There were several democratic socialist parties. Sure, some were social democrats but many were more classical social democrats (i.e. they want to transition to socialism) and others had explicit marxism in their party constitutions (like the SDP). These parties were socialist and America pretty much dominated western Europe and Australia/NZ. Why weren't those parties couped or replaced like in other countries?
I'll post what I have found thus far after work today.
I'm going on a radio show soon to talk labor history and I want to have some good resources for myself and the people!
It had the proper conditions for one such as a large, disgruntled working class and a capitalist economy that could care less for the well being of the working class. Why did the Socialist movement fail where in Western Europe it became a viable force in several countries?
“The sabotage controversy, therefore, demarcated a real turning point in the history of both the socialist and labor movements. The actual political content of the dispute remains elusive. Historians have tended to agree that "sabotage" was an indelible mark of I.W.W. infatuation with European syndicalism. Philip Foner, an "old left" historian whose volume on the I.W.W. remains the most carefully crafted account of the Wobblies' "heroic period", is firmly convinced that sabotage is the "one doctrine which the I.W.W. borrowed directly from the French syndicalists."[28] Melvyn Dubofsky also traces its Parisian origin and argues that it acquired a special appeal for American workers enmired in what he calls (apropos Oscar Lewis) "the culture of poverty".[29] Even Fred Thompson, the crusty "house historian" of the I.W.W., discounts the application of sabotage in Wobbly struggles, arguing instead that it was only an exotic oratorical device employed on skid-row or Union Square soapboxes:
Soapboxers found that talk of sabotage gave their audiences a thrill, and since the dispensers of the above publications (the Cleveland I.W.W. Publishing Bureau) were happy to send them for sale on commission to all who would handle them, there was nothing to stop spielers, whether they were I.W.W. members or not, from procuring these booklets, mounting a box, talking about the I.W.W., taking up a collection, and selling the literature.[30]
The problem with the traditional explanation of I.W.W. advocacy of sabotage is that it does not explain why the sabotage debate split the Socialist Party or why the Wobblies persisted in making sabotage a central slogan in the period from the end of the McKees Rocks strike through the auto walkouts in 1913. ("Sabotage" made its first published appearance in a 1910 article in the INDUSTRIAL WORKER and appeared with increasing frequency until it became the theme of a serialized weekly discussion.) Unless the I.W.W. spokesmen are dismissed as irresponsible and flippant rabble rousers, it remains to be shown why this organization, temporarily inserted into the leadership of a massive upheaval of unorganized workers, gave such priority to its "flirtation" with a foreign-made notion which it supposedly never implemented on any serious scale.
Much of the confusion about what the Wobblies really meant by "sabotage" stems from the fact that revolutionaries, especially in the pre-Leninist period, were forced to borrow old concepts or to employ only
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Often times, people believe as though the way or the only way to establish socialism is by banning private ownership of firms. This would be the only way for the economy to remain entirely socialist, as otherwise the state firms were to be outcompeted by private firms. I strongly disagree on this statement, and instead do believe that state firms can not just be competitive, but will also outcompete private firms in the long run when properly organised, and do so through fair competition, even.
I will start off with the way a private firm functions and operates. A private firm is an organisation that produces goods and services for a (group of) private owner(s), who subsequently sell these goods and services on a market in exchange for money. The revenue stream of a firm can be divided into three parts: constant capital (c), variable capital (v) and surplus value (s). C is the money that pays for the means of production (capital goods: fluid capital + depreciation of fixed capital) of the firm. V is the money that pays for the labor power (workers: wages) of the firm. S is the money that enters the pockets of the business owner(s) as his income. When we look at S, the capitalist does two things with it: a portion of it gets reinvested into the firm (such as to expand production by buying more MoP and labor power) and another portion goes towards the personal expenses of the business owner(s) (consumer goods, including yaughts and cars). The way a private firm is structured, is that the managers of the firm are elected by the owner(s) of the firm, who then run the firm in the way the owner(s) wants it to be run, which is usually to maximize profit.
Now lets look at how socialist state firms differ. What I mean by "socialist state firm", is that these arent your typical state firms in capitalist economies where they run to provide public goods and rely entirely on funding from the government. The specific structure of the state firm is instead based around being commercially oriented and that they are meant to compete in the market with private providers of goods and services. As such, said form of state firm is very alike a private firm: it derives its revenue (almost) purely from the sale of the goods and services it produces, which revenue can be split in c, v, and s as well. This firm is also driven by the profit incentive. The only difference -and this is key- is that these state firms employ workplace democracy. This involves taking the sam
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Let me know if this is too broad or has been asked/answered in a better way in another thread. I didn't know exactly how to word the title. For reference, I do support a lot of socialist ideas already but I guess I'm just having a hard time actually picturing what labor and commerce would look like.
So as an example, under capitalism: Let's say I am a person who loves baking bread and want to share my bread with the community. I notice that there are not really any local bakeries, and I have the capital to start one. I pay money to buy a commercial plot of land & a business name, buy all the equipment/materials, and hire employees. We bake bread, and exchange our goods for money. The profits are then divided up as I see fit since I am the owner.
Obviously, some of this process can be altered to be more fair to the workers. Like I could transparently divide up the profits between employees. But that is just a more fair version of capitalism. The workers still don't own the means of production, I am still operating a privately owned business, and money is still used as the primary method of making transactions.
So I guess I'm wondering, what would a parallel situation look like in a socialist setting? Starting with the same exact premise, I am a person who loves baking bread, and I have a desire to bake my bread for my community - what are the next steps that get me there?
I recognize this might be a bit too open-ended but for the sake of conversation, I would say just stick to a roadmap of an ideal "successful" scenario like I did with the capitalism example.
My teacher said this once.
I feel that similar concepts to Social Democracy like the New Deal also came about to diminish fascism - People don't turn to alternative governments unless they're disillusioned with theirs.
So the answer is to make a pretty expansive but decent government that diminishes economic inequality and problems.
So I've seem many posts and comments that say successful inventions should be nationalised for the benefit of the common folk.
Yeah that's fine but aren't we supposed to let inventors enjoy complete fruits of labor.
Shouldn't they be democratically deciding what to do with their products, how to market them, whom to sell it to, what to do with the revenue?
So why does the state or public get to interfere with that?
Doesn't the invention belong to the inventors?
Why is the state or public acting like the 'owner' of the invention? Aren't the workers who actually work on the product the owners?
Is it because it's useful for the common public? So the state has absolute right to do whatever it wants to for the good of public?
Please tell me if you have another perspective about this.
Thank you
