Intro:
So, what exactly is democratic socialism? Most people might hear the word “socialism”, and automatically associate it with a radical form of government that wants to eliminate social stratification and have everyone’s property be owned by the government. While that track of thinking is not necessarily true, democratic socialism differs in practice, and has began to gain large amounts of support and popularity in the 21st century.
Is there a difference?:
First, let’s establish the difference between socialism, and democratic socialism. In true socialism, the goal is to give the means of economic production to the workers in order to prevent the creation of social hierarchies, to sort of put the brakes on the ever accelerating rates of wealth gaps, and to give more social equity to the workers in a company, and to not just benefit top owners. The main goal of socialism is to serve as a stepping stone to communism, which was laid out by Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx. Here is where democratic socialism differs; democratic socialism seeks to keep democratic institutions in place in order to have “socialist” policies implemented.
Democratic Socialism in Practice:
So how does it work in practice? This can be things such as the promotion of free college ( for community college and public colleges mostly), free childcare, universal healthcare, and the promotion of tax reforms that have wealthy business owners use their capital to help social safety net programs stay afloat. In order to be sure these policies can be effectively implemented, democratic socialists heavily rely on democratic forms of government and integrates certain aspects of capitalism for their ideas/ policies to be truly achieved; whereas pure socialism seeks to completely eliminate capitalism as a whole in order to prevent the creation of social classes. Democratic socialists don’t necessarily fully adhere to every single socialist ideal that Marx or Engels had in mind. Another difference is that democratic socialism needs aspects of democracy in its form of governance, where socialism does not necessarily need democracy to be achieved, but can sometimes rely on democratic ideals such as civic engagement and mass participation to be achieved.
Democratic Socialism Today:
The idea of democratic socialism as we see it today (particularly in the U.S.), is still relatively new, as prominent politicians in congress have promoted aspects of democratic socialism, with the most vocal of them being Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez (D-NY), and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) , who have both called for the implementation of policies such as the green new deal, which seeks to address economic inequality through the investment of social programs and also seeks to address climate change. They have also called for changes in tax law, this is because billionaires and other top earners have found loopholes in the U.S. tax code that have allowed them to protect their income, while middle class earners in some cases have had to pay more income tax. Democratic socialists have called for these policies to be implemented through legislation, and see these issues as something that can pass through multiple political parties across the globe.