Social democracy

Social democracy is a broad, centre-left social, economic, and political ideology. Some academics view social democracy as distinct from socialism, whilst other academics purport that social democracy lies within the wider socialist movement. Social democracy supports political and economic democracy and a gradualist, reformist, and democratic approach toward achieving social equality. In modern practice, social democracy has taken the form of a predominantly capitalist, yet robust welfare state, with policies promoting social justice, market regulation, and a more equitable distribution of income. Social democracy maintains a commitment to representative and participatory democracy. Common aims include curbing inequality, eliminating the oppression of underprivileged groups, eradicating poverty, and upholding universally accessible public services such as child care, education, elderly care, health care, and workers' compensation. Economically, it supports income redistribution and regulating the economy in the public interest. Social democracy has a long-standing connection with trade unions and the broader labour movement. It is supportive of measures to foster greater democratic decision-making in the economic sphere, including collective bargaining and co-determination rights for workers. The history of social democracy stretches back to the 19th-century labour movement. Originally a catch-all term for socialists of varying tendencies, after the Russian Revolution, it came to refer to reformist socialists who were strategically opposed to revolution as well as the authoritarianism of the Soviet model, though the eventual abolition of capitalism was still upheld as an important end goal. However, by the 1990s social democrats had embraced mixed economies with a predominance of private property and promoted the regulation of capitalism over its replacement with a qualitatively different socialist economic system. Since then, social democracy has been associated with Keynesian economics, the Nordic model, and welfare states. The Third Way was developed in the 1990s as an offshoot of social democracy which aims to fuse economic liberalism with social democratic economic policies and center-left social policies. This reconceptualization is embraced by some social democratic parties, though some political scientists and analysts characterise it as an effectively neoliberal movement.

Social democracy has been described as the most common form of Western or modern socialism, as well as the reformist wing of democratic socialism. Amongst social democrats, attitudes towards socialism vary: some retain socialism as a long-term goal, with social democracy being a political and economic democracy supporting a gradualist, reformist, and democratic approach towards achieving socialism. Others view it as an ethical ideal to guide reforms within capitalism. While both social democracy and democratic socialism once referred to movements seeking to achieve socialism, modern social democracies retain a capitalist system, whereas democratic socialists continue to advocate for its abolition. Nevertheless, the distinction remains blurred in colloquial settings, and the two terms are commonly used synonymously.

Definitions

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