Progressive Politics fans when they see US candidates presenting an alternative to the status quo and giving people something to hope for:

Does anyone have that Wolfenstein meme of the two klansmen and a nazi soldier talking, and the caption is something like "two American liberals talking before being interrupted by a european social democrat?" I can't find it

Pretty sure that's every political system, unfortunately...

Content like this is why I come here.

The Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) historically opposed the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) due to ideological differences, particularly regarding the approach to socialism and the use of revolutionary tactics.

I wonder how that worked out. Oh, right.

What a stupid person. There is a fascist in the White House and he’s a conservative. It’s all to do with fear. Specifically fear or freedom your own, or someone else’s.

Don't be pretty sure about things you haven't studied, then.

You don't enjoy people talking on your social media, do you?

Talking yes. Talking out of their ass no.

Both of you could've simply named the political system that you think is magically immune to being overthrown, while somehow not being authoritarianism itself.

What would you characterize as authoritarian/authoritarianism?

2 things quickly:

Authoritarian is a meaningless pejorative. All states/countries/political groups etc. must be authoritarian by necessity in class society.

This meme isn't about states being overthrow this meme is about how socialdemocrats entire ideology is built upon "reforming" capitalism by implementing a welfare state to more evenly spread the profits of the super exploitation of the periphery. When those profits dry up so too does the welfare state which inevitably pushes them right or left to deal with the heightened contradictions. The meme is pointing out the unfortunate pattern of it almost always ending in a rightward shift (due to many factors).

Wikipedia seems to do a decent enough job defining it:

Authoritarianism is a political system characterized by the rejection of political plurality, the use of strong central power to preserve the political status quo, and reductions in democracy, separation of powers, civil liberties, and the rule of law.

But basically, my point is:

• If your government represents the people, then it is possible for your people to elect authoritarianism, especially if they are unhappy, like the meme describes, and/or when there's foreign nations trying to destabilize the system.
• If your government does not represent the people, then it is likely to devolve into authoritarianism on its own, because individuals or individual groups will want to assume all power and limit the rights of others.

Basically, my opinion is that politics is a constant work in progress, no matter the political system.

Authoritarian is a meaningless pejorative. All states/countries/political groups etc. must be authoritarian by necessity in class society

Historicially, classes have been created or destroyed in order to create more or less centralized authority-driven decision making, and societies with less centralized authority have called ones with more centralized authority "authoritarian".

Feudalism, dictatorship and even economic subjugation are called authoritarian by less authoritarian states.

In practice, the criterion for "authoritarianism" is however far back on that scale makes your current political center have anxiety about their ability to keep their current privileges from the authority.

But in theory you can see that the social organisation with the least authority possible would be an anarchist one, designed to dissolve class hierarchy when possible (e.g. abolition of private property) and apply anti-authoritarian safeguards if not (e.g. teach children how to take class action against adults, and make it easy for them to do so).

While such a society will still accumulate authority, it is designed to process it like any other waste product.

This means "authoritarian" is as meaningful as "filthy". We can never be fully clean, but someone who chooses not to bathe to the standards of their time can be called filthy, and those standards can improve over time.

Using the word conservative to describe someone you just called a fascist is hilarious.

You are terribly uneducated on politics.

The trick is to have a system where if people choose to engage in authoritarianism they lose power. A liberal democracy can arrest a head of state who engages in illegal actions more easily than a feudal monarchy does.

This is because of their respective structures, with indictment being a legal structure with physical preparation done to facilitate it on the one hand, and being treason in the other.

So naturally the more a system facilitates the overthrow of authorities, the less authoritarian it gets. You're right that politics is a constant work in progress, so a good political system incorporates that progress as smoothly as possible.

No system can withstand a sufficiently powerful foreign intervention, but a system where the overthrowing of authority is as mundane as throwing out the trash, where people's best method of accumulating wealth and power is by betting on something other than authority, can split your false dichotomy.

Systems that attempt this are called anarchy.

That said, you are missing one key element from the meme. People aren't voting for authoritarianism because they are unhappy but because they have reaped the fruits of authoritarianism/imperialism on a global scale and they want the system to find new people to exploit.

If a region in the western world became anarchic with no economic changes, it would rightfully be overthrown by people from the global south who their economic system oppresses. Liberal democracy prevents this through citizenship and the authority of those with voting rights over those without.

