“Even in Scandinavia, where social democratic institutions were far more culturally ingrained, membership of the EU—or even just participation in the World Trade Organization and other international agencies—appeared to constrain locally-initiated legislation. In short, social democracy seemed doomed by that same internationalization which its early theorists had so enthusiastically adumbrated as the future of capitalism.
From this perspective, social democracy—like liberalism—was a byproduct of the rise of the European nation-state: a political idea keyed to the social challenges of industrialization in developed societies. Not only was there no ‘socialism’ in America, but social democracy as a working compromise between radical goals and liberal traditions lacked widespread support in any other continent. There was no shortage of enthusiasm for revolutionary socialism in much of the non-Western world, but the distinctively European compromise did not export well.”

— Tony Judt

Ill Fares the Land (2010), Conclusion: What Is Living and What Is Dead in Social Democracy?

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Tony Judt 37

British historian 1948–2010

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“This book can be read as an argument that social democracy is not enough and we can establish something better than social democracy. The explanatory ideas of False Necessity provide an understanding of society that presents the institutional arrangements on which the social democrat relies as the relatively contingent and revisable outcome of a particular sequence of practical and imaginative conflicts. More generally, these explanatory arguments support a view of social reality within which the rejection of social democracy seems reasonable. The programmatic ideas propose an alternative to social democracy that realizes more fully the ideals that the social democrat can only imperfectly achieve and radically redefines these ideals in the course of realizing them.”

Roberto Mangabeira Unger (1947) Brazilian philosopher and politician

Source: False Necessityː Anti-Necessitarian Social Theory in the Service of Radical Democracy (1987), p. 26

“We have to ensure that it is structured organically, so that it functions like a person functions internally, like the organs function... First in the examination of the matter. Secondly in that one develops a concept of.... a social order that have never existed before. That simply means: to realize freedom, democracy and socialism – free democratic socialism.”

Joseph Beuys (1921–1986) German visual artist

1970's, Every Man an Artist: Talks at Documenta 5', 1972

“Democratic confederalism is a non-state social paradigm. It is not controlled by a state. At the same time, democratic confederalism is the organisation of democracy and culture.”

Abdullah Öcalan (1949) Founder of the PKK

The Political Thought of Abdullah Ocalan (2017), Democratic Confederalism, Principles of Democratic Confederalism

“Thus liberalism, democracy, and socialism appear to be, as they are in reality, not only the offspring of one and the same theory of government but also logical derivations one of the other. Logically, developed liberalism leads to democracy; the logical development of democracy issues into socialism. It is true that for many years, and with some justification, socialism was looked upon as antithetical to liberalism. But the antithesis is purely relative and breaks down as we approach the common origin and foundation of the two doctrines, for we find that the opposition is one of method, not of purpose. The end is the same for both, namely, the welfare of the individual members of society. The difference lies in the fact that liberalism would be guided to its goal by liberty, whereas socialism strives to attain it by the collective organization of production.”

Alfredo Rocco (1875–1935) Italian politician and jurist

Source: The Political Doctrine of Fascism (1925), pp. 108-109

“Socialism without democracy is pseudo-socialism, just as democracy without socialism is pseudo-democracy.”

Wilhelm Liebknecht (1826–1900) German socialist politician

Wilhelm Liebknecht, On The Political Position of Social-Democracy https://www.marxists.org/archive/liebknecht-w/1889/political-position.htm (1869 & 1889)

“The child does not internalize the world of his significant others as one of many possible worlds… It is for this reason that the world internalized in primary socialization is so much more firmly entrenched in consciousness than worlds internalized in secondary socialization…. Secondary socialization is the internalization of institutional or institution-based ‘sub worlds’… The roles of secondary socialization carry a high degree of anonymity… The same knowledge taught by one teacher could also be taught by another… The institutional distribution of tasks between primary and secondary socialization varies with the complexity of the social distribution of knowledge”

Peter L. Berger book The Social Construction of Reality

Source: The Social Construction of Reality, 1966, p. 129-147

“It is not Socialism that subverts democracy, but democracy that subverts capitalism.”

Michael Parenti (1933) American academic

Source: Democracy for the Few (2010 [1974]), sixth edition, Chapter 17, p. 320

“In a capitalist democracy there are essentially two methods by which social choices can be made: voting, typically used to make ‘political’ decisions, and the market mechanism, typically used to make ‘economic’ decisions. In the emerging democracies with mixed economic systems Great Britain, France, and Scandinavia, the same two modes of making social choices prevail, though more scope is given to the method of voting and to decisions based directly or indirectly on it and less to the rule of the price mechanism. Elsewhere in the world, and even in smaller social units within the democracies, the social decisions are sometimes made by single individuals or small groups and sometimes (more and more rarely in this modern world) by a widely encompassing set of traditional rules for making the social choice in any given situation, for example, a religious code.”

Kenneth Arrow (1921–2017) American economist

Source: 1950s-1960s, Social Choice and Individual Values (1951), p. 1: Opening pharagraph

Alfredo Rocco (1875–1935) Italian politician and jurist

The end is the same for both, namely, the welfare of the individual members of society. The difference lies in the fact that liberalism would be guided to its goal by liberty, whereas socialism strives to attain it by the collective organization of production.
Source: The Political Doctrine of Fascism (1925), pp. 108-109

“The bureaucratic, though capitalistic, spirit of our governments tends towards a state socialism which, in fact, is only state capitalism, but which is dazzling and misleading for those who are easily deceived by external similarities and catch words. The German, or more accurately the Prussian, state socialism whose ideal is a military, landlord and police state, hates democracy above everything else. … It is to them something inherently political. But all politics is diametrically opposed to what is socialist. So by this trick logic we arrive at the conclusion which has gained footing here and there, even in social democratic circles, that democracy as savoring of politics has nothing in common with socialism, but on the contrary is opposed to it. … But the truth is that democracy is not a thing that is specifically political, and we must never forget that we are not merely a socialist party, but a social democratic party because we have perceived that socialism and democracy are inseparable.”

Wilhelm Liebknecht (1826–1900) German socialist politician

No Compromise – No Political Trading (1899)

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Tony Judt 37

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