I'm not criticising big pharma (certainly not in their role in getting the vaccines rolled out). Just pointing out that the costs of basic research are rarely (if ever) borne by the private companies - these costs are very high, and the chances of no return (in the form of a product that can be sold) also high. That sort of research where returns are only of the form of intellectual knowledge doesn't lend itself well to private business funding - there are likely to be products, but at an unknown time in the future, and potentially it will be a competitor who gets the product.
Case in point: synthetic mRNA technology. The whole thing is worth the read, but the tl;dr version is that the technology behind the some of the current vaccines (Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna) required about two decades of publicly funded research at various universities before a commercial entity had any interest in them. This seems like a massive government subsidy for "private" enterprise.
I'm with you Alan and AFZ but I thought the big pharma companies always 'justified' their large profits by citing high development costs of their products along with high risk of dead-end product research. Have they been misleading us?
This isn't "modern socialism" - it's an emergency effort, like a war. Fascist countries could have done similar things - and did, in WWII.
In other words, the kind of highly centralized command economy free market fundamentalists have always argued is inherently less efficient than unfettered capitalism.
The role of the pharmaceutical companies is in mass production. That's the bit that fascists countries do well...
So what what your point?
That you're completely handwaving away the importance of the role of the pharmaceutical companies in mass production when you claim that we've just seen "modern socialism" in action.
This isn't "modern socialism" - it's an emergency effort, like a war. Fascist countries could have done similar things - and did, in WWII.
In other words, the kind of highly centralized command economy free market fundamentalists have always argued is inherently less efficient than unfettered capitalism.
Are you seriously suggesting that countries should run their entire economies along the lines of Operation Warp Speed? Is that really your model of modern democratic socialism?
Because to me it looks like government buying a lot of stuff from private companies. You might as well trumpet the Department of Defense budget as a triumph of modern socialism.
And as for efficiency - this has been a public health emergency. I don't really care that much about efficiency. I'm all for the government paying people more to get work done quickly, but I don't think it says much about "democratic socialism" one way or the other.
Dave W: Because to me it looks like government buying a lot of stuff from private companies. You might as well trumpet the Department of Defense budget as a triumph of modern socialism.
Dave, I think you raise a more instructive question than you realise. C Wright Mills raised the question of the military-industrial complex in the 1950s, and Eisenhower warned against its influence shortly after he retired from the presidency. While it is not an example of socialism, it identifies an industry entirely dependent on tax dollars- a huge welfare state for the benefit of the corporations and its dependents.
The point is that it's not an example of socialism, democratic or otherwise. Just because a government is buying goods and services doesn't make it socialism, whether the spending is for a good reason or a bad one.
Dave W Just because a government is buying goods and services doesn't make it socialism, whether the spending is for a good reason or a bad one.
I entirely agree. I think, however, I would want to point out that when the state becomes such an important purchaser of major industrial and service production that its decisions have decisive economic and social consequences. I find exploring and understanding that relationship rather more interesting than much of the discussion in this thread that seems to me rather old-fashioned. How does socialism and capitalism explain Britain's possession of an aircraft carrier without aeroplanes, and so on?
People on the left used to talk about state capitalism, often used to refer to the Soviet Union, but it can refer to large state industries and services, well, they've mostly been privatized.
The role of the pharmaceutical companies is in mass production. That's the bit that fascists countries do well...
So what what your point?
That you're completely handwaving away the importance of the role of the pharmaceutical companies in mass production when you claim that we've just seen "modern socialism" in action.
This isn't "modern socialism" - it's an emergency effort, like a war. Fascist countries could have done similar things - and did, in WWII.
In other words, the kind of highly centralized command economy free market fundamentalists have always argued is inherently less efficient than unfettered capitalism.
Are you seriously suggesting that countries should run their entire economies along the lines of Operation Warp Speed? Is that really your model of modern democratic socialism?
Because to me it looks like government buying a lot of stuff from private companies. You might as well trumpet the Department of Defense budget as a triumph of modern socialism.
You what??
Yes it is the government buying stuff from private companies and the drug companies are essentially providing the vaccines at cost price.
But that just quietly edits out all that leads up to this point.
As @Crœsos pointed out, the technology behind the RNA vaccines was developed in the public sector. I described the development process for the Oxford vaccine.
Even at this point, the drug companies aren't paying for this technology.
What this story shows is how important publically funded scientific research is. Especially as 'the market' would not and has not funded the key work that made it all possible.
Which part of the basic research that occurred over the past 2 decades is not 'normal circumstances'?
Are you suggesting that the UK of the past two decades is the sort of democratic socialist state you’re advocating?
I would have thought it fairly obvious that AFZ is saying there are aspects of the UK's mixed economy that are socialist that provide an exemplar of what that approach can achieve.
Which part of the basic research that occurred over the past 2 decades is not 'normal circumstances'?
Are you suggesting that the UK of the past two decades is the sort of democratic socialist state you’re advocating?
I would have thought it fairly obvious that AFZ is saying there are aspects of the UK's mixed economy that are socialist that provide an exemplar of what that approach can achieve.
Yes it is the government buying stuff from private companies and the drug companies are essentially providing the vaccines at cost price.
But that just quietly edits out all that leads up to this point.
Is this generally true? I'd heard that AstraZeneca is doing this but I half-heard an item on R4's Today this morning where someone seemed to be implying that AZ's critics may be motivated by AZ putting aside the profit motive and charging low prices, while eg Pfizer, Moderna et al. are charging top whack for their vaccines, are likely to make a pile from their sales and don't like another company undercutting their lucrative sales.
Have I got this right AFZ and does this seem likely to you?
AZ have committed to charging low and middle income countries the cost price for their vaccine - I don't know if other vaccine producers are doing the same or not (I suspect they probably are). But, prices charged to richer nations are higher, and the companies will therefore be making profits here. Part of the stink about supplies of the AZ vaccine to the EU is that the UK is paying almost twice the price as the EU and the EU claim is that the UK is getting the lion share of the AZ vaccine because it's following the money (the data suggest this isn't happening - AZ have met about 20% of the contract with the UK, and slightly less than 20% of the contract with the EU - the difference almost entirely accounted for by the stocks sent to the UK in the period between UK approval and EMA approval; ie: AZ are failing all their contracts to the same degree without partiality towards those paying more).
The short answer is that I need to have a look. In general, vaccines are not big earners for drug companies because you only ever take one or two doses.
What drug companies really like is chronic diseases that require daily treatment for life.
In the context of a pandemic, of course, the maths changes as the number of doses demanded is huge in a very short space of time but once everyone is vaccinated, the demand will plummet.
I need to do a little maths here... and a little research...
The role of the pharmaceutical companies is in mass production. That's the bit that fascists countries do well...
So what what your point?
That you're completely handwaving away the importance of the role of the pharmaceutical companies in mass production when you claim that we've just seen "modern socialism" in action.
This isn't "modern socialism" - it's an emergency effort, like a war. Fascist countries could have done similar things - and did, in WWII.
In other words, the kind of highly centralized command economy free market fundamentalists have always argued is inherently less efficient than unfettered capitalism.
