If we got a working welfare state and Medicare for All that absolutely would move us to the left. First, it would dramatically improve the material conditions of hundreds of millions of people, which is a pretty fundamental goal of socialism. Second, it would lift the boot a little bit off workers’ necks – it’s a lot easier to challenge management when you know it won’t cost you your healthcare, and when there’s a safety net if you wind up losing your job. Third, it would be concrete proof that we can do big things for people and not destroy the country, and it would similarly be proof that the folks on the left might be worth listening to.
I see your logic and I agree that moving to social democracy would be a huge improvement but we already experienced this during the Great Depression and it only lasted long enough to cripple the nascent socialist movement in America and then started to get stripped away once we were no longer a serious threat to capital. And because of the trajectory we are on with the climate and capitalism in general just decaying to shit, we’re going to get punished for that because we’ve tied ourselves to the withering welfare capitalist system and the only alternative that Americans would be interested in at that point is fascism because there’s no independent socialist movement that made itself distinguished from the liberals that have ruined everyone’s lives.
it only lasted long enough to cripple the nascent socialist movement in America
The socialist movement was crippled during the first Red Scare, long before the Depression even hit. Eugene Debs’ last presidential run was in 1920, and it came from a prison cell. CPUSA’s membership peaked after the New Deal.
Foregoing policies that help people right now is just accelerationism, and about the only strategy riskier than that is doing nothing at all. You can’t build a movement by offering people nothing, or at least nothing until things get significantly worse.
Those countries are substantially farther left than the U.S., and have substantially more labor power, which may be a path further left. Universal healthcare is not a one-way ticket to socialism, but countries that have it are already farther left than the U.S., and are much better situated to take the next big step.
don’t believe that social democracy is a stepping stone to actual socialism because thats been debunked by history
Considering that arguably no one has yet achieved socialism (especially not in the imperial core), and that history can’t be read like a book of prophecies, nothing’s been debunked. We don’t have any idea what the path to American socialism will look like, but I’m betting something that greatly enhances worker power would be helpful.
