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Democracy consists also in allowing other people to vote a party that we don't like and accepting the result as valid. Not always easy, and frustrating sometimes, but it is how it is. You use it, or lose it.
For social democrats, you look at center-left (or actually, center) parties. They use the name 'socialist' in the name. Whenever you see one, you are looking at centrist social democrats.
The reason why this left coalition with majority centrists is able to do pro-people reforms and fight big money is because the communist coalition partner is pushing hard for it. (And also all of these was signed in the pre-coalition agreement).
So its probably the most successful left wing government in West Europe in the last 40 yeras for that reason. They were able to pass major reforms ranging from the labor reform that now protects 'contractors' to raising the minimum wage two times, from rent control to the new minimum income law among many others. I totally did not expect that they would be able to succeed in that much. It was quite a surprise.
This same government pretty much bankrupted most small restaurants in the country, with many only surviving thanks to Glovo and the likes. Win some, lose some, I guess.
There is a problem with local people retiring from the restaurant business and selling off to (usually) Chinese which usually means the quality and variety of food and atmosphere suffers. The old owners usually cared about great food for a good price. Nothing wrong with the Chinese as such but they're more business-like, they don't generally take as much pride in their business.
My favorite place was just taken over like that and I miss the old owner who would tell something proud about the food he procured that day, or come over and give us some shots or biscuits after. If he knew you'd really like something he'd serve a little bit extra. He'd serve an amazing three course lunch with drink all for 12€. Service included because tipping is hardly a thing here. The new Chinese just don't care as much, the food is pretty meh and they don't engage with the customers like that. You don't feel as welcome like going to friends for dinner.
But it's not caused by policy. It's just not a popular job anymore for Spanish people. It's hard work. People rather go to college than take over the family restaurant. So other people pick it up. It is what it is, but it's kinda sad that the real neighbourly community places are disappearing. Because it's happening to pretty much every small family restaurant now.
Don't you think that Covid could had played some major role in that?.
In any case, your mileage may vary. I see plenty of small restaurants still opened and doing fine. Glovo was being warned several times that had 7000 workers in a precarious illegal situation and that they had to fix it. The company opted for not fixing it, and was fined. Don't blame communists for Glovo's wrong choices, or the government for a global pandemic that nobody asked for.
https://i.imgur.com/0MNniYD.jpg
They were doing this to protect the Western stock markets. All the Western European governments were totally deceived by this propaganda. Spain's government was the second one in Europe after Italy to take drastic measures and implement a quarantine. In an environment were nations started to backstab each other to acquire masks and pandemic supplies - like how the US robbed a lot of countries' supplies -...
https://nypost.com/2020/04/04/us-accused-of-piracy-as-mask-s...
... the Spanish government cooperated with other countries, foremost China, to take rapid action without backstabbing anyone. It immediately implemented economic measures to protect both people and businesses during the pandemic, diverting cash to small businesses, creating minimum income, postponing taxes and giving pandemic stimulus whereas the US and the UK etc literally hung out their people to dry in the pandemic.
I'd say that Spain has been incredibly lucky to have entered the pandemic with this government. Many countries' people suffered a lot in the hands of 'free market' types, who openly declared that they would 'let the pandemic run its course' - to protect corporate tax breaks, of course - no need to spend money for the people.
So aside from getting deceived by the US/UK at the start of the pandemic like every single Western European government, I'd say that this Spanish government has handled the pandemic in an exemplary fashion. That they were ALSO able to achieve some major reforms in the middle of a pandemic goes WAY beyond what anyone could expect...
Studies looking at quality-adjusted life years have not discovered a meaningful COVID-related benefit from the lockdowns. The most charitable takes will note that lockdowns did indeed drastically reduce traffic deaths, but it's hard to view that as a genuine pro-lockdown argument.
This is without delving into the fact that the lockdowns' main objective was to prevent healthcare systems from choking. Spain had much more luck than any other European country since it has a high volume of trade with China and also had a left-wing government at the time, prompting and allowing China to come and set up a field hospital too boost hospital capacity in Madrid etc. But still, without lockdowns there was great risk as can be seen from what happened to the likes of the UK...
