It's Not Communism!

Finally! I found it, a former prime minister of Sweden Ingvar Carlsson has written this little book, "What is Social Democracy?"

http://www.socialdemokraterna.se/upload/Internationellt/Other%20Languages/WhatisSocialDemocracy.pdf

Now you can see that the type of government economics we have in Sweden, and other Scandinavian countries, also Britain and other Western European countries is not Communism! I do get so tired of hearing people confuse Social Democracy(socialism) with communism!

I am learning alot with you too.Here is one part, at the end of this letter, that helps illuminate the difference between Social Democracies and communism, if you read through Carlsson's short book there is more, and PARTICULARLY about government control over economy, which the US has centralized in times of war (cold war, war on terror, war for war's sake) and practices regulation of course.

So what's necessary at this time is decentralization, you know, break up the banks that are 'too big to fail' and build up local economies, Catherine Fitts will be speaking on that in Floyd County Virginia on April 18:http://solari.com/assets/PDFs/FSIflyer.pdf

Revolution or Reform?
The discussions meant that around the turn of the 20th century the socialistparties in Europe and Russia were divided into two main groups: onerevolutionary and one reformist.

The revolutionary parties wanted to hurry development to achieve asocial revolution by force rather than wait for the change in productiveconditions that, according to Marx, was a prerequisite of the revolution.When the final phase was known, why not go directly to it without theintermediate period of waiting?

The reformist approach wanted to start changing and improvingeveryday life at the time so that the conditions for the working classimproved. Instead of one violent upheaval, they saw an opportunity togradually approach a more equal and fairer society. Now that capitalism hadalready freed the productive powers, why wait for its collapse beforestarting to redistribute the results in a more reasonable way? Why not startat once?

The parties that chose the revolutionary strategy – albeit that it was only really in Russia that it became possible to put it into practice – gradually came to be known as communistic. Those who chose the reformist approach became known as social democrats.

The two models have developed very differently.
The social democratic parties attracted large groups of followers early on and consequently also came to power early in the Scandinavian countries and eventually also in Great Britain and many Western European countries. Governments have since alternated between social democratic and rightwing parties.

Naturally, the countries have not developed in exactly the same way, though the strong position of social democracy has led to some importantbasic similarities. Strong welfare systems give everyone the opportunity of education, health care, pensions and economic protection in the event of illness or unemployment. Industrial life is based on market-economic principles, with the exception of social services such as care and education,but the game rules, the frameworks, for industry are set through political decisions so as to guarantee consideration for social interests such as environmental requirements.

International research usually points to the Nordic countries in particular –where social democracy has and has had its strongest hold – as examples of how welfare policy can be combined with economic efficiency.