Every time Elon Musk pokes fun at government assistance for the 99%, remember that he would be worth nothing without $4.9 billion in corporate welfare. Oh, Elon just l-o-v-e-s corporate socialism for himself, rugged capitalism for everyone else. https://t.co/rj8FgwEDMQ pic.twitter.com/bxHcXul925— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) August 7, 2020
There is no class consciousness because we live in a hyper individualistic society, everything is centered around an individual - and that individuals employment status.
Social Democracy can enhance class consciousness because when it suddenly becomes widely accepted that "yes we will tax the wealth out of the billionaire class and use that to improve the lives of the working class", the lines are drawn on class. At the very least you have a much more egalitarian society.
It's basically a domino effect at that point, so long as there is a cohesive movement to ensure movement away from concentrated power (capital). This makes a democratic transition into socialism easier. The only alternative I see are various forms of accellerationism which is unnecessary IMO.
Regarding exploiting the poor in other countries, and extending imperialism.... there is little/no evidence this is the case under today's - or most past Social Democracies. Sure you had some outliers but that's true of all political philosophies.
There is an argument to be made that social democracies are too reliant on the capitalist frameworks they are built on, but that doesn't mean they NEED to be necessarily.
EDIT: As a current example, AOC is largely called a SocDem by leftists but she says things like this to liberals and they eat it up:
"Billionaires need the working class.
The working class does not need billionaires."
~ https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1292155096923504640
There is no class consciousness because we live in a hyper individualistic society, everything is centered around an individual - and that individuals employment status.
Social Democracy can enhance class consciousness because when it suddenly becomes widely accepted that "yes we will tax the wealth out of the billionaire class and use that to improve the lives of the working class", the lines are drawn on class. At the very least you have a much more egalitarian society.
It's basically a domino effect at that point, so long as there is a cohesive movement to ensure movement away from concentrated power (capital). This makes a democratic transition into socialism easier. The only alternative I see are various forms of accellerationism which is unnecessary IMO.
Regarding exploiting the poor in other countries, and extending imperialism.... there is little/no evidence this is the case under today's - or most past Social Democracies. Sure you had some outliers but that's true of all political philosophies.
There is an argument to be made that social democracies are too reliant on the capitalist frameworks they are built on, but that doesn't mean they NEED to be necessarily.
EDIT: As a current example, AOC is largely called a SocDem by leftists but she says things like this to liberals and they eat it up: "Billionaires need the working class. The working class does not need billionaires." ~ https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1292155096923504640