Social Democracy in the Making Quotes

“Charles Fourier, in France, and Robert Owen, in England, propounded the original idea of socialism in the 1820s. It was to achieve the unrealized demands of the French Revolution, which never reached the working class. Instead of pitting workers against each other, a cooperative mode of production and exchange would allow them to work for each other. Socialism was about reorganizing society as a cooperative community.”
― Gary Dorrien, Social Democracy in the Making: Political and Religious Roots of European Socialism

“In England and North America it was predominantly cooperative, progressive, social ethical, and pragmatic, usually fusing liberal and democratic elements, with less opposition from ecclesiastical establishments than Christian socialists experienced elsewhere.”
― Gary Dorrien, Social Democracy in the Making: Political and Religious Roots of European Socialism

“Early Christian socialism in England, Germany, Switzerland, the United States, and Canada was a creative response to the social ravages of unfettered nineteenth-century capitalism.”
― Gary Dorrien, Social Democracy in the Making: Political and Religious Roots of European Socialism

“the greatest democratic socialist achievements occur through organizations that begin with the everyday praxis of unions and social movements; dismantle structures of racial, gender, sex, class, and imperial domination; welcome religious allies; renew the struggles for freedom, equality, and cooperative community; and care for the planet’s ecological health.”
― Gary Dorrien, Social Democracy in the Making: Political and Religious Roots of European Socialism

“a reminder of the nineteenth-century dream of democratic socialism—a fully democratized society in which the people control the economy and government, no group dominates any other, and every citizen is free, equal, and included.”
― Gary Dorrien, Social Democracy in the Making: Political and Religious Roots of European Socialism

“Communism was precisely the abolition of and liberation from the rule of human products that gains power over human communities, grows out of control, constrains human expectations, and blights the lives of many.”
― Gary J. Dorrien, Social Democracy in the Making: Political and Religious Roots of European Socialism

“Socialism” became an English word in 1827, when Cooperative Magazine described Welsh reformer Robert Owen (1771–1858) as a socialist—an advocate of the view that industrial wealth should be owned in common, on a cooperative basis. Owen was the first Briton to grasp the meaning of the Industrial Revolution.”
― Gary J. Dorrien, Social Democracy in the Making: Political and Religious Roots of European Socialism

“Christian socialists were not even democrats, although they learned to say that socialism had to be democratic. They said socialism was a modern name for the unifying and cooperative divine order that already exists.”
― Gary J. Dorrien, Social Democracy in the Making: Political and Religious Roots of European Socialism

“Marx stepped into history as the coauthor of the Communist Manifesto of 1848. Capitalism, he said, stood for the rule of human products over human communities. It gained power, grew out of control, constrained human expectations, and blighted the lives of the overwhelming majority, the working-class proletariat. Communism was precisely the abolition of capitalist tyranny and liberation from it.”
― Gary J. Dorrien, Social Democracy in the Making: Political and Religious Roots of European Socialism

“I believe that the best candidate for an essential “something” in democratic socialism is the ethical passion for social justice and radical democratic community. This ethical impulse retains the original socialist idea in multiple forms, playing out in struggles for freedom, equality, recognition, and democratic commonwealth, conceiving democracy in terms of the character of relationships in a society, not mere voting rights.”
― Gary J. Dorrien, Social Democracy in the Making: Political and Religious Roots of European Socialism

“Socialism was about reorganizing society as a cooperative community.”
― Gary J. Dorrien, Social Democracy in the Making: Political and Religious Roots of European Socialism

“In Germany Christian socialism had a stronger ideological and statist character as a consequence of yearning for, and then defending, a unified state. Here, Christian socialists had to fight off a Social Democratic movement that was hostile to religion and established churches that were hostile to trade unions and socialism.”
― Gary Dorrien, Social Democracy in the Making: Political and Religious Roots of European Socialism

“democratic socialism has never been one thing only. For much of its history it has been a theory of Social Democratic governance, yet most democratic socialist traditions have in their DNA the dream of a socialist state that votes itself out of existence. The contradictions in the idea of a “socialist state” alone have yielded different kinds of democratic socialism. Other factors multiplied the possibilities. This book describes and interprets the Social Democratic and Christian socialist backstory to where we are today.”
― Gary Dorrien, Social Democracy in the Making: Political and Religious Roots of European Socialism

“the worldview of the Socialist International enunciated at its 1962 conference in Oslo, Norway: “We democratic Socialists proclaim our conviction that the ultimate aim of political activity is the fullest development of every human personality, that liberty and democratic self-government are precious rights which must not be surrendered; that every individual is entitled to equal status, consideration and opportunity; that discrimination on grounds of race, color, nationality, creed or sex must be opposed; that the community must ensure that material resources are used for the common good rather than the enrichment of the few; above all, that freedom and equality and prosperity are not alternatives between which the people must choose but ideals which can be achieved and enjoyed together.”
― Gary Dorrien, Social Democracy in the Making: Political and Religious Roots of European Socialism