I'm a Liberal Not a Socialist

🇺🇸 Yes, I do read books about social democracy to understand their theory and process, but that does not mean that I agree with their ideas. I read a lot of books, so that I understand every viewpoint, but I do not adopt the same viewpoint of every book that I read. For me, the rights of the individual trumps everything else, including the state. The state is simply there to protect the individual's rights and to cultivate an environment that allows every individual to reach their full potential. The real difference between the Liberal and the Socialist is how they prioritize our values.

In her book, The Primacy of Politics, Sheri Berman documents the rise and decline of Socialism in Europe. She notes how Marxist ideology spread across Europe in the 19th century, and how many of the members of the communist parties eventually came to realize that Marxism was completely flawed. Berman documents all of the thought leaders within the socialist movement and how their ideas split the communist parties into several new parties at the turn of the century: the social democrats, the national socialists, fascists, and orthodox Marxists aka communists. Berman notes how they all had an anticapitalist agenda and adopted similar policy proposals or reforms, often stealing ideas from each other, that were meant to destroy the capitalist system. She acknowledges that these proposals were popular among the working class and details how the parties managed to win the public vote and gain control of the governments across Europe. And yet she still has the audacity to conclude that liberalism and capitalism were the cause of the near destruction of western civilization during the world wars and the interwar period. It's baffling.

Berman knows very well that Adolf Hitler was not a liberal, nor was he a capitalist. He wanted to destroy the liberal, capitalist system. He was a socialist, a national socialist, and the only significant difference, which she notes in detail, between the national socialists and the social democrats, in that period, is that the latter was pro-democracy, not out of an altruistic belief in the democratic system, but simply because it was the only way they could gain power. Berman even claims that social democracy fell out of relevance after the world wars and many of the social democrats became corrupt and accepted bribes and kickbacks in the later half of the twentieth century, and we all know this to be true with Gerhard Schröder. So it's really absurd how Berman comes to the final conclusion that social democracy is the most successful political movement of the twentieth century, and "it's principles and policies undergirded the most prosperous and harmonious period in European history." I disagree. Socialism's principles and policies undergirded the most destructive period in European history - the first half of the twentieth century - and we do not wish to repeat it. The second half of the twentieth century was prosperous and harmonious for only one-half of the European continent, because they abandoned socialist principles and policies. The other half of the continent was trapped in a socialist hell for almost the entire twentieth century.

As Berman notes, the social democrats finally came around to recognizing "that markets and capitalism were not only here to stay, but were also an invaluable tool for producing growth and wealth." Essentially the social democrats abandoned the anti-capitalist principles of socialism and became pro-capitalist, but it took them a lot longer than liberals to figure out the benefits of capitalism. That leaves only one significant difference between the Liberal and the modern-day pro-democracy, pro-capitalist Socialist, that is whether one believes the state takes precedence over the individual's rights and liberties as the social democrats believe, or the individual's rights and liberties takes precedence over the state as the liberals believe. I am a Liberal. xo