The people that successfully create a formula for transitioning from democratic socialism into a properly armed revolutionary movement will create the formula that works everywhere else.
But social democracy is not really a philosophy. It is a policy manifested by all kinds of ideologies. Kind of like anarchism I guess. There are social democrats who are ideologically anticapitalist but pragmatically reformist, and there are social democrats who are both ideologically and pragmatically supportive of capitalism. There can’t be a common strategy for converting these different types.
I think Engels had it right when confronted with a similar issue of Lassalleans and other bourgeois socialists. The best way to rid of these “nostrums” was to engage them in practical struggle so that they can see for themselves how well it works. Better to show than to explain. I doubt merely electing Mamdani will effectively do this though, because he’s not really engaged in any broader class movement, but moving exclusively in the sphere of bourgeois politics.
But social democracy is not really a philosophy. It is a policy manifested by all kinds of ideologies. Kind of like anarchism I guess. There are social democrats who are ideologically anticapitalist but pragmatically reformist, and there are social democrats who are both ideologically and pragmatically supportive of capitalism. There can’t be a common strategy for converting these different types.
I think Engels had it right when confronted with a similar issue of Lassalleans and other bourgeois socialists. The best way to rid of these “nostrums” was to engage them in practical struggle so that they can see for themselves how well it works. Better to show than to explain. I doubt merely electing Mamdani will effectively do this though, because he’s not really engaged in any broader class movement, but moving exclusively in the sphere of bourgeois politics.