Why socialists should vote Lib Dem.

Kate Belgrave posed this question on this very site when replying to Jennie Rigg. Kate seems to be slowly warming to the idea but nonetheless I think it is a relevant question. The first thing to note is that there are doctrinal differences between liberals and socialists; they largely arise in different attitudes to capitalism and how to deal with it. Socialists want to replace it and liberals want to promote it while protecting the most vulnerable members of society. Of course, this is a sweeping generalisation which doesn’t do nearly enough justice to the complexities of the issue but it will have to do for now.

However, if we are being entirely honest, socialists don’t really have much of a clue what to replace capitalism with anymore following the failure of social democracy and communism. This is not the place to discuss why those two things failed but it does lead us to make an important discovery; the doctrinal differences are narrower now than at any time in history. Liberals and socialists share a common interest in the preservation and protection of the lower strata of society. continue reading… »