Professional socialism

Jorś Mâþijassun, a prominent professional socialist, served as Thingspeaker between 1999 and 2003.

Professional socialism (Azmaran: Beruupssośalismus) is a term used in Azmaran politics to refer to the centrist approach taken by the Workers' Party between 1991 and 2006 under the leaderships of Herman Jonssun, Jorś Mâþijassun and Eleina Helmutsdohter. Inspired variously by Third Way politics, social liberalism and social democracy, professional socialism focuses on achieving social equality through the bolstering of universally provided public services alongside targeted, means-based welfare support programs in the framework of a relatively deregulated, free-market economy.

Origins

Herman Jonssun, party leader between 1986 and 1999, adopted professional socialism at the 1991 and 1992 conferences.

The Workers' Party would win the 1987 election under the leadership of Herman Jonssun on a platform of reversing neoliberal and monetarist reforms implemented by the first and second Aarne Leifssun ministries that had ruled the country since 1981 and re-orient the nation's fiscal policy towards a more demand-side approach. Herman Jonssun would become Thingpeaker at the head of a coalition government with The Radicals and the Azmaran Democrats which would see some successes with social reforms such as the successful 1988 referendum to decriminalise first-trimester abortion yet due to disagreements between the government parties over economic policy Jonssun's proposed reforms were not implemented in full and the limited stimulus program implemented to reduce high unemployment would see little success.

As a result, while the three government parties would win a reduced majority of seats in 1990, the coalition was not renewed and the Radicals and Democrats would align with Gold Flame to form the third Leifssun government. This prompted a crisis of ideology within the Workers' Party, with both the failure to fully implement their social democratic manifesto and for the partially implemented reforms to solve the country's economic problems being commonly seen as contributing to the party's loss of seats and governance. As a result, Jonssun would announce a significant realignment of the party's priorities at the party's 1991 annual conference towards bolstering public services such as education and healthcare and implementing active labour market policies in order to help reduce unemployment. Jonssun would also reorient his leadership team towards younger candidates, appointing Jorś Mâþijassun as his deputy and economic spokesman and brining in newly-elected Folksmot members Eleina Helmutsdohter and Niina Hermansdohter.

The term "professional socialism" arose at the 1992 Workers' Party conference as a term to describe the approach, signalling the party's desire to appeal to the increasingly educated, service-based economy that Azmara was perceived to have become, with Mâþijassun giving a speech stating that a party focused on "unionised workers in heavy industry" was not sustainable and that it needed to diversify towards "workers in modern industries and the public sector" who "could not rely" on Gold Flame's economic policies.

Ideology

In his 2016 book, Wat wâst Beruupssośalismus?, Azmaran political scientist Henrik Johanssun proposes four key tenets of professional socialism with reference to the governance of Azmara - adherence to the social market economy, universal public services, active welfare policies and a culturally liberal outlook.

Social market economy

Herman Jonssun often cited the social market economy established by Robert Reynolds in Estmere as an inspiration for the economic policies of the professional socialism project, arguing that the principle of regulation to encourage and strengthen free market competition would serve as a "socialism of the free market" by allowing for equitable outcomes through liberal capitalism by reducing the power of large corporations over the private sector.