Views of social democrats today

In general, contemporary social democrats support.

• A mixed economy consisting mainly of private enterprise, but with government owned or subsidised programs of education, healthcare, child care and related services for all citizens.
• Government bodies that regulate private enterprise in the "interests" of workers, consumers and "fair competition".
• Advocacy of fair trade over free trade.
• An extensive system of social security (although usually not to the extent advocated by democratic socialists or other socialist groups), with the stated goal of counteracting the effects of poverty and insuring the citizens against loss of income following illness, unemployment or retirement.
• Moderate to high levels of taxation (through a value-added and/or progressive taxation system) to fund government expenditure.
• Environmental protection laws (but not always to the extent advocated by Greens).
• Support for immigration and multiculturalism.
• A secular and progressive social policy, although this varies markedly in degree. Most social democrats support gay marriage and abortion rights.
• A foreign policy supporting the promotion of democracy, the protection of human rights and where possible, effective multilateralism.
• As well as human rights, social democrats also support social rights, civil rights and civil liberties.

Social democratic political parties are a feature of many democratic countries, and are found in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Europe, New Zealand and elsewhere. Over the course of the twentieth century, parties such as the British Labour Party, the German SPD and the Australian Labor Party have stood in elections on political platforms that included policies such as stronger labor laws, the nationalization of major industries, and a strong welfare state. The United States and Japan are the only first world nations which do not possess a competitive social democratic or democratic socialist party.

Source: Wikipedia (May 30, 2008), adjusted.

Anarchism

Anarchism (from Greek "without archons," "without rulers") is a political philosophy /ideology encompassing theories and attitudes which reject government (the state) and support its elimination, often due to a wider rejection of involuntary or permanent authority. Anarchism is defined by The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics as "the view that society can and should be organized without a coercive state."

There are many types and traditions of anarchism, not all of which are mutually exclusive. Anarchists hold different views as to the economic and legal organisation of society; some favour anarcho-communism, collectivist anarchism, anarcho-syndicalism or participatory economics while others support market systems like mutualism or anarcho-capitalism. Others, such as anarchists without adjectives neither advocate nor object to any particular form of organization. According to The Oxford Companion to Philosophy, "there is no single defining position that all anarchists hold, beyond their rejection of compulsory government, and those considered anarchists at best share a certain family resemblance". Anarchist schools of thought differ fundamentally, supporting anything from extreme individualism to complete collectivism. Some anarchists have opposed coercion, while others have supported it, particularly in the form of violent revolution on the path to anarchy or utopia.

Nazism

Nazism, commonly known as National Socialism, (German: Nationalsozialismus), refers primarily to the ideology and practices of the Nazi Party under Adolf Hitler; and the policies adopted by the government of Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945, a period also known as the Third Reich. The official name of the party was Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (NSDAP) — “National Socialist German Workers’ Party”. The Nazis were one of several historical groups that used the term National Socialism to describe themselves, and in the 1920s they became the largest such group. Nazism is generally considered by scholars to be a form of fascism, and while it incorporated some elements from the political left, it formed its most solid alliances on the political right.

Nazism was not a monolithic movement, but rather a (mainly German) combination of various ideologies and groups, sparked by anger at the Treaty of Versailles and what was considered to have been a Jewish/Communist conspiracy (known in the vernacular as the Dolchstoßlegende or “Stab-in-the-Back Legend”) to humiliate Germany at the end of the First World War.

Among the key elements of Nazism were anti-parliamentarism, ethnic nationalism, racism, collectivism, eugenics, antisemitism, opposition to economic liberalism and political liberalism, anti-communism, and totalitarianism.

Terminology

The term Nazi is derived from the first two syllables of Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, the official German language name of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (commonly known in English as the Nazi Party).

History (For the beginnings of the Nazi party, see the entry “Nazism” in Wikipedia.)

