Reformist in the context of "Socialist movement"

Social democracy is a social, economic, and political philosophy within socialism that supports political and economic democracy and a gradualist, reformist, and democratic approach toward achieving social equality. In modern practice, social democracy has taken the form of democratic socialism, a robust welfare state, policies promoting social justice, market regulation, and a more equitable distribution of income.

Social democracy maintains a commitment to representative and participatory democracy. Common aims include curbing inequality, eliminating the oppression of underprivileged groups, eradicating poverty, and upholding universally accessible public services such as child care, education, elderly care, health care, and workers' compensation. Economically, it supports income redistribution and regulating the economy in the public interest.

The Fabian Society (/ˈfeɪbiən/) is a British socialist organisation whose purpose is to advance the principles of social democracy and democratic socialism via gradualist and reformist effort in democracies, rather than by revolutionary overthrow. It was historically related to some of the furthest left factions of radicalism, a left-wing liberal tradition.

As one of the founding organisations of the Labour Representation Committee in 1900, and as an important influence upon the Labour Party which grew from it, the Fabian Society has strongly influenced British politics. Members of the Fabian Society have included political leaders from other countries, such as Jawaharlal Nehru and Lee Kuan Yew, who adopted Fabian principles as part of their own political ideologies. The Fabian Society founded the London School of Economics in 1895.

A mixed economy is an economic system that includes both elements associated with capitalism, such as private businesses, and with socialism, such as nationalized government services.

More specifically, a mixed economy may be variously defined as an economic system blending elements of a market economy with elements of a planned economy, markets with state interventionism, or private enterprise with public enterprise. Common to all mixed economies is a combination of free-market principles and principles of socialism. Alternatively, a mixed economy can refer to a reformist transitionary phase to a socialist economy that allows a substantial role for private enterprise and contracting within a dominant economic framework of public ownership. This can extend to a Soviet-type planned economy that has been reformed to incorporate a greater role for markets in the allocation of factors of production.

Giorgio Napolitano (Italian: [ˈdʒordʒo napoliˈtaːno]; 29 June 1925 – 22 September 2023) was an Italian politician who served as President of Italy from 2006 to 2015. At the time the longest-serving president in Italian history and the first to achieve re-election, he played a dominant role in Italian politics, leading some critics to refer to him as Re Giorgio ("King Giorgio").

Napolitano was a longtime member of the Italian Communist Party, which he joined in 1945 after taking part in the Italian resistance movement, and of its post-Communist democratic socialist and social democratic successors, from the Democratic Party of the Left to the Democrats of the Left. He was a leading member of migliorismo, a reformist, moderate, and modernizing faction on the right-wing of the PCI, which was inspired by the values of democratic socialism, looked favourably to social democracy, and was interested in revisionist Marxism. First elected to the Chamber of Deputies in 1953, he took an assiduous interest in parliamentary life and was president of the Chamber of Deputies from 1992 to 1994. He was Minister of the Interior from 1996 to 1998 during the first Prodi government. A close friend of Henry Kissinger, he was also the first high-ranking leader of a communist party to visit the United States, which he did in 1978.

Progressivism in the United States is a left-leaning political philosophy and reform movement. Into the 21st century, it advocates policies that are generally considered social democratic and part of the American Left. It has also expressed itself within center-right politics, such as New Nationalism and progressive conservatism. It reached its height early in the 20th century. Middle/working class and reformist in nature, it arose as a response to the vast changes brought by modernization, such as the growth of large corporations, pollution, and corruption in American politics. Historian Alonzo Hamby describes American progressivism as a "political movement that addresses ideas, impulses, and issues stemming from modernization of American society. Emerging at the end of the nineteenth century, it established much of the tone of American politics throughout the first half of the century."

