Re: Labour parties

[Philip Ferguson <plf13@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Jurriaan wrote:
> I would actually dispute that the Alliance consists of "genuine social
> democrats", although there may be some genuine social democrats within it.



Well, you'll note that in the current Revo I actually argued that social
democracy is pretty much defunct - it lacks both a material base and (as
a result) political space.

I probably wouldn't describe the Aliance as social-democratic in the
classical social democratic sense, and I doubt if many of them have read
Bernstein, Kautsky, etc.

But since the split with Anderton, the leadership of the Alliance
certainly would consist of people who consciously see themselves as
social democrats or left social democrats or socialists (as opposed to
communists) - people like Laila Harre, Matt McCarten, Gerard Hehir, Mike
Treen, Len Richards, Dave McPherson, Jill Ovens and others.  Remember,
Jurriaan, that the Democrats, and the other least-left people, have now
departed from the Alliance, as has Mana Motuhake, so what you have left
is basically its social democratic rump.

Phil

~~~~~~~
PLEASE clip all extraneous text before replying to a message.