Charles Brown writes:> I'm with Jim D. We might formulate a neo-Rooseveltian approach. Roosevelt's final inaugural address gives us the framework for an Economic Bill of Rights. <
Charles, I wasn't actually advocating social democracy or New Dealism. Rather, my point was that these types of systems can be goood for capitalism. But I do agree that both of these are generally better for the working class than is neo-liberalism -- at least for those who are in on the social-democratic or New Deal truce. (The last is a reference to the fact that a lot didn't get much out of the New Deal, as with racial minorities and the U.S. South.) But whether or not social democracy is better than neo-liberalism is somewhat irrelevant. As I read history, people never attained social democracy by fighting for it. Rather, they were fighting for something bigger and better (like socialism) or they were pressuring the government to deal with economic or social injustice. Social Democracy and New Dealism represent compromises of this kind of program and struggle. They are better for the working class and other dominated groups to the extent that those dominated groups are organized and powerful. (Unfortunately, both social democracy and New Dealism tend to demobilize the dominated groups.) That doesn't mean that I'm advocating "maximalism," in which the only alternative to capitalism is socialism. Rather it says that the fight for reforms has to be considered in terms of mobilizing people for even more, in terms of empowering people. BTW, Doug: how do you reconcile high profits under Swedish social democracy with such an egalitarian income distribution? JD