Free elections in 1932 under Germany’s Weimar Republic made the NSDAP the largest parliamentary faction; no similar party in any country at that time had achieved comparable electoral success. Hitler’s January 30, 1933 appointment as Chancellor of Germany and his subsequent consolidation of dictatorial power marked the beginning of Nazi Germany. In its first year in power, the NSDAP announced the Tausendjähriges Reich (“Thousand Years’ Empire”) or Drittes Reich (“Third Reich”, a successor to the Holy Roman Empire and the German Empire).

In the night of February 27, 1933, the Reichstag fire provided Hitler with a convenient excuse for suppressing his opponents. The following day, he persuaded President Paul von Hindenburg to sign an emergency decree suspending civil liberties and stripping the power of the federal German states. Opponents were imprisoned first in improvised camps (wilde Lager) and later in an organized system of Nazi concentration camps. On March 23, the Reichstag passed an “Enabling Law” which granted Hitler dictatorial powers. Unions were abolished and political parties, other than the National Socialists, forbidden.

Having dealt with his political enemies, Hitler moved against his rivals in the party, principally those allied with Ernst Röhm, leader of the Sturmabteilung (known as SA or “brownshirts”) and Gregor Strasser, leader of the Nazi left wing. Between June 30 and July 2, 1934, these were purged in the so-called Night of the Long Knives. With this, Hitler assured the support of the powerful Reichswehr. After the death of Hindenburg, on August 2, there was no one left who could present an effective challenge to Nazi power.

The Nazi Party had been anti-Semitic from the beginning, and shortly after seizing power had attempted a boycott against the Jews (see Nazi boycott of Jewish businesses). Official measures against the Jews had been limited by the reluctance of President Hindenburg, but the Nuremberg Laws, proclaimed by Hitler at the 1935 Nazi rally in Nuremberg, provided a legal basis for systematic persecution. Visible signs of anti-Semitism were removed during the 1936 Summer Olympics, but replaced shortly thereafter.

The Nazi rulers of Germany began World War II by invading Poland in September 1939 and conquered most of Western Europe except for the United Kingdom in the summer of 1940. On June 22, 1941, they invaded the Soviet Union and came close to capturing Moscow in December 1941. However, its fortunes in the war declined by late 1942 and early 1943 when the Western Allies defeated Nazi forces at Stalingrad and at both El-Alamein and Tunisia in North Africa.

The Nazi regime in Germany ended with World War II in 1945, when the party was declared a criminal organisation by the victorious Allied Powers. Since 1945, Nazism has been outlawed as a political ideology in Germany, as are forms of iconography and propaganda from the Nazi era. Nevertheless, neo-Nazis continue to operate in Germany and several other countries. Following World War II and the Holocaust, the term Nazi and symbols associated with Nazism (such as the Swastika) acquired extremely negative connotations in Europe and North America.

Ideology

Nazism has come to stand for a belief in the superiority of an Aryan race, an abstraction of the Germanic peoples. During Hitler’s time, the Nazis advocated a strong, centralized government under the Führer and claimed to defend Germany and the German people (including those of German ethnicity abroad) against Communism and so-called Jewish subversion. Ultimately, the Nazis sought to create a largely homogeneous and autarkic ethnic state, absorbing the ideas of Pan-Germanism.

Adolf Hitler

Nazism is characterized especially by the notion of history as a race struggle; the Führerprinzip; anti-Semitism; and the need to acquire Lebensraum (living space) at the expense of the Soviet Union The core concept of Nazism is that the German Volk is under attack from a judeo-bolshevist conspiracy and must become united, disciplined and self sacrificing (must submit to Nazi leadership) in order to win.

Hitler's political beliefs were formulated in Mein Kampf. His views were composed of three main axes: a conception of history as a race struggle influenced by social darwinism; antisemitism and the idea that Germany needed to acquire land from Russia. His antisemitism, coupled with his anti-Communism, gave the grounds of his conspiracy theory of “judeo-bolshevism”. Hitler first began to develop his views through observations he made while living in Vienna from 1907 to 1913. He concluded that a racial, religious, and cultural hierarchy existed, and he placed “Aryans” at the top as the ultimate superior race, while Jews and “Gypsies” were people at the bottom.

Date: 2015-12-11; view: 857