Reddit reviews The Primacy of Politics: Social Democracy and the Making of Europe's Twentieth Century

There's an interesting book The Primacy of Politics: Social Democracy and the Making of Europe's Twentieth Century that notes the some of the parallels between fascism and social democracy. Here's an extended blog-post reviewing the author's argument. Relevant parts:
>In Berman’s narrative, as in Polanyi’s, there were two antidotes on offer to “economic collapse and social chaos” – social democracy and fascism. Social democracy and fascism were both the result, according to Berman, of long standing intellectual debates within the left over the relationship between economics and politics. Both were movements created by socialists who had grown weary of the passivity of traditional socialism as set out by Engels, and explicated by Kautsky. The reigning orthodoxy emphasized the primacy of economics – economic progress would ineluctably lead to the victory of socialists, who merely had to bide their time. Over time, it became clear that this passive approach was both badly wrong, and a rotten basis to boot for sustaining mass support over the medium term. However, it also proved remarkably resilient. Even if socialist orthodoxy was wrong, it was hard for socialists to get away from. Those who tried to – by advocating even temporary alliances with bourgeois parties – could expect to be vigorously denounced for their heresy. The result was a prolonged and tortuous debate, both within countries and in the International, about the extent to which socialists should participate in electoral politics. In short, those who advocated active politics had a difficult time doing it within mainstream socialism.

>On the one hand, social democrats, who wanted socialists to get involved in electoral politics and take power through non-revolutionary means such as getting involved in coalition government, weren’t able to bring other socialists along with them. Some tried to stick it out and to build compromises with more zealous colleagues, sometimes emphasizing to them the need to protect the real advances made by the liberal state by participating in democratic politics. The result was often an unhappy halfway house, as in the German SPD, which participated in elections in the Weimar Republic, but refused to fully embrace it. This cost German social democracy, and the rest of us, dearly over the longer term. Where social democrats were willing fully to embrace existing democratic forms and to extend their appeal beyond the working classes, as in Sweden, they created the basis for a long-standing, and largely successful political compromise. This compromise didn’t seek to eliminate the market (although perhaps the Meidner plan came close), but instead to manage and subordinate it.

>On the other, some socialists embraced a more radical notion of politics and of revolution that had little time for bourgeois democracy. Georges Sorel and other syndicalists began with demands that socialists foment massive general strikes, and ended by drifting away from socialism altogether, in favour of other ‘myths’ that might help inspire large scale political action, most prominently nationalism. This helped create the conditions for a synthesis between the nationalist movement and elements of the socialist movement in Italy and Germany. National Socialists retained many of the aspirations of social democrats, and made many of the same promises. Like social democrats, their main appeal was that they offered economic stability and security to the masses.

>Hence the first part of Berman’s argument – that fascism was, in a sense, social democracy’s dark twin. They shared common ancestry in internal debates among socialists. There was crossover between the two, as erstwhile social democrats became fascists. Finally, there were substantial similarities in their economic policies, and in the ways that they tried to appeal to mass publics. Both represented revolts against a kind of ideational orthodoxy, in which the economic base determined the limits of politics. Both, indeed, sought to use political means to tame the market and to bring it under control. The political forms that they took were very different. Social democrats accepted democratic principles, even as they hoped that they might subordinate the free market to collective needs. Fascists, very clearly, did not. Even so, they had more in common than either might have liked to admit. Both moved away from an emphasis on the historical role of the proletariat towards a kind of communitarian politics, in which the national home replaced the working class as the relevant community of solidarity. While Fascist and Nazi ideology obviously appealed directly to nationalism, so too did Swedish social democracy, with its emphasis on the folkhemmet or ‘people’s home.’

She's pretty hard on traditional Marxist viewpoints throughout the book. I haven't read it in quite sometime, but I get the feeling that if I did I wouldn't find her analysis as persuasive as I once did. So don't take this post to be an endorsement of her arguments against Marxism. Thought OP might be interested in this though.

To believe in the primacy of politics means that one believes that political decisions can and should shape our society, in stead of forces outside political control. The most important of such forces are economic forces.

In other words: Citizens should decide what society they want, through political deliberation and political choices. Not capitalists, advertisers, lobbyists or anyone/anything else. Politics works, and if it doesn't, we must make it work.

I'm not sure, but I think it's meant to be contrasted with a Marxist view of "primacy of economics".

The term has been particularly important for Sheri Berman, who argues that this is the one common characteristic for social democrats.

Edit: A basic insight for the social democratic movement must, according to Berman, be that the political power wielded by democratic institutions must have the final word when it comes to how economic power in society shall be executed. A market economy isn't more "natural" than any of its alternatives. On the contrary: Economic systems are a result of political decisions. Ergo political decisions can change the way our economic system works.

A rough translation from p. 240 of Sosialdemokratiet. Fortid-nåtid-fremtid, Brandahl, Bratberg and Thorsen, 2011.

I hope this helps! :)

The media, and Americans generally, use the term "socialism" as a catch-all a set of policies/ideological stances which are more "lefty" than most Liberals on economic issues. Its far too vague to be considered an accurate definition.

In regards to what the accurate definition of "socialism" is, I'd say it depends on the topic of discussion, to an extent. But the broadest and most detailed definition:

An ideological commitment to the use of existing government institutions to bring about a classless society (or more generally ending the oppression of the proletariat/workers by the bourgeoisie/owners of capital).

There's so much more that you can talk about within this framework. But, generally speaking, the difference between "socialism" and "communism" is that the former is peaceful and permits the use of current institutions while the latter endorses a violent revolution to destroy current institutions and build new ones.

For more, check out "Primacy of Politics." She gives a great description of both the political and philosophical development of socialist thought in Europe.