| We often attribute the distributive reform of Western European society to the workers’ movement,but to a certain extent,we ignore the ideological basis that provides the impetus for the reform,especially the legal basis among them--social democratic legal thought.From the mid-19th century to the 1970s,in the process of leading the lower class people to carry out the social democratic movement,the social democratic parties of Western European countries formed legal thoughts with the characteristics of social democracy,which guided the specific legal practice,and had a significant and far-reaching impact on the economic and social reform of Western European society,especially the distribution reform.It has played a huge role in promoting the development of western political civilization.The social historical conditions for the formation of social democratic legal thought,as well as the development and change of the whole social democratic movement under this historical condition,constitute the historical background of social democratic legal thought.Under the specific historical background,utopian socialism thought,natural law thought,Marxism founder thought,reformism revisionism thought,constitute the main theoretical origin of social democracy legal thought.The core of the legal thought of social democracy is the view of right with the"due nature" of interests as its ontology,which is summarized as the view of right of"due interest".This view of right originated from Thomas Paine’s thought of right.Thomas Paine ’s thought of right marks the turn of classical natural jurisprudence from the view of right of "just freedom" to the view of right of "due interest".The traditional view of capitalist right takes "just freedom" as the theme,which has a great influence on the state construction and legal system of capitalism,especially the early capitalism.The concept of right with "due interest" as the theme was warmly welcomed by the lower class in the 19th and 20th centuries,and called for application by the Social Democrats,becoming the concept of right of social democracy.Supported by this core legal concept,the Social Democratic Party converts the "due interests" of Paine into the broad economic and social rights of the working class,which is the soul of the social democratic movement in Western Europe for more than a century.The social democratic concept of "due interest" has such great practical significance,but also has the same great theoretical difficulties.The legal thought of social democracy is formed under the restriction of the level of production and development of capitalist society.Under this established historical condition,workers and capitalists coexist in the basic economic relationship.The development of capitalist productive forces has not yet reached the extent to which capitalists can be excluded from this basic economic relationship.This is the main premise of the economic relationship on which social democratic legal thought is based.Under this premise,workers and capitalists have formed two levels of consensus in production and communication relations.Among them,the basic consensus of the first level is that the two sides establish employment relationship,the worker pays the labor,the capitalist pays the salary.From the middle of the 19th century,on top of the first,there was a regulatory consensus that workers should get a little more,and workers could go after what they deserved.Thus,the mutual relationship between workers and capitalists formed spontaneously contains such a consensus pattern:to obtain the due benefits of workers without fundamentally changing the basic employment relationship.The content of the consensus between workers and capitalists determines the essential rules of communication between them and establishes the regular basis for their relationship,which is called "consensus rules" in this paper.Based on consensus and consistent with consensus rules,social democratic law has obtained the deep-seated basis of economic relations,which makes the law as a superstructure play a positive role in promoting the development of economy and society,which is the success of social democratic law in a certain sense and time.For the Social Democrats,the key to obtaining the due interests of the working class lies in social and economic legislation,and the key to dominate the legislation lies in the parliamentary elections-by voting rights struggle,will be more workers class interests representatives elected to parliament,through has a sufficient number of seats and its activities leading to legislation,thus leading the rights and obligations set,finally realize the adjustment of the distribution pattern of social interests.This is the basic idea of social democratic legal thought about the realization of deserved interests.This is determined by the reform thought of social democracy without touching the basic system of capitalism,and by the national political concept of social democracy without changing the basic economic relations of capitalism.It is precisely under the guidance of the social democratic legal thought that the Social Democrats carry on the practice according to this basic idea and constantly carry out "legal struggle" for the deserved interests of the workers.Under a series of economic and social legal changes,capitalist property ownership has been restricted to some extent,workers’ right to participate in the economy and obtain welfare has been effectively guaranteed,workers’ living standards have been improved,and basic social contradictions have been eased.This contributed to the long-term economic prosperity and relative social stability of Western European society,promoted the development of commerce and industry civilization in a higher level of justice,and at the same time made social democracy itself develop to the "golden age".However,in the late 1970s,social democracy moved from the "golden age" to the "crisis period".The program,policy and law that once boasted of striving for the due interests of the working class were regarded as a "goodwill disaster" in this crisis.On the surface,the main cause of this crisis is that the cost of social democracy to pursue equal value is higher than economic growth;But actually has the deep-seated thought root.The legal thought of this root is manifested in the deviation of the understanding of law caused by the neglect of the fundamentality of material production conditions,and the unreasonable expansion of rights caused by the neglect of the historical limitation of rights.The reason why the social democratic law can succeed in a certain period of time and within a certain range is that it is consistent with the consensus rules contained in the social production and communication relations spontaneously formed by people under the conditions of capitalist material production.Within this scope,the social democratic law plays a positive role in promoting the development of economy and society;When the development of social democratic law makes it contrary to the consensus rules contained in the social production and communication relations spontaneously formed by people under the condition of capitalist material production,social democratic law plays a negative role in hindering the development of economy and society.The crisis encountered by social democracy in the late 1970s is the result of this negative role.Social democratic legal thought ignores the fundamental role of material production conditions,which determines the inevitable crisis situation in the development of social democratic law.At the same time,the development of rights is the same.Rights can never exceed the scope of consensus formed by people in social production and communication relations under specific historical conditions.This is the insurmountable historical limitation of rights.When "deserving" ignores the limitation of history and pursues the value direction of eternal equality and eternal justice,it will only find itself "powerless" or even "broken and bleeding" in the face of "rigid" realistic basic economic relations. |
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