Are you seriously suggesting that countries should run their entire economies along the lines of Operation Warp Speed? Is that really your model of modern democratic socialism?
Because to me it looks like government buying a lot of stuff from private companies. You might as well trumpet the Department of Defense budget as a triumph of modern socialism.
You what??
Yes it is the government buying stuff from private companies and the drug companies are essentially providing the vaccines at cost price.
But that just quietly edits out all that leads up to this point.
As @Crœsos pointed out, the technology behind the RNA vaccines was developed in the public sector. I described the development process for the Oxford vaccine.
Even at this point, the drug companies aren't paying for this technology.
What this story shows is how important publically funded scientific research is. Especially as 'the market' would not and has not funded the key work that made it all possible.
The market would never have got us here.
And you think I'm handwaving?
AFZ
Yes, I think you're handwaving by discounting the importance of the pharma companies in the existing capitalist system and claiming vaccine development as a success for "modern socialism" or "democratic socialism."
I am not claiming that a pure, laissez-faire market system would have produced today's outcome, any more than I think the market would provide for (e.g.) national defense. I recognize the value of government-funded basic research, and of having the government buy lots of goods and services from private companies, particularly during this emergency. But these positions are uncontroversial among mainstream, non-socialist economists.
You can't just point to some example of the government spending money and say "See? This is why we need democratic/modern socialism!" and expect to get agreement from anyone who isn't already on board your socialist train, because it's not obvious how that translates into the need for a system of public ownership of the means of production.
(BTW, I'd be pretty surprised to hear that big pharma companies have forsworn profits in the production of these vaccines. How did they explain this to their shareholders?)
Orfeo:. This conversation is doomed simply because there is absolutely no guarantee that people look at the same term and understand the same thing by it.
I couldn't agree more. Socialism, for example, has so many varied meanings that it is impossible to understand what core or common elements constitute its sine qua non, not to mention the speed with which socialists rush to deny its most comprehensive manifestation in the Soviet Union. Respecting capitalism, there are those who regard it primarily as relating to economic structures, whilst other see it as an entire social construct encompassing politics and culture. It's no wonder that Soviet Communism came to be described by many as State Capitalism.
Moreover I have not argued that the success of the publically-funded research means there should be a system of 'public ownership of the means of production.' For one thing I don't even know what that phrase means in the modern world. 'Means of production' is much harder to pin down in the post-industrial economy.
I agree with you about what is uncontroversial among mainstream economists.
But then the most recent Labour Party manifesto was mainstream macro.
Orfeo:. This conversation is doomed simply because there is absolutely no guarantee that people look at the same term and understand the same thing by it.
I couldn't agree more. Socialism, for example, has so many varied meanings that it is impossible to understand what core or common elements constitute its sine qua non, not to mention the speed with which socialists rush to deny its most comprehensive manifestation in the Soviet Union. Respecting capitalism, there are those who regard it primarily as relating to economic structures, whilst other see it as an entire social construct encompassing politics and culture. It's no wonder that Soviet Communism came to be described by many as State Capitalism.
This suggests that you have read none of this thread (and I know you have) where these issues have been thrashed out in great detail. Why do people find it so hard to understand that Socialism does not mean Communism?
Given that I wrote this long post explaining that most, if not all of us, who advocate Democratic Socialism aren't remotely advocating a planned economy, you seem to be claiming I believe and am advocating things I don't and haven't.
<snip>
It's quite fashionable to disparage economics by saying that it's not a 'real science' - as if that statement makes the whole discipline pointless. Of course it's not a natural science like physics and it faces some specific vulnerabilities to bias and political influences but for me, the most remarkable thing about economics is how often mathematics does describe the real world of the aggregate effects of billions of individual choices and actions.
There are some key lessons in all this that often get lost in the noise.
1. The 'market' is simply the aggregate of supply and demand equilibria.
2. It is not a zero sum game.
3. As with chemical equilibria; change the conditions, change the equilibria.
4. There are LOTS of ways to change the conditions.
Ok, so 'Communism' is synonymous with a 'planned economy.' That's probably fair. One of the basic lessons of economics is that a supply/demand equilibrium is generally the most efficient way to distribute resources hence the argument that a planned economy impoverishes everyone. That's broadly true.
Neoliberalism says that any action on the economy other than allowing equilibria to form is a planned economy and thus inefficient and thus impoverishes us all. Neither of those arguments are remotely true. You can demonstrate that empirically in lots of ways. You can also show it by multidinous thought experiments. I'll give you the ones that matters most to me but first a bit of jargon. I am of course, talking about things like 'Monopoly formation' or 'Rent-Seeking.' Happy to discuss both further but both are inevitable in the kind of market-structure Neoliberalism demands and both reduce efficiency of resource allocation. You can show this very easily, both theoretically and empirically. Happy to come back to that in another post.
Asymmetry of information and Supply-induced demand
I want to talk about these two because they are a large part of why free-markets in healthcare make everyone sick. Exhibit A is the third world and Exhibit B is the USA.
So firstly, how does supply and demand work? Well this is obvious: if I am selling something, the greater the demand, the higher price I can charge and vice versa. Similarly if what I sell is widely available, my potential customers will go down the road to my competitor where it's cheaper, forcing me to lower my prices. But if supply is limited and my competitor can't get any to sell then all the customers come to me and prices go up. I think I am correct in saying that 'price-stickiness' is the technical term for how easily prices can change and thus how quickly the equilibrium can be reached.
But there are a number of things that distort this process, these are but two examples. Asymmetry of information is key in healthcare; I know whether this operation or that drug is likely to be most effective for you. You possibly don't. What if I am paid more for doing the operation? Might that shape the information I give you? Similarly the drug company might bombard you with adverts as to why their drug is better than the surgeon's knife. There is a TON of empirical evidence that these factors drive up costs. A competing surgeon in a nearby hospital isn't much help as you probably cannot easily access the information as to which of us is better and so you pay the price I ask. Sick patients generally do not shop around thus there is inevitable price-stickiness. In chemical terms this is like the energy barrier that prevents a reaction from starting.
Supply-induced demand is interesting as it breaks the equilibrium by both forces moving in the same direction. When a new treatment comes along, it is of course a new supply. But it creates a new demand as you didn't know you wanted/needed it until the supply existed. Remember that if the alternative to treatment if death, most people will pay whatever they can scrape together. If it's a new car, I'll wait until I can afford it.
These are classic market distortions. We choose to either fuel them or mitigate them. It is this choice that is the heart of the debate.
Land ownership is probably the biggest distortion across the world. For the farmer, owning the land may mean financial security. For the tenant farmer who works just as hard as his owner-neighbour, it means much less income and of course a reliable unearned income for the landlord.
The Duke of Westminster was asked for financial advice and reportedly replied "it helps if you have an ancestor who came across with William The Conqueror."