So anarchy would qualify in spirit if not in letter, but it would require a reckoning with everyone whose oppression we benefit from.

Your framework sounds nice in the abstract, but it doesn't hold up against the concrete reality of how the term functions today. "Authoritarian" isn't applied based on some neutral scale of centralization. It's very clearly deployed selectively as a moral weapon by the Euro-Amerikan ideological apparatus to delegitimize any state or movement that resists imperial integration or challenges capitalist property relations.

If the criterion were truly about concentration of coercive power, the United States (with the world's largest incarcerated population, extrajudicial drone programs, domestic surveillance architectures like COINTELPRO and it's successors, and an executive branch that operates beyond legislative or judicial restraint on the whims of the president) would be the paradigmatic case. Yet it rarely (never) receives the label in mainstream discourse. Why? Because the term isn't neutral.

On the historical point: classes aren't created or dissolved to adjust the "level" of authority. They emerge and transform through shifts in the mode of production and the intensification of class struggle. The bourgeois revolutions didn't aim to "spread" or "centralize" authority. They smashed feudal state forms to erect new ones that secured the dictatorship of capital (parliamentary democracy, rule of law, private property enforcement) all presented as "freedom" while materially consolidating a new class rule. The question was never how much authority, but authority for whom and against whom.

Anarchist models that treat authority as a contaminant to be minimized misunderstand the state as a neutral tool rather than an instrument of class power. In a world still structured by antagonistic classes, the relevant distinction isn't between "more" or "less" authority, but between authority that reproduces exploitation and authority that dismantles it. The proletarian state, like any state, exercises coercion, but its historical task is to render itself obsolete by abolishing the class relations that make coercion necessary.

In it's modern usage the term obscures more than it reveals. As it's not meant to be a useful tool for analysing states, power or history, but a bat to beat those who don't get in line.

Why? Because the term isn’t neutral.

That's what I said; the center defines the standard. The US is authoritarian by social-democratic standards.

They emerge and transform through shifts in the mode of production and the intensification of class struggle.

"Class struggle" is not a one-dimensional variable, and the mode of production is to a significant extent a choice made by those within the system. A revolution has degrees of freedom for who is in its circle of solidarity.

Anarchist models that treat authority as a contaminant to be minimized misunderstand the state as a neutral tool rather than an instrument of class power.

State communists mistake the state/vanguard as a neutral outsider rather than a material entity. Authority left to fester will shape the material conditions to enshrine the authority at the cost of those without authority.

Social democrats tend not to call the US authoritarian (I have yet to see it). They're too busy negotiating their cut of imperial plunder, welfare states built on extracted surplus and "human rights" rhetoric that conveniently ignores sanctions and coups. If "the center defines the standard," then the standard isn't about coercion; it's about loyalty to capital (as I already pointed out). The label only sticks to those who break ranks (refuse to bend the knee to the EuroAmerikan hegemony).

On mode of production as "choice": this is idealism, pure and simple. Putting the cart before the horse. Ideas don't shape the material base; the material base shapes ideas. Capitalism didn't arrive because someone imagined it. Feudal relations broke because they could no longer contain the productive forces, guilds choked industry, serfdom blocked labor, divine right couldn't manage global accumulation. Socialism isn't a fairy tale we opt into. It becomes necessary when capital's own contradictions (overproduction, immiseration, ecological rupture) can no longer be managed within private ownership. And solidarity isn't moral selection or simply who we like or don't like. It's determined by objective interests. The Chinese revolution for example united workers, peasants, and the national bourgeoisie not because of abstract ideals, but because all three had material stakes in smashing imperialist and feudal domination.

On the vanguard: have you read Lenin? Mao? The entire point is that it is NOT neutral. The vanguard is explicitly the organized, conscious detachment of the proletariat, an instrument of class rule, just like the bourgeois state, but inverted. The difference isn't the existence of authority; it's which class wields it, for what end, and whether its practice is tied to mass line feedback. To conflate proletarian dictatorship with bourgeois state power is to erase the question of class content.

Authority isn't a substance that "festers." It's a relation, grounded in who controls production, who allocates surplus, who defends or transforms property forms. You can't analyze it like a moral contaminant. You have to trace it to its material base. When authority serves to socialize wealth, decommodify life, and break imperial chains, it isn't reproducing domination, it's creating the conditions where coercion itself becomes obsolete.

