> > For social democracy, which holds undisputed sway in all the major
> >countries of Europe, politics means economics, economics means finance,
> >and finance means the markets.
>
> hasn't social democracy always implied this? hardly a betrayal I would
> think. return to fundamental principles more like it, which means the
> gasps every time social democracy turns out to be crap should be well and
> truly redundant by now. how many times can this discovery be made? and,
> what work does this constant discovery do?
>
The original social democrats were Marxists. Lenin, Trotsky and Luxembourg pre 1914 referred to themselves as social democrats. The party was the Russian Social Democratic Labor party. The term "Bolshevik" meant majority in the RSDLP. Later, the social democrats like Bernstein (and the Mensheviks) broke with Lenin and Trotsky over the means (they agreed on the ends) to which socialism then communism were to be established. Lenin and Trots believed in grassroots revolution, Bernstein in parliamentary elections. So calling for the reestablishment of historic social democratic principles could mean a return to Marxist analysis and to socialism the way it was meant to be.
Sam Pawlett