If you don't think the way that wealthy International corporations and individuals using their wealth to give themselves access to power and thus power to bring about legal and tax changes that benefit them at the expense of everyone else over the last four decades is not a form of tyranny, then I don't think you're paying attention. The most explicit form of this is the way big polluters push the cost of their pollution on to everyone else. This is seen in financial terms but often in health effects too. If you don't believe me, research cancer clusters and big coal mining companies as but one example. You get sick, I get rich and because I am powerful and you're not, there is nothing you can do about it.
That is my argument.
AFZ
What's more, you don't need to convince me that the policy positions of democratic socialism are supported by mainstream economics. I've been saying exactly that for well over a decade.
On the Big Pharma providing vaccines at cost, it seems to be some not all. I'm looking for more info.
We may be in danger of fiercely agreeing here. I very much believe in a mixed economy.
Alan Cresswell This suggests that you have read none of this thread (and I know you have) where these issues have been thrashed out in great detail. Why do people find it so hard to understand that Socialism does not mean Communism?
I guess the riposte might be: "Why do others find it so hard to admit that (Soviet) Communism isn't a form of socialism?"
The reason why the Soviet model of socialism is important is that it is the most comprehensive model we have of a socialist state. Its critics fall into two camps (a) those who claim its weaknesses are a necessary consequence of its socialism and would, therefore, emerge as a feature of any socialist state, and (b) those who claim its weakness are a consequence of the soviet model, but not a necessary consequence of any socialist state. In the absence of any functioning alternative model to the Soviet experiment the question as to which approach is correct remains a matter for speculation. IMO, however, the absence of a working alternative leaves the balance of the argument with the sceptics, but others may be of a different opinion.
Sorry, I attributed the above quote to the wrong person, it should have been alienfromzog. Apologies all round.
Hee hee... I doubt Alan is offended. I'm not either.
There are lots of answers to your question but let's start with the practical one:
I am advocating democratic socialism; which means certain specific things. It does not mean a planned economy, it does not mean an authoritarian government. Therefore it is fundamentally different from the example of the Soviet Union. If you want to use soviet communism to critique democratic socialism then you have to either show that these fundamental differences are not there or that one inevitably leads to the other...
alienfromzog: I am advocating democratic socialism; which means certain specific things. It does not mean a planned economy, it does not mean an authoritarian government.
I think we’ve reached the “yes you did” “no I didn’t” limit here. I think it’s fair to say that you assigning a lot less importance to the presence of these companies than I am.
Moreover I have not argued that the success of the publically-funded research means there should be a system of 'public ownership of the means of production.' For one thing I don't even know what that phrase means in the modern world. 'Means of production' is much harder to pin down in the post-industrial economy.
Maybe you should use a different word than “socialism”, because that’s a key part of every description of it that I’ve seen. It’s supposed to be a definite political philosophy, not just a list of things I don’t like about the way things are run.
But putting terminology aside (though it pains me to do so) maybe it would be more productive to ask this: when you consider the vaccine development effort and say you want “more of this,” what is it you want more of, exactly? It’s not clear to me how it usefully informs a policy on nationalizing the railroads (for example) so what do you have in mind?
Happy to be corrected if I've got this all wrong...
For me, the argument in the public sphere remains one with neoliberal commentators (such as the iea) who pop up everywhere to declare that governments should do as little as possible.
My premise is simple:
The market delivers a lot of 'goods' (in the sense of good outcomes for society).
In multiple areas, the market cannot deliver certain 'goods' that are really worth having. In other areas, the market may deliver, but the public sector will do it better. In each of these scenarios, public investment from either taxation or public borrowing or both is desirable.
Examples include:
Health and Welfare where private schemes only serve a minority Natural monopolies where 'marketisation' creates profiteering and reduced services Infrastructure investment
Scientific research
Education
Free markets work best where true competition between suppliers is possible, and where consumers have a true choice about where - and whether - to make their purchases. In cases where none of that is possible social provision is better, because it avoids the exploitation of suppliers being able to charge whatever they like because their consumers don’t have a choice about whether to buy from them or not.
Free markets work best where true competition between suppliers is possible, and where consumers have a true choice about where - and whether - to make their purchases. In cases where none of that is possible social provision is better, because it avoids the exploitation of suppliers being able to charge whatever they like because their consumers don’t have a choice about whether to buy from them or not.
Free markets work best where true competition between suppliers is possible, and where consumers have a true choice about where - and whether - to make their purchases. In cases where none of that is possible social provision is better, because it avoids the exploitation of suppliers being able to charge whatever they like because their consumers don’t have a choice about whether to buy from them or not.
I completely agree.
And, generally health care falls into that category. A doctor will prescribe an appropriate therapy, the patient doesn't get to choose that. Currently most drugs are produced by single companies, and if that's a drug which treats a rare disease then they charge very high prices, claiming that they need to recover development costs (and, it is true that economies of scale kick in for drugs which are produced in larger quantities). Once a company has developed a drug they often exercise an effective monopoly on it - and monopolies are rarely good for anyone except the owner of the monopoly supplier. Even though much of the development was conducted with public funding.
And, generally health care falls into that category.
Health care is the only thing that’s definitely in that category for me.
So, privatize the military? Some kind of loose grouping of mercenaries and warlords selling their services to whoever offers them the best price for the least risk?
Happy to be corrected if I've got this all wrong...
From that article:
Democratic socialism is defined as having a socialist economy in which the means of production are socially and collectively owned or controlled,[2] alongside a democratic political system of government.
"Free markets work best where true competition between suppliers is possible, and where consumers have a true choice about where - and whether - to make their purchases."
"Health care is the only thing that’s definitely in that category for me."
Well, I don't know where you live but I've no choice as to the water that comes out of my tap, nor which tube the crap goes down. While I can 'choose' my energy supplier, I've no choice as to which cables to use for my electricity, nor the pipes for the gas, and neither does my energy supplier for that matter. I don't get to choose who takes my rubbish away. If this road is blocked, I don't get to drive along an open one owned by a different company. The choice in rail services is a single company to almost every destination. Likewise the choice in bus services.
Given that health care is absolutely one thing that can be privatised completely, I'm struggling how anyone arrives at 'only health care.'
Happy to be corrected if I've got this all wrong...
From that article:
Democratic socialism is defined as having a socialist economy in which the means of production are socially and collectively owned or controlled,[2] alongside a democratic political system of government.
Happy to be corrected if I've got this all wrong...
Had you said that recent experience with vaccines shows the value of a mixed economy, you'd have a point. The terminological problem arises when you apparently identify the mixed economy with socialism.
For me, the argument in the public sphere remains one with neoliberal commentators (such as the iea) who pop up everywhere to declare that governments should do as little as possible.
"As little as possible" sounds fairly ambiguous; it could mean something quite extreme, or fairly moderate.
The notion of subsidiarity, for example, means deciding things and doing things at the lowest practical level. So according to that principle, central government shouldn't do anything that it's workable for local government to do, and government shouldn't be deciding for households or individuals anything that they can practically be left to decide for themselves.
In multiple areas, the market cannot deliver certain 'goods' that are really worth having. In other areas, the market may deliver, but the public sector will do it better. In each of these scenarios, public investment from either taxation or public borrowing or both is desirable.