Great post comrade. We need a /c/bestoflemmy community to highlight comments like this.

I was going to argue against this, but then you're right. There has been regulatory capture of socdems as they became neoliberals; who keep chasing the magical "centrist" unicorn. But in reality, who they are trying to appease are the property owning base who want their property value to keep going up and up, at the expense of the youths, families and homeless, and to appease rich donors.

Thank you always happy to hear when people find my contributions informative/useful.

I love your writing comrade, and excellent points

Thank you 🫡

Reducing fascism to amygdala size is idealist pseudoscience (in the vein of nazi race science), biology does not dictate politics. Material conditions drive history. Fascism emerges when capitalist contradictions sharpen and the tendency for the rate of profit to fall creates crisis. The bourgeoisie faces two paths. Either socialist revolution or they turn imperialist violence inward to preserve accumulation. The Nazis suppressed the left to protect industrial capital. Krupp and IG Farben did not care about conservative values but cared about markets and crushing unions. Calling it National Socialism was a tactic to co-opt worker sentiment while serving monopoly capital. Fear is merely a symptom, the disease is capitalism. When accumulation stalls the mask comes off, focus on who owns the means of production not brain scans.

What does this even mean? do you think that welfare is fascist?

The meme is about how socialdemocrats entire ideology is built upon “reforming” capitalism by implementing a welfare state to more evenly spread the profits of the super exploitation of the periphery. When those profits dry up so too does the welfare state which inevitably pushes them right or left to deal with the heightened contradictions. The meme is pointing out the unfortunate pattern of it almost always ending in a rightward shift (due to many factors). (It is also possibly a reference to the SPD and how them unleashing the freikorps on the KPD directly helped bring Hitler to power)

Do you have any points or do you prefer the tried and true call people names and stick your fingers in your ears?

socialdemocrats entire ideology is built upon “reforming” capitalism by implementing a welfare state to more evenly spread the profits of the super exploitation of the periphery.

when put like this, social democracy is really the peak of "half of slaveowners should be women!" ideology lol

Yooo bespoke meme thank you

Just wait until you figure out that every President in office for your lifetime was a "fascist" and a "conservative".

Some hide it better than others.

Thank you for breaking this down. Would it be fair to say that social democracy on a national scale can still be imperialist but social democracy on a global scale would actually be a good thing? I guess when I see social democracy equated with fascism it leaves me wondering what is actually the better path.

No. Social democracy needs superprofits from the periphery to fund the core. Capitalism requires exploitation to function. If every nation is the core, who gets exploited? The surplus value does not exist. When accumulation slows, the bourgeoisie abandons reform. They choose fascism to protect property. The SPD proved this when they sided with reactionaries against workers. Reformism tries to manage a system built on violence. It cannot work globally because the economic base forbids it. The only path is revolution. Seize the means of production. End the imperialist chain.

Democratic socialism. I know it sounds a little bit ridiculous because the names are so similar, but the key difference is social democrats are fundamentally capitalists, while democratic socialists believe that capitalism will inevitably always lead to what we've got now. We know we have the resources to house everyone, clothe everyone, feed and educate everyone on earth. The only reason we don't is because it's not profitable for a handful of billionaires. Democratic socialists believe that everyone born on earth has the same rights to what the earth has to offer, and that we could give all of us a reasonable quality of life if resources were managed in a way that benefits the most people and not just the shareholders.

Obviously there's a lot more to it, and I'm fully expecting a reply to this that starts with Well actually... but that's the 10 second version from someone who doesn't claim to be an expert.

Instead of well actuallying it, I would like to ask: how? How do you get these resources to be managed "better." How do we go from where we are now to what you have stated?

Any reason not to just throw out these terms and talk about it as capitalism vs communism?

Lots of reasons. Democratic socialism doesn't eliminate private ownership the way communism does, people can still get rich, own companies, and buy jet skis, but they can't take a successful company that hundreds of people have helped build and centred their lives around and hand control of it to their unqualified, arrogant, spoiled children to run into the ground, among other things. Here's a decent basic summary:

*Democratic socialism combines political democracy with public, cooperative or state ownership of key industries while maintaining elections, civil liberties and pluralism. It seeks to reduce inequality and ensure that wealth and power serve the public good through taxation, regulation and social programs.

