Session 15 Third way

Politics and social life are so deeply related that one cannot have a political ideology without defining the economic system first. There is no essence of neutrality between economic systems. Being democratic by default means choosing capitalism and choosing Communism automatically means choosing Socialism. The idea of a "third way" is deeply intriguing as social democracy emerged as an amalgamation of both supposedly antithetical systems. This left wing version of social capitalsm takes on a neutral stance and its idea is to use reformist and gradualistic methods to achieve its ends. It sserts the only practical form of a constitutional representative democracy under the rule of law. They are meant to advocate universal social rights such as healthcare, education, public services and are often linked to trade unionism in attempts at getting workers rights through collective bargaining. Most social democrats shifted their emphasis away from marxism towards ammending social policies to form a transition from capital to socialism in a milder and civilized manner. The Third way is hence a major faction that claims at being the only true socially democratic party.

This idea that the state needs to provide security and equality for its citizens while giving them their rights in the perfect balance is so beautiful that it reorders society for conducive developments that gradually transition the society to a democratically elected but socialist style of governance. While having similar names, it differs greatly from democratic socialism. Even though social democracy has not been very popular or been applied practically, Social democratic thought gained a lot of popularity in post-war eastern Europe. Scandanavian countries are the most recent example of welfare state models and are proving to work effectively. In my opinion, they are workign effectively and efficiently and this system can turn to be the ultimate answer to all our probllems that democracy is unable to adress.