Pre-1950s views of West European Socialist parties on the welfare state
Upvote:4
I assume your interest is primarily in Marxist social democracy as opposed to Marxist bolshevism or Marxist council communism.
Regarding social democracy:
"Welfare" is a suspicious term for an avowedly Marxist party like the 1925 SPD (Germany). The Heidelberg Program (1925, http://www.marxists.org/deutsch/geschichte/deutsch/spd/1925/heidelberg.htm ) believed that Fordism was an impossibility, "Ununterbrochen sind im Kapitalismus Tendenzen wirksam, die arbeitenden Schichten in ihrer Lebenshaltung zu drücken." [Google: Continuously tendencies in capitalism means effective to suppress the working classes in their standard of living.] Please note this isn't relative emiseration, but absolute emiseration.
As Capitalism has no "countervailing" tendency regarding the absolute standard of living of workers, "Das Ziel der Arbeiterklasse kann nur erreicht werden durch die Verwandlung des kapitalistischen Privateigentums an den Produktionsmitteln in gesellschaftliches Eigentum." [G: The aim of the working class can only be achieved through the transformation of capitalist private ownership of the means of production into social property.]
But this isn't the whole story, they're conflicted. Under social policy, without demanding the abolition of capital, "Die Sorge für die Erledigung von Notstandsarbeiten bleibt ausschließlich den Gewerkschaften überlassen." [G: The concern for the execution of relief works is left exclusively to the trade unions.] and, "Vereinheitlichung der sozialen Versicherung bis zu ihrem Umbau zu einer allgemeinen Volksfürsorge." [G: Harmonization of social insurance to its conversion to a general people care.] These alliances with capital seem to be posited both as end-goals and as partially implementable here and now.
We all know where this ends up: http://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/pdf/eng/Parties%20WZ%203%20ENG%20FINAL.pdf The betrayal of the concept of revolution in any sense by the SPD in 1959.
I'm not sure Paxton's claims can be substantiated at the programme level. There's clear signs of accommodation with capital in the 1925 programme, like the idea that social welfare funds in capital can be repurposed.
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