Frelsi - What is social democracy I

Social democratic value terms: 
Freedom
Freedom movements, of varying kinds, have existed in all ages – the slave risings of antiquity, the peasants’ uprisings in the Middle Ages, the religious wars of the 1600s, the national liberation movements in Europe in the 1800s. But freedom did not always mean what we put into the word today. The same Swedish lords who went to war to defend the right of the Protestant Church to free itself from the supremacy of the Pope persecuted every form of religious deviation in their own country. The national liberation movements of the 1800s aimed at liberating their countries from the dominance of other nations. But the states which became free in this way could be very harsh in their treatment of minority groups within their own borders, and the new tyrants quashed all revolts against their own power.

The rising merchant and industrial classes in 1700s and 1800s in Europe demanded freedom from all laws and regulations, not least of all from the different privileges held by the old land-owning upper class, which stood in the way for development of trade and production. But when the workers demanded to be allowed to negotiate their own wages and working conditions then the demands for freedom came to an abrupt end. As Ernst Wigforss once asked: ”Freedom, yes, but for whom? And for what?”

”Freedom” is a term with many levels of meaning and is not at all as uncomplicated as conservatives and neo-liberals would like to make out, when they talk about the freedom of the individual as something which is the opposite of collective decisions. No man lives his life completely independent of other people. It is not just that people in general are social beings; it is a question of how we depend on co-operation with other people for our own survival and for our own well-being. No one can build his house completely on his own, make his clothes, obtain his food, do his own plumbing, construct his own means of transport and cure his own diseases. If the individual is to have access to all of this, and the freedom which follows from not being exposed to hunger, cold and disease he/she must cooperate with others. Or, to put it in another way: there is a need for collective solutions. Collective solutions are a precondition for the freedom of movement for the individual and the opportunity to manage his own life.

But these collective solutions demand in turn that the individual people accept the rules needed for the collective to function. What we ourselves do has an effect on others, just as much as the actions of others affect us. For this reason the society in which we live together, in mutual dependence on our different actions, must be based on rules which everyone respects – and this respect requires that the rules in their turn take into consideration all the members of a society and not just some of them. There is, therefore, always a tension between the demands for freedom which the individual makes – and the limitations on the freedom of every individual which are required in order to protect the freedom of all others. Traffic rules are an everyday example of this. Speed limits, restrictions on parking, etc. involve of course a limitation on the absolute freedom of the car driver to drive where he would like or to stop wherever he would like to. At the same time the rules entail greater freedom to move around on the streets and squares for all those who are not car drivers, and who would otherwise would find it difficult to get around because of all the cars. In fact the rules increase the freedom of movement for car drivers as well; in a completely unregulated system there would quite simply be traffic chaos and no-one would be able to get anywhere. It is above all the neo-liberal ”doctrine of freedom” with its tough individualism which pretends that this mutual dependence does not exist and which does not take into consideration the social contexts in which individual freedoms must operate. For those who live alone in the desert it is possible to smoke a cigarette when and where they like, the damage affects only the smokers themselves. But if you work together with others and demand the right to smoke wherever and whenever you like, you will infringe on other people’s freedom to protect their own health.

For this reason the neo-liberal view of freedom is in practice only freedom for the strong, a freedom to be paid for with an increased lack of freedom for the people who are not so strong. The freedom of the businessman to decide on the conditions of employment means that the rights of the employees to have a say on the work they do is reduced, the property owner’s freedom to decide over his property reduces the freedom of the tenants to decide over their own homes, the freedom of the landowner to build on the coast or on beaches reduces the freedom of other people to move around the countryside.

The Social Democratic concept of freedom focuses on freedom for the many. It is a reaction against the lack of freedom and the force which people are subjected to when decisions about their conditions in life are made from the point of view of someone else’s self-interests. Democratic socialism was and is a demand for freedom from repression and humiliation, from hunger and ignorance, from fear of unemployment, sickness and old age, and a demand for freedom for active participation and co-determination, for personal development and the opportunity to influence the society which determines the individual’s life and future. But if this freedom is to be enjoyed by everyone then there is a need at the same time for some limitations, particularly on the freedom of the strong to lay claim to more than others and to exploit others for their own needs. Those who praise the right of the strong, who view freedom as an individual trophy to be won in competition with others who have only themselves to blame if they lose, see these limitations on freedom as objectionable. But if one sees the freedom to run one’s own life as a universal human right then it is inevitable that the rights of the strong must be limited for the good of all others.

There is always a tension between the individual and the collective, a tension which is an inevitable consequence of the fact that people are at one and the same time individuals and social beings. If one is to emphasise the individual’s freedom of movement onesidedly then one ends up in a system where the strong will repress the weak. If one emphasises one-sidedly the demands of the collective community, then there is a risk that the needs of the individual are subordinated unconditionally to those of the group. Just as we must be aware of the first sort of risk so too must we, as Social Democrats, be equally aware of the other. We must be on our guard against justifying in a routine way limitations on the freedom of individual people because this, in some very general sense, can be regarded as increasing the freedom of others.

There are examples of how collectives can enforce a uniformity in lifestyles and opinions without being able to justify this with regard to the needs of others. Collectives can by appealing to group loyalty quash debates and prevent a critical review of decisions which have been made in the name of the collective. Collectives can develop controlling élite’s, which, in practice, exploit the group, not for decisions which benefit the general good but in the interests of strengthening the position of the élite itself. This sort of risk is of course something which exists in every type of collective, regardless of political colour. Sociological studies show that the greatest conformity of opinion is to be found within the private business community. But as Social Democrats whose fundamental view is that the freedom of the individual must be realised through the society to which he or she belongs, we must be on our guard when it comes to dangerous variants of collectivism. Moreover we must never forget that the realisation of freedom for all does of course demand continued balance between the interests of different groups and individuals –but that freedom can never tolerate compromises on the basic demands for human freedoms and rights as well as for political democracy.

Freedom is not under threat from that collectivism, which is an expression of the insight that as members of a society where we are mutually dependent on each other and we must follow certain common rules. It is threatened, on the other hand, by every type of fundamentalism, in religious, political or economic form. Fundamentalism can be described as a view that the group which one belongs to is quite simply right according to some sort of superior and predetermined mission appointed by God, History, or the Market. If one, in a very fundamental sense is right, then there is no reason to consider the views of people with different opinions. On the contrary, for their own good and for the good of others it is important to ensure that they are not given the opportunity to implement their wrong ideas.

An openness to different views and opinions, a willingness to listen with respect and to exchange points of view in order to reach the best common solutions is therefore a necessary demand on all democratic/collectivist movements. It is equally much a demand that must be made on all citizens in a democratic society.