The concessions obtained through SocDem goverments in European countries came about because all those countries had thousands of actual communists in varying posts in the government and the concessions were to reduce class consciousness and weaken the communists.
To understand the magnitude of difference, imagine if the US House of Reps (total seats 435) had 40 honest-to-god Communists in power, with another 80 left-of-Bernie SocDems : thats what the French legislature was like in the 60s and 70s.
Instead the US has 3 extremely mild SocDems who may or may not be grifters.
I hope you see the magnitude of difference here, there is no real way of moving the admin left and whatever minor leftward shift you may see is what the ruling class themselves, by their own accord, decide is necessary to keep the threat of civil unrest from getting too high.
So whenever you see any liberals IRL or online talk about how we need to become like Norway or whatever, remind them No Communists in govt = No European style Social Democracy
I’m in agreement with you, I just have no idea what the implications are. If electoralism is a dead end under capitalism, then what do we do? I’m trying not to be a doomer.
In my honest opinion the Left in USA has not put enough effort to justify their dissapointment. What did we really expect to achieve posting memes and donating $27 to a SocDem? Even the largest “Big Tent” leftist organisation has a measly 70,000 members, that’s 0.02% of the population. Quite a few DSA members are uneducated in Marxism or straight up opposed to it.
Leftism is still very nascent, you may not feel that way because you have been a leftist for so long, but real leftism has only just begun.
DSA explicitly says in their non-party documents, since they’re the whipping dog radlib wing of the democrats and not an actual independent political party, that they will not cooperate with any Marxist group.
These leftist parties have always felt weird to me. They all invariably end up either impotent or tear themselves apart into obscurity. Im not saying they are useless, but they are just oh-so-easy to manipulate and wreck. All the effort you put in them could be gone at any time.
I tried to make the same point to people putting all their eggs in Bernie’s basket. Even if by some miracle he won and the establishment didn’t just fucking off him for doing so, then it would have been 4 years of being backstabbed and undermined in every conceivable way and then subsequently scapegoated for the next 20 years for all America’s woes.
The only time that the establishment will push Biden left is when he’s at the top of a few flights of stairs
You may say “leninist approach to electoralism and organization hasnt given many results in the west for socialism”
God that’s such a dumb argument. If that was the case the CPD wouldn’t have murdered Fred Hampton in his sleep for feeding poor kids. Incredible that the fash police state knows and makes it clear who they consider enemies but socdems can’t comprehend who their allies are, pathetic.
Another example is the Young Lords getting garbage collection policies implemented in poor neighborhoods by outclassing the government in activism and work there. Civil rights came because of the split threat of the communists and the Vietnam War splitting need of use of force with black radicals at home.
Eh maybe, but I think this is also a result of Bernie’s popularity. He’s been explaining how socialism isn’t scary and would improve people’s lives, so reactionaries moved on to the next term they don’t understand fully which is anarchism.
Nah, the guy way more conservative than Obama is definitely gonna go left, trust me bruh