Examples include:
Health and Welfare where private schemes only serve a minority Natural monopolies where 'marketisation' creates profiteering and reduced services Infrastructure investment
Scientific research
Education
I'd say that government has a role in the defence of the realm, in law and order, in regulating monopolies, in managing the commons, in providing a safety net for those who cannot provide for themselves, etc.
Things like the road network, the electricity grid, etc are indeed natural monopolies. I wouldn't want to see unregulated private monopolies doing as they please. Nor would I want to see public monopolies so closely identified with the state that the state cannot regulate them effectively, or monopolies run politically by politicians (concentrating investment in marginal constituencies where the government party hopes to win seats at the next election, for example).
If that's the sort of infrastructure you mean, then "semi-state" monopolies - technocratic, state-owned, regulated, at arms-length from the politicians - seems like the way to go. As part of "managing the commons".
I'd say that government has a role in the defence of the realm, in law and order, in regulating monopolies, in managing the commons, in providing a safety net for those who cannot provide for themselves, etc.
Why would you say that? Why couldn't individuals provide or source those services for themselves?
Happy to be corrected if I've got this all wrong...
From that article:
Democratic socialism is defined as having a socialist economy in which the means of production are socially and collectively owned or controlled,[2] alongside a democratic political system of government.
Did you read the rest of it?
Did you read the part that I just quoted? You asked to be corrected, so I obliged. You're welcome!
Do you have any interest in addressing this question I put to you earlier today?
When you consider the vaccine development effort and say you want “more of this,” what is it you want more of, exactly? It’s not clear to me how it usefully informs a policy on nationalizing the railroads (for example) so what do you have in mind?
alienfromzog, I read the rather lengthy wiki article you referenced from Wiki regarding Democratic Socialism, but it fails to provide any examples of such a state. One question which comes to my mind is what happens if the citizens democratically decide they wish to privatise most, if not all, of their economy? Would or should the principles of socialism or democracy prevail?
alienfromzog, I read the rather lengthy wiki article you referenced from Wiki regarding Democratic Socialism, but it fails to provide any examples of such a state. One question which comes to my mind is what happens if the citizens democratically decide they wish to privatise most, if not all, of their economy? Would or should the principles of socialism or democracy prevail?
That's a nonsense question, because the government wouldn't be composed of democratic socialists if the electorate voted for a party that wanted to privatise everything.
On the other hand, we do know what would happen if the citizens of a country vote to nationalise parts of their economy. There's a US/UK backed coup and a puppet regime installed that's conducive to capitalists.
Kwesi: One question which comes to my mind is what happens if the citizens democratically decide they wish to privatise most, if not all, of their economy? Would or should the principles of socialism or democracy prevail?
Doc Tor: That's a nonsense question, because the government wouldn't be composed of democratic socialists if the electorate voted for a party that wanted to privatise everything.
No it is not. We are not talking about a democratic socialist party governing a liberal-democratic state, but the constitution and structures of a democratic socialist state as a variant of socialist states. The question is to test the democratic credentials of such a state when push comes to shove as the two principles come into conflict. A critique of the Soviet Union is that its authoritarianism was not necessary and its socialist institutions could have been democratised. What supporters of that proposition have to face up to is whether the citizens of such a state can be permitted to reject a socialist way of running the economy.
Doc Tor: On the other hand, we do know what would happen if the citizens of a country vote to nationalise parts of their economy. There's a US/UK backed coup and a puppet regime installed that's conducive to capitalists.
Well, the evidence suggests that sometimes that has been the case, especially regarding weak states in the Third World, but in Western Europe that does not seem to have been so.
Oh FFS. Well done everyone from @Kwesi onwards in proving my point.
Democratic socialism and social democracy aren't even the same thing to many people. And "socialism" as defined in the USA frequently doesn't mean the same thing as what people in other parts of the world think of as "socialism", any more than than we have a common understanding of "entree", "jumper" or "thong".
Nor is there any guarantee that "Социалистических" could be routinely translated to "socialist" without losing something in understanding the connotations of the term, especially as the USSR was run by what we called the Communist Party, not the Socialist Party. Wikipedia tells me its origins were in the Russian "Social Democratic Labour" Party. But guess what? They changed their name. They chose a different Russian word.
I mean, studying Scandinavian languages a bit has revealed that the word "sky" we borrowed actually meant "cloud", and that the exact same word means "breakfast" in Denmark but "lunch" a few kilometres away in Sweden. At which point all assumptions about shared meaning are well and truly thrown into question.
Any confidence that you have that your image of a "socialist" state matches the image of a "socialist" state in the head of the person you are arguing with is utterly misplaced. So stop it.
Happy to be corrected if I've got this all wrong...
From that article:
Democratic socialism is defined as having a socialist economy in which the means of production are socially and collectively owned or controlled,[2] alongside a democratic political system of government.
Did you read the rest of it?
Did you read the part that I just quoted? You asked to be corrected, so I obliged. You're welcome!
Do you have any interest in addressing this question I put to you earlier today?
When you consider the vaccine development effort and say you want “more of this,” what is it you want more of, exactly? It’s not clear to me how it usefully informs a policy on nationalizing the railroads (for example) so what do you have in mind?
Hee hee, thank you. I really did dig out this particular hole for myself... the article goes further to discuss several different positions within the concept and talk about the overlap with social democracy and a concept of socially controlled means of production rather than necessarily owned. If you Google "democratic socialism" you get a lot of hits that will sound very much like some of the things already discussed on this thread.
But one thing this thread has definitely proven is that lack of agreement on terminology makes the discussion problematic.
However, your question is much more interesting. I do want more of this... so some examples;
1. Natural monopolies should not be left to the market; Railways
Utilities: gas, electricity, water etc. And especially Broadband!
2. The profit motive in healthcare creates all sorts of issues
3. The military and law and order are other areas where the public sector is vital. Two examples; the probation service in the UK was privatised with disastrous results and private prisons in the US have had some very bad outcomes.
4. I would love to see a commitment from the government to invest heavily in science and technology. (In the UK the research councils are a key source of research funding which is the vehicle for government funding of research). Until recently, the other major stream was EU funding...
5. Education: Not just under 16s but further education colleges have been decimated in the past 10 years. Life-long learning opportunities are lacking. All these things pay off hugely in the long term.
I also think governments need to be prepared to be more interventionalist on a case-by-case basis. One of the best examples of this is Rolls Royce aero engines. Now, in general, I don't think the state should be making aircraft engines but it's not quite that simple. In 1971 RR had done brilliant work in developing what is basically the turbo-fan engine. This was a major leap in jet engine technology and the basis of modern airliner jet engines (Google the Trent series if you're interested). Unfortunately, the process bankrupted the company and it went bust in 1971. The government stepped in and nationalised the company. Since then, it has become a leading manufacturer in this sector (P&W maybe bigger, I can't quite remember which is at the mo) and it is an international business that provides high-paying jobs, apprenticeships, and significant tax revenue to the UK exchequer. It was re-privatised in the 1980s. If it happened now, I don't think the government would step in. But by doing so they saved a business and got it to flourish, they created thousands of jobs directly and indirectly and without it, the aero-engine industry would probably have been lost from the UK.
