AHC: East Asian Social Democracy

[spoonzandforkz]

Here's a definition for clarification:
"It is characterized by a commitment to policies aimed at curbing inequality, eliminating oppression of underprivileged groups and eradicating poverty[12] as well as support for universally accessible public services like care for the elderly, child care, education, health care and workers' compensation.

Perhaps what many Americans would characterise the government's of Scandinavia or Canada, for example.

Since most East Asian nations are mostly led by neoliberal capitalist governments, usually with weak social safety nets, how could it be that the countries instead be known for social democratic and welfarist policies aimed at curbing wealth inequality? (Bonus if China is included, since it's non-democratic today)

 

[alpha]

Here's a definition for clarification:
"It is characterized by a commitment to policies aimed at curbing inequality, eliminating oppression of underprivileged groups and eradicating poverty[12] as well as support for universally accessible public services like care for the elderly, child care, education, health care and workers' compensation.

Perhaps what many Americans would characterise the government's of Scandinavia or Canada, for example.

Since most East Asian nations are mostly led by neoliberal capitalist governments, usually with weak social safety nets, how could it be that the countries instead be known for social democratic and welfarist policies aimed at curbing wealth inequality? (Bonus if China is included, since it's non-democratic today)

Maybe Ming China, Roman Empire (for its citizens), Ancient Egypt are a few good examples. Heck even the Incans qualify

 

[Lord High Executioner]

Here's a definition for clarification:
"It is characterized by a commitment to policies aimed at curbing inequality, eliminating oppression of underprivileged groups and eradicating poverty[12] as well as support for universally accessible public services like care for the elderly, child care, education, health care and workers' compensation.

Perhaps what many Americans would characterise the government's of Scandinavia or Canada, for example.

Since most East Asian nations are mostly led by neoliberal capitalist governments, usually with weak social safety nets, how could it be that the countries instead be known for social democratic and welfarist policies aimed at curbing wealth inequality? (Bonus if China is included, since it's non-democratic today)

It suddenly struck me that, paradoxically, the samurai (by late Tokugawa or so) could have been made amenable to such "social democratic and welfarist
policies". One of the big social-political-economic issues of Japan at the time was that the samurai class was in charge, but a lot of them were pretty poor
(and not very much in charge) while the merchant class had the money (but neither status or formal power).
And Tokugawa Japan was pretty neoliberal, because the people in charge didn't care all that much what the merchants and craftsmen in the cities got
up to as long as it didn't threaten the status quo (if memory serves they didn't even, technically speaking, pay taxes).
Slip the right translated books past the censors (who, I've been lead to believe, are themselves not excessively paid samurai) and into the right hands,
and you may see something of a revoluform.

 

[kholieken]

Modern Taiwan might fulfill that criteria. It had singlepayer healthcare, strong LGBT, and made improvement to Cultural and Economy of Taiwanese Aborigine.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthcare_in_Taiwan

Note: neoliberalism is compatible with social democracy. Sweden and Canada had very active entrepeneur and low corporate taxes. High tax on middle class (through VAT and other ways) pays for welfare.

 

[Wendell]

This is arguably OTL with Japan's constitution post-World War II.

 

[raharris1973]

East Asian tiger capitalism manages to get GINI coefficient outcomes that aren't too far off from Scandinavia and Canada, or that are closer to them in equality than the US is.

 

[Optical_Illusion]

It might be tricky to get an exact thing; I've read different theories about the rise of "social democracy", and they tend to push for factors which seem less present in East Asia. Suggest it arises from a particular combination of dissatisfaction with particularly high income inequality in Nordic countries in late 19th and early 20th (higher than USA of the same time - https://www.ssb.no/en/forskning/discussion-papers/_attachment/271393 for Norway, but Sweden and Denmark no different), perception of historical longer term equality, individualistic society where public welfare provides alternative to ascribed group membership based welfare, avoidance of revolutionary socialist politics.

The social framework in Japan and East Asia is different; the dynamic apparently more of social groups (families, companies) "looking after their own" and long term fixed relationships, which inhibits very big public states, but somewhat which also inhibits market based salary maximisation where "superstars" shop around for high salaries (exceptions abound though; Singapore for instance, has a pretty high social tolerance for income inequality).

