"::::TFD, if you read any serious work on the political history of the mainstream left, you'll learn that the reformist current of socialism broke away in the late-1800s to early 1900s, with the European Social Democratic parties completely severing their links to Marxist theory by the mid-20th century, and I'd thought that this was common knowledge to those familiar with the field. The Social Democratic current, which largely no longer self-identifies as socialist regardless whether some parties remain in the Socialist International or not, advocates a reformed capitalism with a large welfare state alongisde the democratic institutions condemned by the traditional Marxist left as ""bourgeois democracy""; traditional socialism asks for the replacement of capitalism by a fundamentally different system and expresses disdain for the institutions of ""bourgeois democracy"". If there are specific parties or groups you would like to discuss, I am completely willing to go along, but please point them out by name, as you've been very vague in your last couple of posts.    
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