In terms of the whole means of production thing, for me there are two key things. Firstly I believe natural resources belong to us all. The vehicle for that is the state. Thus I think if we let private companies exploit the resources, be they oil reserves or wind-power or land or whatever, it is important that the state charges a fair price. Norway used its North Sea Oil revenues to set up a national wealth fund. The UK used it for tax-cuts. The other part of it is we need to get serious about corporate governance. We should expect our corporations to serve the community and not just exist to maximise returns for shareholders at any cost. Especially when they use their lobbying power to shape the tax-code to suit them such that there is a peudo-morality of "maximising returns within the law" tax practices that are deeply problematic.
alienfromzog, your extended reply above to Dave W is all well and good, but it does not describe a democratic socialist state and its economic and political structure, and is no more than a manifesto a political party might adopt to contest elections in a liberal-democratic state.
alienfromzog, your extended reply above to Dave W is all well and good, but it does not describe a democratic socialist state and its economic and political structure, and is no more than a manifesto a political party might adopt to contest elections in a liberal-democratic state.
alienfromzog, your extended reply above to Dave W is all well and good, but it does not describe a democratic socialist state and its economic and political structure, and is no more than a manifesto a political party might adopt to contest elections in a liberal-democratic state.
Your attempt to distinguish between a "state" that is democratic socialist, and a political party that is democratic socialist and can win an election and then implement its policies, is getting deeply weird.
One wonders if you think the USA just transformed itself from a republic to a democracy. Not least because I've genuinely encountered people out there who appear to seriously think those are 2 different and mutually exclusive forms of government.
Your belief in some description of how a "state" behaves completely negates the point of elections anyway, given that the whole point of elections is to change laws and policies and chart a different course. Are you simply confused by the existence of one-party states?
One wonders if you think the USA just transformed itself from a republic to a democracy. Not least because I've genuinely encountered people out there who appear to seriously think those are 2 different and mutually exclusive forms of government.
One wonders if you think the USA just transformed itself from a republic to a democracy. Not least because I've genuinely encountered people out there who appear to seriously think those are 2 different and mutually exclusive forms of government.
I blame Civilization (the computer game series).
I thought that was reasonably popular in a lot of places, but I've generally only encountered Americans who think that republics can't be democracies.
Orfeo: Your attempt to distinguish between a "state" that is democratic socialist, and a political party that is democratic socialist and can win an election and then implement its policies, is getting deeply weird.
I think the distinction is important because we have to distinguish between the policies of a government and the institutions of the state which set the parameters of the system.
After WWII, the government of the United Kingdom introduced a raft of socialist policies within the context of (liberal) democracy. Similar policies were pursued in other parts of Western Europe to a greater or lesser degree, which in retrospect marked the high-water mark of the working-class movement. These developments took place without fundamental changes to the political and administrative structures which supported them. Traditional democratic norms were sustained, though policies changed. Subsequently, political sentiment shifted to the right, non-socialist principles and parties increased their influence, which were reflected in policies that in Britain became known as Thatcherism. As a consequence, centre-left parties became less socialistic, that in the UK morphed into New Labour. In short: democratic considerations prevailed over leftist values.
For democratic socialists the question is what is the more important in a crisis: democracy or socialism. For Communists in the Soviet Union, the building of a socialist state took precedence when faced with foreign hostility and domestic pressures from small-scale producers in the 1920s, the demands of the five-year plans, and, in the post-WWII period the challenge from mass-consumption in the west. The Communist response was to defend the building of the socialism state to the exclusion of democratic socialism. Cooking the omelette took precedence over maintaining the integrity of eggs.
It is important to remind ourselves that Social Democracy began its life as a Marxist concept, which dismissed liberal democracy as a bourgeois concept because while it promised political equality of sorts it denied economic equality i.e. social democracy. In the end the major split in socialism was between those socialists placing a primacy on the maintenance of political democracy and those committed to economic equality. As the authoritarian socialists recognised, those supporting democratic values were prepared to sacrifice socialism. Who is to say they were mistaken? That is the issue those advocating a nicer socialist state than the one which Lenin and Stalin built in the Soviet Union have to address, including not a few shipmates- IMO, of course!
I would tend to envisage a democratic socialist state as one that enshrines certain rights at the constitutional level e.g. guaranteeing equal access to healthcare, with those core parts of the system subject to the same degree of difficulty in changing as does the Bill of Rights in the US constitution. The implementation of those rights would be determined democratically, and enforced by the judiciary. Nobody much thinks it's ok to take away the right to free speech just because it's done democratically (Orban, maybe), why should it be any different for healthcare?
The notion of subsidiarity, for example, means deciding things and doing things at the lowest practical level. So according to that principle, central government shouldn't do anything that it's workable for local government to do, and government shouldn't be deciding for households or individuals anything that they can practically be left to decide for themselves.
This is a popular subversion of the idea of subsidiarity in libertarian circles. Instead of a nested, interlocking system of responsibility at various levels, "an inescapable network of mutuality" to quote the epistle, it's regarded as a hard barrier preventing action by anyone except the "right" level of authority. For example, the neighbors are primarily responsible for the care of their children. @Russ' definition of subsidiarity would have us believe that if the neighbors fail at this, either deliberately or through mischance, no one else should get involved. Giving a meal to your neighbor's hungry children is something you shouldn't do because it violates subsidiarity.
I'd say that government has a role in the defence of the realm, in law and order, in regulating monopolies, in managing the commons, in providing a safety net for those who cannot provide for themselves, etc.
Things like the road network, the electricity grid, etc are indeed natural monopolies. I wouldn't want to see unregulated private monopolies doing as they please. Nor would I want to see public monopolies so closely identified with the state that the state cannot regulate them effectively, or monopolies run politically by politicians (concentrating investment in marginal constituencies where the government party hopes to win seats at the next election, for example).
I'm not sure what it means to be "so closely identified with the state that the state cannot regulate them effectively". This doesn't seem to be a concern with other things you identify as state interests. For example, we'd consider it extremely problematic if the military was neither "closely identified with the state" or felt willing to ignore the regulations and instructions placed upon it by the civilian authority. Why is it important that power companies, for example, be able to ignore things like standardized voltage and frequency regulations?
Orfeo: Your attempt to distinguish between a "state" that is democratic socialist, and a political party that is democratic socialist and can win an election and then implement its policies, is getting deeply weird.
I think the distinction is important because we have to distinguish between the policies of a government and the institutions of the state which set the parameters of the system.
After WWII, the government of the United Kingdom introduced a raft of socialist policies within the context of (liberal) democracy.
The GOVERNMENT of the United Kingdom. The GOVERNMENT. Yes.
Everything after that is so much wittering about how somehow you're not a proper socialist unless you go the whole hog and overthrow democracy.
I think you genuinely are confused by the existence of single-party states, as if this is something necessary and inherent to left-wing policies.
And also that somehow right-wing regimes are curiously immune from destroying democracy enforcing single-party states. I grant you, that some right-wing dictatorships didn't actually go about banning rival parties, they just skipped that part and murdered the members of those parties instead.
