Five Reasons Social Democracy Fails

The Social Democrats are rising in the polls and recently had their AGM. At the meeting Holly Cairns admitted that they’d “talk to everyone” after the next election. Get a few crumbs from Fianna Fáil Fine Gael and in return leave them in control of the country.

They want to follow the well worn path of the Labour Party, it was a dead end in the past and it’ll be a dead end in the future. Maybe it’s time to remind our readers just why social democracy fails to understand the nature of capitalism and will always end up turning on the working class.

ONE: They’re trying to resusitate the past.

You see there was a short period of about 2 decades after the Second World War where capitalism was booming and the bosses didn’t mind conceding a welfare state to keep workers quiet.

In countries like Sweden they build a million houses, in Britain Tories, Liberals and Labour united to set up the NHS. Profit rates were high and social peace was bought with these reforms.

But in 1973 the whole thing collapsed. Profit rates had fallen and the capitalists looked around for a new way of doing things which they found in Thatcherism, now called neoliberalism. They went on the attack, privatising and outsourcing, destroying public services.

Most of the policies of social democratic parties are based on daydreams of the post war boom. But you can’t expect to deliver those kind of reforms in the context of neoliberalism. To get a post war boom you’d need another massive war to devalue capital and labour and get profit rates up again.

We have to fight the system tooth and nail for every crumb these days.

TWO: They think they can get things done in coalition with the establishment.

Labour came out of the massive strike waves of the 1960s promising that the 1970s would be socialist. By 1973 they were in power with Fine Gael and hammering workers. The demoralisation this produced led to Fianna Fáil returning to power in 1977 with a massive vote.

Labour in cabinet was a way to disarm a militant working class. If the strike wave had continued workers would have won gains and could have forced any government to concede to workers’ demands.

The argument that cabinet is where you get things done always leads to social democracy demoralising the working class to get a taste of power. From Syriza in Greece to Labour TD Joan Burton attacking lone parents. It happens every time.

THREE: The state is not neutral

Social democrats argue the state is neutral and that joining a government is how you get things done. But even a government of the left would still be in coalition with the establishment because the establishment control the state bureaucracy.

When a government is formed the parties forming it have to go negotiate a programme for government with unelected civil servants. These act as gatekeepers for the rich and dictate what is acceptable or unacceptable for the system.

The unelected civil servants are backed up by judges, courts and a constitution that’s written to negate any real prospect of change. If all else fails the establlishment can call on the Guards or the unelected army generals to back them up.

Not that any social democrat would ever push things that far. Labour Parties all over the world become neoliberals the minute they get into power and just do what they’re told to do.

We have to challenge the power of the state with our own counter power. That means pushing for mass protests and strikes and uniting workers to coordinate action in mass assemblies that offer the possibility of a new grassroots democracy.

Any other path is just offering yourself as a mask for the establishment to kill off any prospect of change.

FOUR: The rich still run the economy even when you join a cabinet

There are serious limitations to what anyone can do from within a capitalist government, even with the best intentions. But the rich just don’t have the state bureaucracy to defend their interests, they can defend themselves using their control over the economy.

Any billionaire can threaten to sack workers or destablise the economy if you don’t play ball. Greedy financial parasites will gamble with government debt or threatend a run on your banks.

If you accept the parameters laid down by capitalism you’ve no choice but the play ball. If you are willing to tear up the consitution, challenge the state and nationalise all the big capitalist players then they lose their power.

They’d try to isolate you so you’d call for workers everywhere to follow your example. That’s the only path that can actually offer change. It’s that or surrender before you’ve even begun. That’s why social democrats always give up.

FIVE: Workers are still commodities under any social democratic government

Under capitalism workers are commodities on the labour market. We’re treated as a disposable source of profit for the bosses. The day after the election of a social democratic government nothing would change.

The only way to truly empower our class is to let people have a voice. By putting workers in the driving seat of a socialist, planned economy, we are empowered to decide out own fate and not let a cabinet, tied to capitalism, decide for us.

Handing power over to professional politicians demoralises workers time and time again. Revolutionaries are the only realists. We understand that the system cannot be tamed, it has to be replaced. We understand that the lure of cabinet is a trap.

We understand the postwar boom cannot be summoned up by the daydreams of social democratic politicians. Social democracy contains working class anger, it doesnt focus it. We need another path. Join the realists. Join the Reds.