×
Create a new article
Write your page title here:
We currently have 6,029 articles on Polcompball Anarchy Wiki. Type your article name above or create one of the articles listed here!



    Polcompball Anarchy Wiki

    Agrarian Social Democracy


    Agrarian Social Democracy (also known as Social Agrarianism) is a center-left political ideology which combines Agrarianism with Social Democracy. He stresses widespread ownership of wealth-generating property, political decentralization, and a preference for small communities in the context of a well-regulated market economy with generous welfare programs. Despite having similar goals to Christian Democracy and Distributism, he tends to support secularism and other progressive causes. (The ideology itself is culturally variable, however.) He can also be seen as a moderate form of Agrarian Socialism.

    Beliefs

    Core Tenants

    Though not to the extent of Socialism, Agrarian Social Democracy is more radical in his opposition to economic inequality than SocDem. Especially after the latter adopted a pro-growth neoliberal stances in the late 20th century. He believes excess inequality, monopoly, and monopsony is a threat to democratic institutions and human rights; through lobbying and bribery the wealthiest have the loudest voices, breeding avraice and corruption. AgSocDem prefers local-level production and consumption.

    This contempt for inequality and preference for localism manifests in the form of suppressing wealth concentration in favor of widespread property ownership. He has various means of achieving this, although not universally accepted by his followers, including:

    • Policies designed to increase competition.
    • The breaking up of large industries and trusts (e.g., Big Pharma, Big Tech, Big Banking, and Big Oil).
    • Limiting business size directly through other anti-trust legislation (e.g., outlawing vertical integration).
    • Decentralizing currency through community banks and credit unions, while also limiting or prohibiting interest or usury.
    • A tax on the unimproved value of land to deprive the landed elites of a tool to suppress unlanded commoners.
    • Wealth caps (like the maximum wage).
    • Subsidies and tax incentives for family-owned small businesses and farms (e.g., self-employment assistance, tax breaks, and generous loans for aspiring entrepreneurs and start-ups).
    • Removing or reforming unfair business privileges—like limited liability, patents, and ineffective regulations—to level the playing field.
    • And protection of local industries and farmers.

    AgSocDem supports locally-owned businesses, worker-owned enterprises (which are usually small-scale), collective farms, and smallholdings. He sees small-scale producers as more innovative, accountable, greener, and a stepping stone towards autonomous local communities. Loans for entry-level farmers, tax incentives for agricultural co-ops, and discouraging land speculation also empowers rural areas.

    However, in cases of natural monopoly and necessary economies of scale like electricity and aircraft manufacturing, AgSocDem usually supports state-owned enterprises (SOEs) or sovereign wealth funds (SWFs). Profits generated will go towards safety nets, infrastructure, education, and subsidies for local entrepreneurs. A great example of this is the Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO)—a for-profit state-owned enterprise which sells alcohol in shops. LCBO's profits, ranging in the billions, go towards Ontario's provincial programs and functions. As of 2019 they sell hard liquor, wine, and beer.

    AgSocDem also supports decentralized welfare programs and regulatory agencies. Canada's Medicaid is a great example of the former—it is mandated and funded primarily by the federal government, but provincially and locally supplied. Most welfare programs in Denmark are coordinated and financed on the municipal level. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) in the United States is a regulatory agency; though having a federal office which sets minimum standards, the rest is handled by regional, state, and local offices with autonomy.

    AgSocDem is culturally variable. In the West he's usually a civil libertarian; others are progressive, seeing urban inequality as holding back positive scientific, medical, and technological advances. Followers tends to like direct democracy and a constitution protecting human rights. Many AgSocDem followers may see a strong central government as necessary for creating their ideal system. Others may champion achieving their reforms on the local or provincial level instead.

    Summary

    • Agrarian Social Democracy supports widespread ownership of the means of production, seeking to promote small businesses, worker co-ops, collective farms, and smallholdings while suppressing big enterprises and wealth inequality.
    • He favors the municipalization and/or nationalization of key sectors and industries; especially areas prone to natural monopoly, requiring large-scale production, or related to military production.
    • He wants to achieve economic decentralization through wealth caps, anti-trust legislation, pro-competition policies, and (sometimes) protectionism; doing so lends itself to political decentralization.
    • He also favors decentralized or local-level welfare programs and regulatory agencies to (a) ensure a minimum standard of living for all citizens and (b) to protect workers from abusive, exploitative predicaments.
    • And his followers typically despise central or fractional reserving banking, preferring community banks, credit unions, and fiscal policy over monetary policy.

    History

    Jeffersonian Democracy

    The Democratic-Republican Party was founded by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison to oppose Alexander Hamilton's policies. They were opposed to industrialization, central banking (usually), and protectionism (outside of war). They supported republicanism, universal suffrage, local-level production, and free trade. Their strongest supporters were small farmers, low-level merchants, and craftsmen.

    Thomas Jefferson called for maximizing financial independence. For a society where people are dependent on employers for survival will corrupt republican institutions. Wealthy industrialists will have the loudest voices, influencing their dependent workers into supporting their causes, buying out politicians, etc. Jefferson also predicted industrialization would force Americans to endure immense psychological suffering and less overall autonomy. Jefferson's solution was to promote the yeoman farmer—those who own their own farmland and subsist on it without external subversion. He also supported decentralized welfarism, land-value taxation, opposed central banking, and funded (debatably) Robert Owens. At one point he introduced a measure into the Virginian constitution guaranteeing every Virginian 50 acres of land. Being the natural physiocrat he was, he supported free trade.

