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Having lived in a social democracy, I can tell you that it is not what most people think, including experts who promote their own vision of social democracies. Social democracies have a capitalist economy and no intentions of ever moving towards a socialist economy. The simple reason is that people enjoy ownership, and are not ever going to give it up with out a fight. This means ownership of home, of businesses and ownership of the frivolous things that make us happy. In social democracies the government is involved in distributing and maintaining the things for the common good. This includes roads, bridges, mass transportation, pensions, eldercare, health care etc. There are also examples where these services are provided by the private sector in these social democracies with no threat of a government takeover. The laws and regulations are for the general good such as consumer protections, property transfers and so on -though I found some of these to be bureaucratic nightmares. The one thing you don't find is abject poverty and homelessness. There is a middle class with all its gradations, the upper class and a lower class.

The term democratic socialist, as it is defined in wikipedia, is one who wants to shift to a pure socialist form of government. In Europe these people are just called socialist and belong to the socialist party. Like the communist, they rarely get any traction yet they exist and that doesn't seem to bother anybody.

In America there is some confusion in the general public about the distinctions - social democrat v. democratic socialist. But before I would worry about that, the public, in general, needs to be properly educated about the distinction between communism and socialism. It seems that after 70 years we still have a Joe McCarthy hangover, and anything that has the word "socialism" associated with it starts a fire.

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What is the difference between a Democratic Socialist and a Social Democrat?

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Answer (1 of 13): I think there are important distinctions. From wikipedia... > "Social democracy is a political ideology that supports economic and social interventions to promote social justice within the framework of a capitalist economy, and a policy regime involving collective bargaining ...

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Social democracy , political ideology that originally advocated a peaceful evolutionary transition of society from capitalism to using established political processes. In the second half of the 20th century, there emerged a more moderate version of the doctrine, which generally espoused state regulation, rather than state ownership, of the means of production and extensive social welfare programs . Based on 19th-century socialism and the tenets of and Friedrich Engels , social democracy shares common ideological roots with but eschews its militancy and totalitarianism . Social democracy was originally known as revisionism because it represented a change in basic doctrine, primarily in the former's repudiation of the use of revolution to establish a socialist society.

The social democratic movement grew out of the efforts of August Bebel , who with Wilhelm Liebknecht cofounded the Social Democratic Workers' Party in 1869 and then effected the merger of their party with the General German Workers' Union in 1875 to form what came to be called the Social Democratic Party of Germany (Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands). Bebel imbued social democracy with the belief that socialism must be installed through lawful means rather than by force. After the election of two Social Democrats to the Reichstag in 1871, the party grew in political strength until in 1912 it became the largest single party in voting strength, with 110 out of 397 seats in the Reichstag. The success of the Social Democratic Party in Germany encouraged the spread of social democracy to other countries in Europe.

The growth of German social democracy owed much to the influence of the German political theorist Eduard Bernstein . In his Die Voraussetzungen des Sozialismus und die Aufgaben der Sozialdemokratie (1899; "The Preconditions of Socialism and the Tasks of Social Democracy"; Eng. trans. Evolutionary Socialism ), Bernstein challenged the Marxist orthodoxy that capitalism was doomed, pointing out that capitalism was overcoming many of its weaknesses, such as unemployment , overproduction, and the inequitable distribution of wealth. Ownership of industry was becoming more widely diffused, rather than more concentrated in the hands of a few. Whereas Marx had declared that the subjugation of the working would inevitably culminate in socialist revolution, Bernstein argued that success for socialism depended not on the continued and intensifying misery of the working class but rather on eliminating that misery. He further noted that social conditions were improving and that with universal suffrage the working class could establish socialism by electing socialist representatives. The violence of the Russian Revolution of 1917 and its aftermath precipitated the final schism between the social democratic parties and the communist parties.

After World War II , social democratic parties came to power in several nations of western Europe-e.g., West Germany , Sweden, and Great Britain (in the Labour Party )-and laid the foundations for modern European social welfare programs. With its ascendancy, social democracy changed gradually, most notably in West Germany. These changes generally reflected a moderation of the 19th-century socialist doctrine of wholesale nationalization of business and industry. Although the principles of the various social democratic parties began to diverge somewhat, certain common fundamental principles emerged. In addition to abandoning violence and revolution as tools of social change , social democracy took a stand in opposition to totalitarianism. The Marxist view of as a "bourgeois" facade for class rule was abandoned, and democracy was proclaimed essential for socialist ideals. Increasingly, social democracy adopted the goal of state regulation of business and industry as sufficient to further economic growth and equitable income.

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Social democracy , political ideology that originally advocated a peaceful evolutionary transition of society from capitalism to using established political processes. In the second half of the 20th century, there emerged a more moderate version of the doctrine, which generally espoused state regulation, rather than state ownership, of the means of production and extensive social welfare programs .

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Background to Marxism and revolutionary socialism

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Lib 4 - mod and classical intro, freedom and state

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Model answer - implications of organic society