socialism-social-democracy-nordic-countries

178.41.129.82 (talk) 01:46, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

Thank you for your reply and collaboration. First of all, Wikipedia isn't a dictionary, otherwhise we would describe both socialism and communism as state ownership of the means of production. A dictionary is a very reductive way to describe something like this on Wikipedia, hence why we have Wikipedia and Wikitionary for that. Second of all, socialism is both and economic system, unlike capitalism which is an economic system. I don't dispute what you say; neither social democracy or socialist states actually fits the socialist definition as an economic system and both are considered capitalist; yet both are also considered socialists as an ideology. I actually agree with you and I made my edits specifically because the Third Way was confused for social democracy. Social democracy is parliamentary, reformist socialism. Third Way "social democracy" is neither socialism nor social democracy. Just because many social democratic parties started following the Third Way, it doesn't mean social democracy did too. It's only the Third Way and these Third Way "social democrats" that fully endorsed capitalism and renounced or rejected socialism. As stated in the relaitive section, "Capitalism was acceptable to social democrats only if capitalism's typical crises could be prevented and if mass unemployment could be averted, therefore Keynesianism was believed to be able to provide this. Social democrats came to accept the market for reasons of efficiency and endorsed Keynesianism as that was expected to reconcile democracy and capitalism" and that "social democracy historically supported Keynesianism as part of a "social democratic compromise" between capitalism and socialism. This compromise created welfare states and Harrington contends that although this compromise did not allow for the immediate creation of socialism, it "recognized noncapitalist, and even anticapitalist, principles of human need over and above the imperatives of profit". This is different from the Third Way endorsing capitalism, although "Supporters of Third Way ideals argue that they merely represent a necessary or pragmatic adaptation of social democracy to the realities of the modern world, noting that traditional social democracy thrived during the prevailing international climate of the post-war Bretton Woods consensus which collapsed in the 1970s"; and that "Third Way social democrats adjusted to the political climate since the 1980s that favoured capitalism by recognising that outspoken opposition to capitalism in these circumstances was politically nonviable and that accepting capitalism as the current powers that be and seeking to administer it to challenge laissez-faire capitalists was a more pressing immediate concern".

The bottom line is that even if you and I agree that only the economic definition of socialism counts, many sources disagree with this and we have to respect it as that's how Wikipedia works (reliable sources). See the Historical Dictionary of Socialism and Politics: The Basics (4th ed.), p. 96. Besides, there's also already "Some critics claim that social democracy abandoned socialism in the 1930s by endorsing Keynesian welfare capitalism" in the criticism section. So even if I agree that the so-called Third Way should be more properly called or referred to as neo-social liberalism (i.e. social liberalism adopting neoliberal policies), we can't reduce social democracy to it. Even your articles merely distinguish democratic socialism from social democracy, hence why we have two separate articles. The point is that social democrats like Clement Attlee and Olaf Palme were democratic socialists (indeed, the term itself was first used by social democrats to distinguish their democratic socialism from that of the Soviet Union); and people like Jeremy Corbyn and Bernie Sanders are closer to them and are basically social democrats (as we have already seen, a social democrat isn't like a Third Wayers that fully endorse capitalism and reject socialism), yet they call themselves democratic socialists due to social democracy being associated to the Third Way, just like many revolutionary social democrats called themeslves communists because social democracy was associated with its support for the national government during World War I. You also seem to ignore the many "revisionists", or Mensheviks, that were socialists but argued that capitalism itself would lead to socialism.

Anyway, I have left your wording improvements, but I have removed your division of paragraphs (I did that in the past and it wasn't helpful). First of all, the lead looks too long that way; second of all, they're still talking about the same argument, it isn't done yet and so it should be moved like you did; third, this caused a dispersion of sources as some were related to the paragraphs you have moved (they paragraphs were united in the first places because the sources supported these paragraphs, hence why they weren't separated. Finally, I have removed your removal of [ ] in quotes; they're used when the quote doesn't reflect the correct grammars in the way the quote has been put in the text. They're also used to clary the quote itself. For instance, "The method of this great philosopher Kant can serve as a pointer to the satisfying solution to our problem" doesn't actual have "Kant" in the quote, hence why it was put as [Kant] to clarify who this great philosopher was. Also, the period shouldn't be used in the tagline because it isn't a full paragraph. So please, don't revert my edit, let's keep the page as it is now and let's discuss it here or in the talk page first.

Thank you.--Davide King (talk) 02:02, 17 November 2019 (UTC)

Are you kidding me? I should have warned you for "Unconstructive editing at Social democracy." You have already been warned and I see other of your edits have been reverted too. Maybe you should ask yourself why? I thought we were fine. I added your corrected wording, but I explained you why the paragraphs were structured like that and they were before your edits. Also, what did you even mean that "[my] revisions continually add incorrect information to the article"? What incorrect information? The only difference is moving paragraphs. You also need to realise that "Socialist, democratic socialist social democrat, are usually interchangeable terms, although some writers distinguish between the three". So if you want to improve wording or add information, you're free to do so; just don't move paragraphs or make other comsetic edits. This was the version prior to your edits. Only your better wording should be added.--Davide King (talk) 09:13, 17 November 2019 (UTC)

Registered

For anyone following the edit history, this dynamic IP is now editing as Symes2017 (talk · contribs). Please view that user's talk page for centralized discussion. czar 19:31, 24 November 2019 (UTC)

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