"Social democracy" then more likely in those hyper-individualistic societies, where people feel less able to rely on liberal (market and employer based) or conservative (religion and family based) forms of welfare, or are resentful when doing so, and where individualism drives higher levels of "before tax" income inequality.

(This is of course a somewhat negative characterisation, as I do not regard social democracy as anything aspirational; you could also put a more positive spin on it and say that individualism allows individuals to come together across different social strata, if you wanted to or were more sympathetic to SD.)

 

[Lord High Executioner]

"Social democracy" then more likely in those hyper-individualistic societies, where people feel less able to rely on liberal (market and employer based) or conservative (religion and family based) forms of welfare, or are resentful when doing so, and where individualism drives higher levels of "before tax" income inequality.

I think this may be the first time I've seen Sweden described as hyper-individualistic, especially before the rise of social democracy.
(There is the concept of statist individualism, but that didn't become prominent until the 1960s or so.)

 

[Optical_Illusion]

@Lord High Executioner, they tend to get "top score" on individualism factors (whether constructed or "naturally" splitting out from factor analysis) when people do these cross-cultural analyses, like Hofstede, where they ask people questions about values and lifestyle (EDIT, checking, more pronounced on the Inglehart type big factor analyses, with hand-tuned ones more rigged against thst). It seems fair to call the top-scorers on individualism scales hyper-individualistic (There are reasons US like to use them as a test market for advertising as well for'ex). Descriptive accounts of social democracy often stress this hyper-individualistic desire to use the state to be loosened from any ties to collective institutions like family and religion, which provide social support in exchange for loyalty, behavioural restrictions. Of course ppl often burble on about "rugged individualism" in context of individualism, but very little about that seems correct...

 

[Admiral Fischer]

Relevant statistics.

(Korea's case)

The contrast I'd like to highlight is that, in Scandinavian cases like Sweden, pre-tax inequality is high, but it's state taxation and redistribution that brings down the said inequality, whereas in Korea and Japan, pre-tax inequality is not severe to begin with, and doesn't change much after taxation as well. We were doing this without transplanting Western social democracy onto the society.

 

[Lord High Executioner]

@Lord High Executioner, they tend to get "top score" on individualism factors (whether constructed or "naturally" splitting out from factor analysis) when people do these cross-cultural analyses, like Hofstede, where they ask people questions about values and lifestyle (EDIT, checking, more pronounced on the Inglehart type big factor analyses, with hand-tuned ones more rigged against thst). It seems fair to call the top-scorers on individualism scales hyper-individualistic (There are reasons US like to use them as a test market for advertising as well for'ex). Descriptive accounts of social democracy often stress this hyper-individualistic desire to use the state to be loosened from any ties to collective institutions like family and religion, which provide social support in exchange for loyalty, behavioural restrictions. Of course ppl often burble on about "rugged individualism" in context of individualism, but very little about that seems correct...

Perhaps, but it seems to me that you're putting the cart before the horse.
We're not social democratic because we're hyper-individualistic, we're hyper-individualistic because we have been social democratic for decades/generations
and because the theory/ideology of statist individualism was developed and implemented.

Sidenote: By the way, you really shouldn't shorten social democracy/democrats to SD, when there may be Swedes around. SD is Sverigedemokraterna,
who are on the far right (even if their nostalgia harkens back to the days when the Social Democrats were firmly in charge).

 

[Optical_Illusion]

I think you might need measurements before and after to really have a good reason to favour either course and any required survey measurement data is lacking (and always will be, short a time machine). It seems more theoretically plausible to me that the political end is downstream of the culture; it's more of a politics others didn't want or need, because of cultural differences than a sort of political advance that remakes the culture.

 

[GuildedAgeNostalgia]

Independent Tibet? Could Tibetan Buddhism blend well with social democracy similar to certain Christian Democratic Parties across the west?

 

[sampleswift]

Does modern Japan/South Korea count? Or are these non-modern examples?

 

[Beacon]

A Sikh Empire that didn't fall to the British might meet the requirements here.