Communism, rooted in Marxist theory, envisions a classless, stateless society where all property is collectively owned. In practice, communist states have often used centralized, one-party government control to pursue those aims.* (edit: don't know why italics isn't working)

From https://www.newscoopnd.org/socialism-communism/

As I said, I'm not an expert, but this guy has some really good ideas and his channel is definitely worth a look. A good starting point would be to look at the Nordic countries (Sweden, Norway, Denmark), as they are the closest in practice to this kind of system and consistently have the best quality of life and happiness among their citizens.

https://youtu.be/fpKsygbNLT4

They are social democrats though

They also entirely fund their system through super exploitation of the periphery.

You are mostly correct. Except the bit about fear being a symptom. Fear is the driver. The amygdala bit is an interesting fact. Those with bigger fear centres tend to vote for the no change party.

Fear isn't the driver. Fear is produced. Where does that fear come from? Not from brains. From material life. Precarity. Job loss. Debt. Crisis. These are capitalist relations, not neural pathways. If amygdala size determined politics, how do you explain workers who risk everything to strike? Or revolutionaries who face death without flinching? Consciousness changes through struggle, not anatomy. Doubling down on amygdala talk is phrenology-tier pseudoscience, same logic as Nazi race science. Measuring skulls to explain politics didn't work then, measuring brains won't work now. The "no change party" exists to preserve bourgeois rule, not because of brain scans. This idealist framing naturalizes oppression and lets capital off the hook.

edit: don’t know why italics isn’t working

I think multi-line italics isn't a thing. Although you may actually want to prefix the lines with > to make it into a quote like the first line of this comment.

Fascism is when the capitalist class feels that liberalism no longer sufficiently serves their interests.

Once more let me remind you what fascism is. It need not wear a brown shirt or a green shirt -- it may even wear a dress shirt. Fascism begins the moment a ruling class, fearing the people may use their political democracy to gain economic democracy, begins to destroy political democracy in order to retain its power of exploitation and special privilege.
— Tommy Douglas

• The Nation, 2017: Trumpism: It’s Coming From the Suburbs
• Michael Parenti » 🔈 Fascism, The False Revolution
• Gabriel Rockhill:
  • Fascism: Now You See It, Now You Don’t!
  • Liberalism and Fascism: Partners in Crime
  • The U.S. Did Not Defeat Fascism in WWII, It Discreetly Internationalized It

I’m getting a little lost - you said both “social democracy” and “democratic socialism” there. I just want to be sure that was intentional? I’m still a little unclear what the better system’s rules are. I don’t mean to be ungrateful for the explanation, but this section in particular didn’t clear anything up for me:

people can still get rich, own companies, and buy jet skis, but they can't take a successful company that hundreds of people have helped build and centred their lives around and hand control of it to their unqualified, arrogant, spoiled children to run into the ground

So… okay, but how is this codified in law? No inheriting?

socialdemocrats entire ideology is built upon “reforming” capitalism by implementing a welfare state to more evenly spread the profits of the super exploitation of the periphery.

Technically, it's built on the idea that a socialist society can be/should be reached gradually by participating in parliamentary liberal political system instead of overthrowing liberal society and implementing a "dictatorship of the proletariat".

At least that was what the original debate was about ("reform vs revolution") that split the left apart. Since then, most social democrats have completely moved away from the idea of reaching a socialist society anytime soon (for various reasons).

The meme is pointing out the unfortunate pattern of it almost always ending in a rightward shift

The meme is clearly pointing out that "social democracy enjoyers" turn into fascists/Nazis once the economy declines. Or, if we keep OP's caption in mind, the idea that social democrats are actually fascists "wearing a mask".

directly helped bring Hitler to power

What helped Hitler seize power was not just the actions/inactions of the socdems and the economic collapse, but the deep split of the left overall, the ineffective political system and the relentless infighting to the point were socdems and communists saw eachother as equivalent or even a bigger threat than the fascists.

You're right, apologies, I fucked up there. Changed it to democratic socialism (still not an expert!).

At the most basic level, employees at a workplace would elect their management, rather than management being chosen by the business owner/s.

I posted this link to another comment, it's from a guy who runs a really good youtube channel that's definitely worth checking out. I know being asked to watch a video sucks, but he explains it a million times better than I can.

https://youtu.be/fpKsygbNLT4