Uh, what exactly happened in the UK?
First, British Tories (the conservative free market types) denied that any pandemic existed. They kept the country open still after Italy, Spain started their lockdowns. They said they would go for 'herd immunity'. Ie, let those who will die die out. After much protest they started a quarantine. Even when they started the quarantine, it was limited at the start. They said it was 'okay' because covid affected mostly the elderly. (so not a problem for 'the economy'). Then things got really bad and they started a lockdown. In which they left everyone fend for themselves. No support like how the Spanish government gave to the businesses and the people. During the quarantine they totally ignored and hush-hushed what happened in retirement homes. Its unknown how many died there. I think there was a lawsuit resulting from that. Then they rushed to open early for the sake of 'the economy', saying that 'herd immunity' would take care of the problem (again). During all this time they were privatizing their social healthcare system, the NHS by defunding it and selling parts of it to US corporations. So at the end of the quarantine when the new waves started, the NHS was flooded and under capacity. They started overworking the underpaid doctors and nurses to the point of breaking. Now even with the strikes the government refuses to pay them more or fund the health system more and instead is planning on laws to prevent the strikes. It is said that an unprecedented number of people are dying as a result of the defunding and privatization of the NHS. People cant even get ambulances. There arent hospital beds and so on.
https://eand.co/welcome-to-dickensian-britain-97bf9e7fe93a
https://eand.co/why-britains-nhs-is-dying-and-why-it-s-a-war...
What the Brits are doing to themselves through these Toff governments defies description.
As far as I can tell, current studies indicate that in all likelihood only the first lockdown in the UK may have been "worth it" (and even then, it should have happened earlier and not lasted nearly as long as it did)
You'll easily find a bunch of rather credible literature on the subject, e.g. https://www.imperial.ac.uk/people/d.miles/document/7583/Mile...
Or more folksy news articles like https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/feb/14/coronavirus-co...
Are you aware of conflicting literature?
And with Angloamerica, we mean the US and the UK, really. The others arent even second bananas in the affair. These two countries where deregulated capitalism rides on the stock market, any disruption to the economy is less desirable than the lives of people. Worse, this mentality is normalized. Only in such an environment prominent figures could come up saying 'Covid affects the elderly so its ok'. In any other country on the planet someone saying this would be socially and politically castrated. Not in the US or the UK.
Quarantines were and are always worth it during epidemics and pandemics. Asia had been using them for decades to combat many lesser epidemics until covid. This 'quarantines are not worth it' is a nonsense that has originated from the financial establishment in the Anglosphere only because it was detrimental to stock prices. For no other reason. From the same place comes 'masks dont work' and 'covid is just a flu'.
One must remember that even 'neutral' science has problems with funding bias in an ideal setting...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Funding_bias
...whereas private think tanks in Anglosphere literally produce whatever 'research' to support whatever view you want for the right price. Really, at this point the Anglosphere and its institutions cannot be taken as references for anything with their ultra sold-out, principle-free state...
So, we're just supposed to believe without evidence that the lockdowns were good because ... ?
Its not that the government had allowed such companies into the Spanish market. They entered long before. This government is the one which started to take action against such destructive companies for the first time.
Additionally you miss the effects of the pandemic. The pandemic killed small stores and businesses everywhere - or rather, it killed the ones that couldnt branch into selling online...
Uber, Glovo, Airbnb etc are global problems now. The only solution to them is keeping electing governments like this insistently and giving them time to hammer those corporations down.
If any, a Marxist would vote them as the "least wrong" choice.
The actual Social Democrats are from IU/Podemos.
I see quite a lot of proper Marxist-Leninists among the ranks of both parties. As I said, them not being conservative enough or allying with social progressives does not make them any less ML, leave aside any less communist.
[0] https://www.psoe.es/el-socialista/reflexiones-sobre-la-nueva... [1] https://www.socialistsanddemocrats.eu/who-we-are/our-presenc...