Correlation is not causation, my friend. Being socialist doesn't cause the death of democracy. Being fanatical does.
Addendum: What I find almost amusing is your repeated determination to use the term "democratic socialism" while roundly ignoring the "democratic" part. And then to switch to "social democracy"... while still ignoring the "democracy" part.
The essence of your argument is to repeatedly insinuate that neither democratic socialists nor social democrats (which, as I've pointed out, are not necessarily the same thing anyway) could possibly be as interested in democracy as they are in socialism. Why? Because you say so? Because you can point to some communists who were assuredly not democratic?
Again, let me just point out to you that left-wing ideologues don't have any kind of monopoly on trashing democracy. Nor even on throwing the word "socialist" around. Let's just jump straight to it and talk about Hitler, leader of the National Socialist German Workers' Party, shall we? Let's talk about his commitment to democracy. Let's talk about what happened to his political enemies in the 1930s and ask, are right-wing nationalists as committed to democracy as they are to sowing fear of the other?
The policies that people have as to the degree they favour or disfavour state control of various things is orthogonal to the degree to which they believe they can achieve those policies through persuasion or coercion.
Before you get started, ALL government is coercive to some extent. But in democracies, government works by persuading the populace of the merit of your vision. And despite all your quite silly insinuations, it's perfectly possible to maintain a commitment to the need to persuade people of the merit of your vision to obtain consent regardless of what the vision is.
I mean, you keep harping on about Russia without paying the slightest attention to where Russia is now. It didn't disappear off the map in 1989. No, it's been controlled by the same authoritarian figure for over 20 years now. The fall of communism didn't miraculously turn the country into a full democracy.
Meanwhile, in the USA, we have Republicans discouraging democracy by closing poll booths, creating queues of people and now making it illegal to give people in the queue water. It is quite literally Republican strategy to maintain a hold on power by making it as difficult as possible for the "wrong" kind of people to vote (and that's putting aside the whole Trump sideshow of claiming they didn't lose anyway, this is what's happening in Georgia to try to ensure they don't lose again).
Don't tell me there's some kind of inherent link between socialism and causing damage to democracy. People who want to cause damage to democracy grab onto whatever justification for achieving their own ends they can dream up.
Comments
Case in point: synthetic mRNA technology. The whole thing is worth the read, but the tl;dr version is that the technology behind the some of the current vaccines (Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna) required about two decades of publicly funded research at various universities before a commercial entity had any interest in them. This seems like a massive government subsidy for "private" enterprise.
Yes.
In other words, the kind of highly centralized command economy free market fundamentalists have always argued is inherently less efficient than unfettered capitalism.
Are you seriously suggesting that countries should run their entire economies along the lines of Operation Warp Speed? Is that really your model of modern democratic socialism?
Because to me it looks like government buying a lot of stuff from private companies. You might as well trumpet the Department of Defense budget as a triumph of modern socialism.
Dave, I think you raise a more instructive question than you realise. C Wright Mills raised the question of the military-industrial complex in the 1950s, and Eisenhower warned against its influence shortly after he retired from the presidency. While it is not an example of socialism, it identifies an industry entirely dependent on tax dollars- a huge welfare state for the benefit of the corporations and its dependents.
I entirely agree. I think, however, I would want to point out that when the state becomes such an important purchaser of major industrial and service production that its decisions have decisive economic and social consequences. I find exploring and understanding that relationship rather more interesting than much of the discussion in this thread that seems to me rather old-fashioned. How does socialism and capitalism explain Britain's possession of an aircraft carrier without aeroplanes, and so on?
You what??
Yes it is the government buying stuff from private companies and the drug companies are essentially providing the vaccines at cost price.
But that just quietly edits out all that leads up to this point.
As @Crœsos pointed out, the technology behind the RNA vaccines was developed in the public sector. I described the development process for the Oxford vaccine.
Even at this point, the drug companies aren't paying for this technology.
What this story shows is how important publically funded scientific research is. Especially as 'the market' would not and has not funded the key work that made it all possible.
The market would never have got us here.
And you think I'm handwaving?
AFZ
Are you suggesting that the UK of the past two decades is the sort of democratic socialist state you’re advocating?
I would have thought it fairly obvious that AFZ is saying there are aspects of the UK's mixed economy that are socialist that provide an exemplar of what that approach can achieve.
Well put.
I am advocating more of this.
Have I got this right AFZ and does this seem likely to you?
What drug companies really like is chronic diseases that require daily treatment for life.
In the context of a pandemic, of course, the maths changes as the number of doses demanded is huge in a very short space of time but once everyone is vaccinated, the demand will plummet.
I need to do a little maths here... and a little research...
AFZ
I am not claiming that a pure, laissez-faire market system would have produced today's outcome, any more than I think the market would provide for (e.g.) national defense. I recognize the value of government-funded basic research, and of having the government buy lots of goods and services from private companies, particularly during this emergency. But these positions are uncontroversial among mainstream, non-socialist economists.
You can't just point to some example of the government spending money and say "See? This is why we need democratic/modern socialism!" and expect to get agreement from anyone who isn't already on board your socialist train, because it's not obvious how that translates into the need for a system of public ownership of the means of production.
(BTW, I'd be pretty surprised to hear that big pharma companies have forsworn profits in the production of these vaccines. How did they explain this to their shareholders?)
I couldn't agree more. Socialism, for example, has so many varied meanings that it is impossible to understand what core or common elements constitute its sine qua non, not to mention the speed with which socialists rush to deny its most comprehensive manifestation in the Soviet Union. Respecting capitalism, there are those who regard it primarily as relating to economic structures, whilst other see it as an entire social construct encompassing politics and culture. It's no wonder that Soviet Communism came to be described by many as State Capitalism.
Moreover I have not argued that the success of the publically-funded research means there should be a system of 'public ownership of the means of production.' For one thing I don't even know what that phrase means in the modern world. 'Means of production' is much harder to pin down in the post-industrial economy.
I agree with you about what is uncontroversial among mainstream economists.
But then the most recent Labour Party manifesto was mainstream macro.
This suggests that you have read none of this thread (and I know you have) where these issues have been thrashed out in great detail. Why do people find it so hard to understand that Socialism does not mean Communism?
Given that I wrote this long post explaining that most, if not all of us, who advocate Democratic Socialism aren't remotely advocating a planned economy, you seem to be claiming I believe and am advocating things I don't and haven't.
What's more, you don't need to convince me that the policy positions of democratic socialism are supported by mainstream economics. I've been saying exactly that for well over a decade.
On the Big Pharma providing vaccines at cost, it seems to be some not all. I'm looking for more info.
We may be in danger of fiercely agreeing here. I very much believe in a mixed economy.
AFZ
I guess the riposte might be: "Why do others find it so hard to admit that (Soviet) Communism isn't a form of socialism?"
