Social democracy

Social democracy is a political ideology that supports economic and social interventions to promote social justice within the framework of a capitalist economy, and a policy regime involving welfare state provisions, collective bargaining arrangements, regulation of the economy in the general interest, measures for income redistribution, and a commitment to representative democracy. Social democracy thus aims to create the conditions for capitalism to lead to greater egalitarian, democratic and solidaristic outcomes; and is often associated with the set of socioeconomic policies that became prominent in Western and Northern Europe—particularly the Nordic model in the Nordic countries—during the latter half of the 20th century.

Social democracy originated as a political ideology that advocated a peaceful, evolutionary transition from capitalism to socialism using established political processes in contrast to the revolutionary approach to transition associated with orthodox Marxism. In the post-war era in Western Europe, the example of the totalitarian Soviet Union, where the state controlled everything, was unappealing and socialists sought an alternative viable form of socialism that compromised between socialism and capitalism. In this period, social democrats embraced a mixed economy based on the predominance of private property, with only a minority of essential utilities and public services under public ownership. As a result, social democracy became associated with Keynesian economics, state interventionism, and the welfare state, while abandoning the prior goal of abolishing the capitalist system (private property, factor markets and wage labour) and substituting it for a qualitatively different socialist economic system.

Social Democratic Power

The Social Democratic Power (Spanish: Poder Democrático Social, PODEMOS) was a Bolivian political party based on pro-business goals.

History

Podemos is in fact the continuation of the Acción Democrática Nacionalista (ADN) of former president Hugo Banzer. Upon Banzer's death in 2002, former president Jorge Quiroga (2001-2002) became leader of the ADN, but apparently concluded that the name of the party was too associated with the life and thought of the ex-dictator. Thus, he changed the name of the organization to Podemos and ran as its presidential candidate in the 2005 elections. He finished a distant second to current president Evo Morales of MAS (Movement Toward Socialism). Even though Podemos is on the surface a new party, its structures, ideology, and supporters remain basically the same as those of the old ADN.