Reformism in the context of "Progressivism"

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⭐ Core Definition: Reformism

Reformism is a political tendency advocating the reform of an existing system or institution – often a political or religious establishment – as opposed to its abolition and replacement via revolution.

Within the socialist movement, reformism is the view that gradual changes through existing institutions can eventually lead to fundamental changes in a society's political and economic systems. Reformism as a political tendency and hypothesis of social change grew out of opposition to revolutionary socialism, which contends that revolutionary upheaval is a necessary precondition for the structural changes necessary to transform a capitalist system into a qualitatively different socialist system. Responding to a pejorative conception of reformism as non-transformational, philosopher André Gorz conceived non-reformist reform in 1987 to prioritize human needs over capitalist needs.

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👉 Reformism in the context of Progressivism

Progressivism is a left-leaning political philosophy and reform movement that seeks to advance the human condition through social reform. Adherents hold that progressivism has universal application and endeavor to spread this idea to human societies everywhere. Progressivism arose during the Age of Enlightenment out of the belief that civility in Europe was improving due to the application of new empirical knowledge.

In modern political discourse, progressivism is often associated with social liberalism, a left-leaning type of liberalism, and social democracy. Within economic progressivism, there is some ideological variety on the social liberal to social democrat continuum, as well as occasionally some variance on cultural issues; examples of this include some Christian democrat and conservative-leaning communitarian movements. While many ideologies can fall under the banner of progressivism, both the current and historical movement are characterized by a critique of unregulated capitalism, desiring a more active democratic government to take a role in safeguarding human rights, bringing about cultural development, and being a check-and-balance on corporate monopolies.

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Reformism in the context of Republican People's Party

The Republican People's Party (Turkish: Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi [dʒumhuːɾiˈjet haɫk 'paɾtisi] , CHP [dʒeːheːpeˑ]) is a Kemalist and social democratic political party in Turkey. It is the oldest political party in Turkey, founded by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the first president and founder of the modern Republic of Türkiye. The party is also cited as the founding party of modern Turkey. Its logo consists of the Six Arrows, which represent the foundational principles of Kemalism: republicanism, reformism, laicism, populism, nationalism, and statism. It is currently the second largest party in Grand National Assembly with 139 MPs, behind the ruling conservative Justice and Development Party (AKP).

The political party has its origins in the various resistance groups founded during the Turkish War of Independence, with most members being previously associated with the Committee of Union and Progress. Under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, they united in the 1919 Sivas Congress. In 1923, the "People's Party", soon adding the word "Republican" to its name, declared itself to be a political organisation and announced the establishment of the Turkish Republic, with Atatürk as its first president. As Turkey moved into its authoritarian one-party period, the CHP was the apparatus of implementing far reaching political, cultural, social, and economic reforms in the country.

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Reformism in the context of Criticism of capitalism

Criticism of capitalism typically ranges from expressing disagreement with particular aspects or outcomes of capitalism to rejecting the principles of the capitalist system in its entirety. Criticism comes from various political and philosophical approaches, including anarchist, socialist, religious, and nationalist viewpoints. Some believe that capitalism can only be overcome through revolution while others believe that structural change can come slowly through political reforms. Some critics believe there are merits in capitalism and wish to balance it with some form of social control, typically through government regulation (e.g. the social market movement).

Prominent among critiques of capitalism are accusations that capitalism is inherently exploitative, alienating, unstable, unsustainable, and creates massive economic inequality, commodifies people, is anti-democratic, leads to an erosion of human rights and national sovereignty while it incentivises imperialist expansion and war, and that it benefits a small minority at the expense of the majority of the population. There are also criticisms from environmental scientists and activists, leftists, degrowthers and others, that it depletes resources, causes climate change, biodiversity loss, topsoil loss, eutrophication, and generates massive amounts of pollution and waste.

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Reformism in the context of Mensheviks

The Mensheviks (lit.'the Minority') were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) which split with Vladimir Lenin's Bolshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903. Mensheviks held more moderate and reformist views as compared to the Bolsheviks, and were led by figures including Julius Martov and Pavel Axelrod.

The initial point of disagreement was the Mensheviks' support for a broad party membership, as opposed to Lenin's support for a smaller party of professional revolutionaries. The Bolsheviks gained a majority on the Central Committee in 1903, although the power of the two factions fluctuated in the following years. Mensheviks were associated with Georgi Plekhanov's position that a bourgeois-democratic revolution and period of capitalism would need to occur before the conditions for a socialist revolution emerged. Some Mensheviks, notably Alexander Potresov, called for the party to suspend illegal revolutionary work to focus more on trade union work (legal since 1906) and elections to the Duma; this was condemned by Lenin.

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Reformism in the context of Republican People's Party (Turkey)

The Republican People's Party is a Kemalist and social democratic political party in Turkey. It is the oldest political party in Turkey, founded by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the first president and founder of the modern Republic of Turkey. The party is also cited as the founding party of modern Turkey. Its logo consists of the Six Arrows, which represent the foundational principles of Kemalism: republicanism, reformism, laicism, populism, nationalism, and statism. It is currently the second largest party in Grand National Assembly with 139 MPs, behind the ruling conservative Justice and Development Party (AKP).

The political party has its origins in the various resistance groups founded during the Turkish War of Independence, with most members being previously associated with the Committee of Union and Progress. Under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, they united in the 1919 Sivas Congress. In 1923, the "People's Party", soon adding the word "Republican" to its name, declared itself to be a political organisation and announced the establishment of the Turkish Republic, with Atatürk as its first president. As Turkey moved into its authoritarian one-party period, the CHP was the apparatus of implementing far reaching political, cultural, social, and economic reforms in the country.

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Reformism in the context of Gradualist

Gradualism, from the Latin gradus ("step"), is a hypothesis, a theory or a tenet assuming that change comes about gradually or that variation is gradual in nature and happens over time as opposed to in large steps. Uniformitarianism, incrementalism, and reformism are similar concepts.

Gradualism can also refer to desired, controlled change in society, institutions, or policies. For example, social democrats and democratic socialists see the socialist society as achieved through gradualism.

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Reformism in the context of Tendency of the rate of profit to fall

The tendency of the rate of profit to fall (TRPF) is a theory in the crisis theory of political economy, according to which the rate of profit—the ratio of the profit to the amount of invested capital—decreases over time. This hypothesis gained additional prominence from its discussion by Karl Marx in Chapter 13 of Capital, Volume III, but economists as diverse as Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill, David Ricardo and William Stanley Jevons referred explicitly to the TRPF as an empirical phenomenon that demanded further theoretical explanation, although they differed on the reasons why the TRPF should necessarily occur. Some scholars, such as David Harvey, argue against the TRPF as a quantitative phenomenon, arguing it is an internal logic driving the movement of capital itself.

Geoffrey Hodgson stated that the theory of the TRPF "has been regarded, by most Marxists, as the backbone of revolutionary Marxism. According to this view, its refutation or removal would lead to reformism in theory and practice". Stephen Cullenberg stated that the TRPF "remains one of the most important and highly debated issues of all of economics" because it raises "the fundamental question of whether, as capitalism grows, this very process of growth will undermine its conditions of existence and thereby engender periodic or secular crises."

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