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Politics

Whatever it morphs into...like - Democratic socialism--not communism

Posted: Jun 15th, 2019 - 11:13 am In Reply to: Denver councilwoman promises to - impose communism "by any means necessary"

I applaud her efforts and hope for an avalanche of like-minded to be elected in 2020.

How is democratic socialism different from socialism and communism in the former Soviet Union and other countries abroad?

The simple answer is that democratic socialists believe in a democracy, while communist forms of government are not democracies.


“Democratic socialists believe in elections, the First Amendment — [they] want ordinary people to have more power in a more democratic system,” Kazin says. “In communist countries, the state controls everything and a small group of people control the state, a tyrannical system.”

Confusion is understandable, however, because the USSR did stand for Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. But for context, here’s how Kazin explains when the distinction started to be made between socialism and communism: “All communists call themselves socialists because they want it on the way to pure communism.” But, he explains, the Bolshevik revolution in Russia in 1917 caused a split between those who identified primarily as communist and those who identified as socialist. In 1919, the Bolsheviks formed the Comintern (Communist International), an international organization of communist parties and groups. Those who wanted to follow in Russia’s footsteps joined, essentially declaring themselves communist, while others decided to stick with socialism.

But what exactly is democratic socialism?

Here’s what to know about the DSA and how it got that way, as explained by two experts on its history: Maurice Isserman is a professor of History at Hamilton College and author of The Other American: The Life Of Michael Harrington, a biography of the founder of the Democratic Socialists of America; Michael Kazin is a professor of History at Georgetown University and editor of Dissent magazine as well as a former member of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), a group associated with democratic socialism during the 1960s.




What does it mean to be a democratic socialist in America?

While the idea of equalizing the distribution of wealth is an old one, the way of doing so dubbed “socialism” dates to the 19th century. The term generally refers to collectively-owned businesses and forms of government, in which workers and government entities have more control over the means of production and distribution of goods, versus the private ownership and free market that drives capitalism.

American politicians today who are associated with democratic socialism generally favor New Deal-style programs, believing that government is a force for good in people’s lives and that a large European-style welfare state can exist in a capitalist society. They generally support ideas such as labor reform and pro-union policies, tuition-free public universities and trade schools, universal healthcare, federal jobs programs, fair taxation that closes loopholes that the wealthiest citizens have found, and using taxes on the rich and corporations to pay for social welfare programs. (Of course the Democratic Socialists of America website has a whole page on this very question, as do the campaign websites for Ocasio-Cortez and Salazar, as well as that of Senator Bernie Sanders, another prominent democratic socialist.)





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