What is wrong with socialism? In case you have forgotten, socialism leads to a totalitarian form of government such as communism and facism (nazism).
Actually, Darrell, I would say that, historically, the reverse has been true. (I am an historian, with a specialty in Russian and Modern European History.) In Germany, for example, the Social Democratic Party was the strongest (but alas, not strong enough) force opposing both Nazism and Communism. In Russia, the Social Democratic Mensheviks, as distinct from their "totalitarian" former comrades, the Bolsheviks, supported the democratic regime created by the February 1917 Revolution, overturned by the Bolsheviks in November, in a coup.
And so on. You don't really believe, for example, that the German Social Democratic Party, now in power, is going to introduce Communism? After all the problems involved in integrating East Germany into West Germany??
And more often than not, modern Social Democratic parties retain little of "socialism", as it was originally defined, except for the name. Welfare state - yes; socialism (understood as state or social ownership and control) -- no. (There is a difference.)
I totally disagree with the points raised in the article you appended, but it would take a lot of time to go through them one by one. Some other time. :-)
jbe |