    Jefferson's attacks on the Industrial Revolution and his agriculture-based solution would be mirrored, though likely unintentionally, by neo-Luddists like Theodore Kaczynski centuries later. LibLeft ideologues would later claim Jefferson as one of their own. This includes Benjamin Tucker, who called himself an "unterrified Jeffersonian democrat."

    The War of 1812 convinced James Madison of the need for a central bank and federal public works. But as President and working within Virginia's government, he pushed for universal suffrage, land grants for small farmers, and expanded American territory after Jefferson's Louisiana Purchase. Andrew Jackson as President of the United States would:

    • Dissolve the National Bank in favor of a decentralized banking system.
    • Expand voting rights to all white men, ending the property requirements favored by Federalists like Alexander Hamilton and John Adams.
    • Promote free trade (apart from war-related tariffs which sparked the Nullification Crisis).
    • Push for westward expansion to give farmers more land to acquire and subsist on. The yeoman farmer ideal played a significant role in Manifest Destiny.

    Though an Independent like Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Paine's vision for society was similar to Jefferson's. He viewed economic equality as essential to sustaining a republican system, which he defined as freedom from domination. He thus called for widespread ownership of productive property. In Agrarian Justice, Paine discusses how Indian tribes have no poverty—that their work is akin to play, that starvation doesn't exist food is available to all, and that they lead more fulfilling lives—and attributes this to them treating land and natural resources as common property. (His apparent admiration for indigenous Americans echoed later anarcho-primitivist appraisal of hunter-gathering societies.) To achieve the same thing in a modern context he proposed a tax on land. If one were to occupy or use land, they would pay a tax for excluding others from it. The revenue derived from that tax would fund a basic income—justice for denying to others what rightfully belongs to all.

    Clann na Talmhan

    Clann na Talmhan ("Family of the Land") was formed in 1939 to represent the interests of small farmers. By the 1940s it combined Ruralism with Welfarism. The party promoted small businesses, aggressive afforestation, land reclamation, progressive taxation, populism, free secondary and tertiary education, and single-payer healthcare. Michael Donnellan, the party's founder himself a farmer, also wanted direct land redistribution from inefficient large landholders to small-scale farmers.

    Bull Moose Progressivism

    W.I.P.

    Agrarian Liberal Parties

    Although not explicitly social democratic and declaring themselves centrists, the Nordic Model is the Overton window in Scandinavian countries. These agrarian parties typically combine a commitment to liberal ideas with support for farmers, small businesses, problems within rural communities, political decentralization, and environmentalism. They usually also oppose further political and economic centralization. Examples include:

    Ideology Relations

    Friends

    • Agrarian Socialism - My farming buddy who taught me the importance of community and widespread property ownership.
    • Social Democracy - He helped me realize my vision can be achieved through regulated markets and welfare. But please embrace the rural pill.
    • Social Georgism - Now we're talking!
    • Social Capitalism - Some of my proponents are you with an agrarian twist.
    • Bull Moose Progressivism - We need you again now more than ever. La Follette was also pretty based.
    • Jeffersonian Democracy - He likes widespread property ownership and localized welfarism like me. He also predicted the mess of modern society.
    • Jacksonian Democracy - Fuck the bankers.
    • Georgism - Fuck the landlords.
    • Distributist Social Democracy - Hey, you have the best of both social democracy and distributism AND you're a ruralist? I've just found my bride.
    • Multiagriculturalism - Who needs food that was grown on large corporate farms when you can have food grown in your local family-own farm? Organic farming and mixed crops for the win!

    Frenemies

    • Lukashenkoism - Look, I like your economic policies a lot, but why are you such an authoritarian clown?
    • Distributism - You have based economics but I'll pass on the Catholic stuff.
    • Christian Democracy - Your economics is often more based than his these days, but please keep your religion to yourself.
    • Strasserism - I raise similar criticisms of them to you.
    • Social Distributism - I like you, but I'm not too big on Fourth Political Theory.

    Enemies

    Personality

    AgSocDem can be portrayed as a stereotypical countryside inhabitant but is concerned with how inequality will ruin the character of his farm or town. He often romanticizes the economy of the 1950s, where small businesses were abundant and social inequality was low thanks to the social democratic policies of FDR and Truman.

    How to Draw

    Flag of Agrarian Social Democracy
    1. Draw a ball.
    2. Fill the left half with a dark green and the right with a dirt brown.
    3. Draw a golden rose on the bottom of the ball.
    4. Add the eyes.
    5. If you wish, add a straw hat or cap.
    6. Done.
    Color Name HEX RGB
    Brown #674119 103, 65, 25
    Green #046700 4, 103, 0
    Gold #ECBD00 236, 189, 0


    Comments

    - This ideology is based. :)

    Glencoe- not bad though i am not a fan of agrarianism though there is a certain appeal to this ideology.

    Duck-Citizen - It became worse.


    Cookies help us deliver our services. By using our services, you agree to our use of cookies.

    Recent changes

  • Abrokendoor • 23 minutes ago
  • Zzankara • 23 minutes ago
  • Zzankara • 25 minutes ago
  • Zzankara • 26 minutes ago
  • Cookies help us deliver our services. By using our services, you agree to our use of cookies.