The reason why the Soviet model of socialism is important is that it is the most comprehensive model we have of a socialist state. Its critics fall into two camps (a) those who claim its weaknesses are a necessary consequence of its socialism and would, therefore, emerge as a feature of any socialist state, and (b) those who claim its weakness are a consequence of the soviet model, but not a necessary consequence of any socialist state. In the absence of any functioning alternative model to the Soviet experiment the question as to which approach is correct remains a matter for speculation. IMO, however, the absence of a working alternative leaves the balance of the argument with the sceptics, but others may be of a different opinion.
Hee hee... I doubt Alan is offended. I'm not either.
There are lots of answers to your question but let's start with the practical one:
I am advocating democratic socialism; which means certain specific things. It does not mean a planned economy, it does not mean an authoritarian government. Therefore it is fundamentally different from the example of the Soviet Union. If you want to use soviet communism to critique democratic socialism then you have to either show that these fundamental differences are not there or that one inevitably leads to the other...
Without that it remains a Strawman argument.
AFZ
....and your example is?
But putting terminology aside (though it pains me to do so) maybe it would be more productive to ask this: when you consider the vaccine development effort and say you want “more of this,” what is it you want more of, exactly? It’s not clear to me how it usefully informs a policy on nationalizing the railroads (for example) so what do you have in mind?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_socialism
Happy to be corrected if I've got this all wrong...
For me, the argument in the public sphere remains one with neoliberal commentators (such as the iea) who pop up everywhere to declare that governments should do as little as possible.
My premise is simple:
The market delivers a lot of 'goods' (in the sense of good outcomes for society).
In multiple areas, the market cannot deliver certain 'goods' that are really worth having. In other areas, the market may deliver, but the public sector will do it better. In each of these scenarios, public investment from either taxation or public borrowing or both is desirable.
Examples include:
Health and Welfare where private schemes only serve a minority
Natural monopolies where 'marketisation' creates profiteering and reduced services
Infrastructure investment
Scientific research
Education
Etc.
AFZ
I completely agree.
Health care is the only thing that’s definitely in that category for me.
Which isn’t to discount the role of government as a supplier alongside the private ones in other categories. Housing, for instance.
So, privatize the military? Some kind of loose grouping of mercenaries and warlords selling their services to whoever offers them the best price for the least risk?
From that article:
"Health care is the only thing that’s definitely in that category for me."
Well, I don't know where you live but I've no choice as to the water that comes out of my tap, nor which tube the crap goes down. While I can 'choose' my energy supplier, I've no choice as to which cables to use for my electricity, nor the pipes for the gas, and neither does my energy supplier for that matter. I don't get to choose who takes my rubbish away. If this road is blocked, I don't get to drive along an open one owned by a different company. The choice in rail services is a single company to almost every destination. Likewise the choice in bus services.
Given that health care is absolutely one thing that can be privatised completely, I'm struggling how anyone arrives at 'only health care.'
Did you read the rest of it?
Had you said that recent experience with vaccines shows the value of a mixed economy, you'd have a point. The terminological problem arises when you apparently identify the mixed economy with socialism.
"As little as possible" sounds fairly ambiguous; it could mean something quite extreme, or fairly moderate.
The notion of subsidiarity, for example, means deciding things and doing things at the lowest practical level. So according to that principle, central government shouldn't do anything that it's workable for local government to do, and government shouldn't be deciding for households or individuals anything that they can practically be left to decide for themselves.
I'd say that government has a role in the defence of the realm, in law and order, in regulating monopolies, in managing the commons, in providing a safety net for those who cannot provide for themselves, etc.
Things like the road network, the electricity grid, etc are indeed natural monopolies. I wouldn't want to see unregulated private monopolies doing as they please. Nor would I want to see public monopolies so closely identified with the state that the state cannot regulate them effectively, or monopolies run politically by politicians (concentrating investment in marginal constituencies where the government party hopes to win seats at the next election, for example).
If that's the sort of infrastructure you mean, then "semi-state" monopolies - technocratic, state-owned, regulated, at arms-length from the politicians - seems like the way to go. As part of "managing the commons".
Why would you say that? Why couldn't individuals provide or source those services for themselves?
Do you have any interest in addressing this question I put to you earlier today?
That's a nonsense question, because the government wouldn't be composed of democratic socialists if the electorate voted for a party that wanted to privatise everything.
On the other hand, we do know what would happen if the citizens of a country vote to nationalise parts of their economy. There's a US/UK backed coup and a puppet regime installed that's conducive to capitalists.
No it is not. We are not talking about a democratic socialist party governing a liberal-democratic state, but the constitution and structures of a democratic socialist state as a variant of socialist states. The question is to test the democratic credentials of such a state when push comes to shove as the two principles come into conflict. A critique of the Soviet Union is that its authoritarianism was not necessary and its socialist institutions could have been democratised. What supporters of that proposition have to face up to is whether the citizens of such a state can be permitted to reject a socialist way of running the economy.
Well, the evidence suggests that sometimes that has been the case, especially regarding weak states in the Third World, but in Western Europe that does not seem to have been so.
Democratic socialism and social democracy aren't even the same thing to many people. And "socialism" as defined in the USA frequently doesn't mean the same thing as what people in other parts of the world think of as "socialism", any more than than we have a common understanding of "entree", "jumper" or "thong".
Nor is there any guarantee that "Социалистических" could be routinely translated to "socialist" without losing something in understanding the connotations of the term, especially as the USSR was run by what we called the Communist Party, not the Socialist Party. Wikipedia tells me its origins were in the Russian "Social Democratic Labour" Party. But guess what? They changed their name. They chose a different Russian word.
I mean, studying Scandinavian languages a bit has revealed that the word "sky" we borrowed actually meant "cloud", and that the exact same word means "breakfast" in Denmark but "lunch" a few kilometres away in Sweden. At which point all assumptions about shared meaning are well and truly thrown into question.
Any confidence that you have that your image of a "socialist" state matches the image of a "socialist" state in the head of the person you are arguing with is utterly misplaced. So stop it.
Hee hee, thank you.
But one thing this thread has definitely proven is that lack of agreement on terminology makes the discussion problematic.
However, your question is much more interesting. I do want more of this... so some examples;
1. Natural monopolies should not be left to the market; Railways
Utilities: gas, electricity, water etc. And especially Broadband!
2. The profit motive in healthcare creates all sorts of issues
3. The military and law and order are other areas where the public sector is vital. Two examples; the probation service in the UK was privatised with disastrous results and private prisons in the US have had some very bad outcomes.
4. I would love to see a commitment from the government to invest heavily in science and technology. (In the UK the research councils are a key source of research funding which is the vehicle for government funding of research). Until recently, the other major stream was EU funding...
5. Education: Not just under 16s but further education colleges have been decimated in the past 10 years. Life-long learning opportunities are lacking. All these things pay off hugely in the long term.