Progressive economic policies incorporate the socioeconomic principles and views of social democracy and political progressivism. These views are often rooted in the concept of social justice and have the goal of improving the human condition through government regulation, social protections, and the maintenance of public goods. It is based on the idea that capitalist markets left to operate with limited government regulation are inherently unfair, favoring big business, large corporations, and the wealthy. Specific economic policies that are considered progressive include progressive taxes, income redistribution aimed at reducing inequalities of wealth, a comprehensive package of public services, universal health care, resisting involuntary unemployment, public education, social security, minimum wage laws, antitrust laws, legislation protecting labor rights, and the rights of labor unions. While the modern progressive movement may be characterized as largely secular in nature, the historical progressive movement was by comparison to a significant extent rooted in and energized by religion.

Democratic socialism is a left-wing economic and political philosophy that supports political democracy and some form of a socially owned economy, with a particular emphasis on economic democracy, workplace democracy, and workers' self-management within a market socialist, decentralised planned, or democratic centrally planned socialist economy. Democratic socialists argue that capitalism is inherently incompatible with the values of freedom, equality, and solidarity and that these ideals can only be achieved through the realisation of a socialist society. Although most democratic socialists seek a gradual transition to socialism, democratic socialism can support revolutionary or reformist politics to establish socialism. Democratic socialism was popularised by socialists who opposed the backsliding towards a one-party state in the Soviet Union and other countries during the 20th century. In Scandinavian countries as well as others, people often use "social democracy" and "democratic socialism" interchangeably to describe leftist movements aiming for gradual, democratic reform.

The history of democratic socialism can be traced back to 19th-century socialist thinkers across Europe and the Chartist movement in Britain, which somewhat differed in their goals but shared a common demand for democratic decision-making and public ownership of the means of production and viewed these as fundamental characteristics of the society they advocated for. From the late 19th to the early 20th century, democratic socialism was heavily influenced by the gradualist form of socialism promoted by the British Fabian Society and Eduard Bernstein's evolutionary socialism in Germany.

Impossibilism is a Marxist theory that stresses the limited value of political, economic, and social reforms under capitalism. As a doctrine, impossibilism views the pursuit of such reforms as counterproductive to the goal of achieving socialism as they stabilize, and therefore strengthen, support for capitalism. Impossibilism holds that reforms to capitalism are irrelevant or outright counter-productive to the goal of achieving socialism and should not be a major focus of socialist politics.

Impossibilists insist that socialists should primarily or solely focus on structural changes (sometimes termed "revolutionary changes") to society as opposed to advancing social reforms. Impossibilists argue that spontaneous revolutionary action is the only viable method of instituting the structural changes necessary for the construction of socialism; impossibilism is thus held in contrast to reformist socialist parties that aim to rally support for socialism through the implementation of popular social reforms (such as a welfare state). It is also held in contrast to those who believe that socialism can emerge through gradual economic reforms implemented by an elected social democratic political party.

The Prague Spring (Czech: Pražské jaro; Slovak: Pražská jar) was a period of political liberalization and mass protest in the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic. It began on 5 January 1968, when reformist Alexander Dubček was elected First Secretary of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSČ), and continued until 21 August 1968, when the Soviet Union and three other Warsaw Pact members (Bulgaria, Hungary and Poland) invaded the country to suppress the reforms.

The Prague Spring reforms were an attempt by Dubček to grant additional rights to the citizens of Czechoslovakia in an act of partial decentralization of the economy and democratization. The freedoms granted included a loosening of restrictions on the media, speech and travel. After national discussion of dividing the country into a federation of three republics, Bohemia, Moravia–Silesia and Slovakia, Dubček oversaw the decision to split into two, the Czech Socialist Republic and Slovak Socialist Republic. This dual federation was the only formal change that survived the invasion.

Socialism in the United Kingdom is thought to stretch back to the 19th century from roots arising in the English Civil War. It has taken many different forms from the utopian philanthropism of Robert Owen through to the reformist electoral project enshrined in the Labour Party that was founded in 1900 and nationalised a fifth of the British economy in the late 1940s.