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The Social Democratic Image of Society (Routledge Revivals) Routledge Revivals The Social Democratic Image of Society This book, originally published in 1978, constitutes a genuinely comparative study of the world’s only truly successful democratic socialist parties: the Social Democratic Parties of Denmark, Norway and Sweden. The measure of achievement is not merely political success, the fact that in Scandinavia the Social Democrats have become ‘natural parties of government’, for just as importantly, the author shows that a political success grounded on the symbiotic relationship between party and trade union movement has been the foundation for a higher level of welfare state provision and egalitarian striving than in virtually any other advanced Western nations. It is a book for friends and foes of democratic socialism alike; for the former to provide an understanding of the tasks ahead and for the latter to know the enemy better. The Social Democratic Image of Society A study of the achievements and origins of Scandinavian Social Democracy in comparative perspective Francis G.Castles First published in 1978 by Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd This edition first published in 2009 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2009. To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk. © 1978 Francis G.Castles All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Publisher’s Note The publisher has gone to great lengths to ensure the quality of this reprint but points out that some imperfections in the original copies may be apparent. Disclaimer The publisher has made every effort to trace copyright holders and welcomes correspondence from those they have been unable to contact. ISBN 0-203-09231-7 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 13:978-0-415-55762-7 (hbk) ISBN 13:978-0-203-09231-6 (ebk) ISBN 10:0-415-55762-3 (hbk) ISBN 10:0-203-09231-7 (ebk) The Social Democratic Image of Society By the same author: Pressure Groups and Political Culture (1967) Politics and Social Insight (1971) The Social Democratic Image of Society A study of the achievements and origins of Scandinavian Social Democracy in comparative perspective Francis G.Castles London, Henley and Boston First published in 1978 by Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd 39 Store Street, London WC1E 7DD, Broadway House, Newtown Road, Henley-on-Thames, Oxon RG9 1EN and 9 Park Street, Boston, Mass. 02108, USA This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2009. To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk. © Francis G.Castles, 1978 No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except for the quotation of brief passages in criticism ISBN 0 7100 8870 1 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Castles, Francis Geoffrey The social democratic image of society. 1. Socialist parties—Scandinavia I. Title 329.9′485 JN7066 78–40294 ISBN 0-203-09231-7 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0 7100 8870 1 (Print edtition) to Heinz and Fay Contents Preface x A note on terminology xiv 1 Part one: Achievements 1 The political dominance of Social Democracy 2 1.1 The relative strength of the European Social Democratic parties 3 1.2 The emergent Scandinavian labour movements 9 1.3 The road to power 16 1.4 The mechanisms of Social Democratic ascendancy 20 1.5 New problems and new parties 27 2 Equality and welfare in capitalist society 36 2.1 Taking an agnostic approach 36 2.2 Devising a measure of welfare state provision 44 2.3 The data and an interpretation 52 2.4 Dimensions of equality and welfare in Scandinavia 62 2.5 Capitalism and the Social Democratic image of society 73 Part two: Origins 79 3 Paradoxes of Scandinavian political development 80 3.1 Class and party in Scandinavia 81 3.2 The politics of virtuous circles 92 3.3 The weakness of the Right 102 Notes 112 References 123 Index 129 Preface One of the grand paradoxes of politics in the era of industrialism and universal suffrage has been the relatively poor showing of political parties espousing working-class interests. This is hardly the result that would have been expected from a reading of the heated political debates on the extension of the franchise which occurred in most of the Western European nations in the late nineteenth or early twentieth centuries. To give the working man the vote was to give him political power. That is why the defenders of inherited privilege fought against the extension of democratic rights, and it is why the leaders of the embryonic labour movements co-operated so avidly with the liberal forces of reform. Even the earlier socialist ideologues, who had advocated the revolutionary seizure of power by the industrial working class, had not based their prescription on the ineffectiveness of universal suffrage, but on the inherent unlikeliness that the ruling class would be willing to encompass its own self-destruction. In discussing the Chartist demand for the vote, Karl Marx argued that in countries like England, ‘where the proletariat forms a large majority of the population’ and where ‘it has gained a clear consciousness of its position as a class’, the inevitable result of universal suffrage would be ‘the political supremacy of the working class’ (Marx, 1852). Yet neither in England nor in any of the major countries of Western Europe has the growth of the industrial working class or the extension of democratic participation led to consistent victories for parties which profess working-class aims. Irrespective of their political complexion— Socialist, Communist, Social Democratic or Labour—such parties have never become the normal parties of government. In some countries, working-class parties have won dramatic political majorities (Britain in 1945 and 1966) only to lose them again in subsequent elections; in others, they have been condemned to political sterility by their encapsulation in coalitions of the Centre (the French Socialists during the Fourth Republic); and, in yet others, they have been permanently excluded from office (the Italian Communist Party since the Second World War). Only in Scandinavia has the picture been substantially different. In Denmark, Norway and Sweden, the Social Democratic parties have, throughout the last half-century, polled a higher percentage of the vote than any other single party. Moreover, the margin by which they have outdistanced their competitors has generally been so considerable as to warrant their description as dominant parties (Duverger, 1960, p. 44). Social Democratic electoral strength has been readily transformed into political power and, since the 1930s, the working-class parties of Scandinavia can be distinguished from similar parties elsewhere by their status as natural parties of government. This book endeavours to explain the political dominance of the Scandinavian Social Democratic parties and to demonstrate the consequences of that dominance. Clearly, both objectives involve the adoption of an explicitly comparative approach. In effect, the explanation of the distinctiveness of the Scandinavian political experience entails showing the relevant circumstances which Denmark, Norway and Sweden have in common and which are not shared by other nations. There is no inherent limitation to the circumstances which might be relevant, and at a minimum it will be necessary to discuss the social bases of party support, the nature of the party systems, the ideological and programmatic appeals of the various parties, and the historical context of political Preface xi development which has shaped and structured political cleavages and ideas—topics central to the study of comparative political sociology. The effort to demonstrate the consequences of Social Democratic political dominance in Scandinavia is rather less easy to categorise in academic terms, but, presumably, in so far as it involves charting the impact of political action on social structures and beliefs, it falls somewhere in the area of social policy studies. Comparison is the essence of such an effort. Democratic socialist parties have always maintained that they are the instrumentality of working-class demands and, since only in Scandinavia have such parties been the normal parties of government, it seems natural to ask whether Social Democratic ascendancy has led to greater gains for the working classes of Scandinavia than elsewhere. To answer such a question requires a comparison of policy outcomes in the more economically advanced Western nations, and an examination of the extent to which differences are attributable to the initiatives of democratic socialist governments. In attempting such a comparison, I intend to adopt as empirical and pragmatic a stance as possible in the hope that I can avoid the fate that my conclusions are dismissed as mere socialist polemic. Indeed, this is not a book about socialism and socialist theory as such, and I will readily concede that if one defines that ideology exclusively in terms of the common ownership of the means of production, then few, if any, of the parties I call ‘democratic socialist’ (basically the members of the Socialist International) have any rightful claim to that designation. The problem is that there is sometimes a tendency for socialist intellectuals to compare ideals and reality and to find the latter wanting, whereas my objective is to discover whether some aspects of reality are more wanting than others.
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