I also think governments need to be prepared to be more interventionalist on a case-by-case basis. One of the best examples of this is Rolls Royce aero engines. Now, in general, I don't think the state should be making aircraft engines but it's not quite that simple. In 1971 RR had done brilliant work in developing what is basically the turbo-fan engine. This was a major leap in jet engine technology and the basis of modern airliner jet engines (Google the Trent series if you're interested). Unfortunately, the process bankrupted the company and it went bust in 1971. The government stepped in and nationalised the company. Since then, it has become a leading manufacturer in this sector (P&W maybe bigger, I can't quite remember which is at the mo) and it is an international business that provides high-paying jobs, apprenticeships, and significant tax revenue to the UK exchequer. It was re-privatised in the 1980s. If it happened now, I don't think the government would step in. But by doing so they saved a business and got it to flourish, they created thousands of jobs directly and indirectly and without it, the aero-engine industry would probably have been lost from the UK.
In terms of the whole means of production thing, for me there are two key things. Firstly I believe natural resources belong to us all. The vehicle for that is the state. Thus I think if we let private companies exploit the resources, be they oil reserves or wind-power or land or whatever, it is important that the state charges a fair price. Norway used its North Sea Oil revenues to set up a national wealth fund. The UK used it for tax-cuts. The other part of it is we need to get serious about corporate governance. We should expect our corporations to serve the community and not just exist to maximise returns for shareholders at any cost. Especially when they use their lobbying power to shape the tax-code to suit them such that there is a peudo-morality of "maximising returns within the law" tax practices that are deeply problematic.
AFZ
You mean it's democratic?
Your attempt to distinguish between a "state" that is democratic socialist, and a political party that is democratic socialist and can win an election and then implement its policies, is getting deeply weird.
One wonders if you think the USA just transformed itself from a republic to a democracy. Not least because I've genuinely encountered people out there who appear to seriously think those are 2 different and mutually exclusive forms of government.
Your belief in some description of how a "state" behaves completely negates the point of elections anyway, given that the whole point of elections is to change laws and policies and chart a different course. Are you simply confused by the existence of one-party states?
I thought that was reasonably popular in a lot of places, but I've generally only encountered Americans who think that republics can't be democracies.
I think the distinction is important because we have to distinguish between the policies of a government and the institutions of the state which set the parameters of the system.
After WWII, the government of the United Kingdom introduced a raft of socialist policies within the context of (liberal) democracy. Similar policies were pursued in other parts of Western Europe to a greater or lesser degree, which in retrospect marked the high-water mark of the working-class movement. These developments took place without fundamental changes to the political and administrative structures which supported them. Traditional democratic norms were sustained, though policies changed. Subsequently, political sentiment shifted to the right, non-socialist principles and parties increased their influence, which were reflected in policies that in Britain became known as Thatcherism. As a consequence, centre-left parties became less socialistic, that in the UK morphed into New Labour. In short: democratic considerations prevailed over leftist values.
For democratic socialists the question is what is the more important in a crisis: democracy or socialism. For Communists in the Soviet Union, the building of a socialist state took precedence when faced with foreign hostility and domestic pressures from small-scale producers in the 1920s, the demands of the five-year plans, and, in the post-WWII period the challenge from mass-consumption in the west. The Communist response was to defend the building of the socialism state to the exclusion of democratic socialism. Cooking the omelette took precedence over maintaining the integrity of eggs.
It is important to remind ourselves that Social Democracy began its life as a Marxist concept, which dismissed liberal democracy as a bourgeois concept because while it promised political equality of sorts it denied economic equality i.e. social democracy. In the end the major split in socialism was between those socialists placing a primacy on the maintenance of political democracy and those committed to economic equality. As the authoritarian socialists recognised, those supporting democratic values were prepared to sacrifice socialism. Who is to say they were mistaken? That is the issue those advocating a nicer socialist state than the one which Lenin and Stalin built in the Soviet Union have to address, including not a few shipmates- IMO, of course!
This is a popular subversion of the idea of subsidiarity in libertarian circles. Instead of a nested, interlocking system of responsibility at various levels, "an inescapable network of mutuality" to quote the epistle, it's regarded as a hard barrier preventing action by anyone except the "right" level of authority. For example, the neighbors are primarily responsible for the care of their children. @Russ' definition of subsidiarity would have us believe that if the neighbors fail at this, either deliberately or through mischance, no one else should get involved. Giving a meal to your neighbor's hungry children is something you shouldn't do because it violates subsidiarity.
I'm not sure what it means to be "so closely identified with the state that the state cannot regulate them effectively". This doesn't seem to be a concern with other things you identify as state interests. For example, we'd consider it extremely problematic if the military was neither "closely identified with the state" or felt willing to ignore the regulations and instructions placed upon it by the civilian authority. Why is it important that power companies, for example, be able to ignore things like standardized voltage and frequency regulations?
In an American context "a republic, not a democracy" is usually trotted out to justify some bit of anti-democratic minority rule, like Jim Crow.
The GOVERNMENT of the United Kingdom. The GOVERNMENT. Yes.
Everything after that is so much wittering about how somehow you're not a proper socialist unless you go the whole hog and overthrow democracy.
I think you genuinely are confused by the existence of single-party states, as if this is something necessary and inherent to left-wing policies.
And also that somehow right-wing regimes are curiously immune from destroying democracy enforcing single-party states. I grant you, that some right-wing dictatorships didn't actually go about banning rival parties, they just skipped that part and murdered the members of those parties instead.
Correlation is not causation, my friend. Being socialist doesn't cause the death of democracy. Being fanatical does.
The essence of your argument is to repeatedly insinuate that neither democratic socialists nor social democrats (which, as I've pointed out, are not necessarily the same thing anyway) could possibly be as interested in democracy as they are in socialism. Why? Because you say so? Because you can point to some communists who were assuredly not democratic?
Again, let me just point out to you that left-wing ideologues don't have any kind of monopoly on trashing democracy. Nor even on throwing the word "socialist" around. Let's just jump straight to it and talk about Hitler, leader of the National Socialist German Workers' Party, shall we? Let's talk about his commitment to democracy. Let's talk about what happened to his political enemies in the 1930s and ask, are right-wing nationalists as committed to democracy as they are to sowing fear of the other?
The policies that people have as to the degree they favour or disfavour state control of various things is orthogonal to the degree to which they believe they can achieve those policies through persuasion or coercion.
Before you get started, ALL government is coercive to some extent. But in democracies, government works by persuading the populace of the merit of your vision. And despite all your quite silly insinuations, it's perfectly possible to maintain a commitment to the need to persuade people of the merit of your vision to obtain consent regardless of what the vision is.
I mean, you keep harping on about Russia without paying the slightest attention to where Russia is now. It didn't disappear off the map in 1989. No, it's been controlled by the same authoritarian figure for over 20 years now. The fall of communism didn't miraculously turn the country into a full democracy.
Meanwhile, in the USA, we have Republicans discouraging democracy by closing poll booths, creating queues of people and now making it illegal to give people in the queue water. It is quite literally Republican strategy to maintain a hold on power by making it as difficult as possible for the "wrong" kind of people to vote (and that's putting aside the whole Trump sideshow of claiming they didn't lose anyway, this is what's happening in Georgia to try to ensure they don't lose again).
Don't tell me there's some kind of inherent link between socialism and causing damage to democracy. People who want to cause damage to democracy grab onto whatever justification for achieving their own ends they can dream up.