What If Socialism Takes Over the Democratic Party?
https://jacobin.com/2026/07/democratic-socialism-new-deal-liberalismOpen linkView original on lemmy.worldSyndicated from the fediverse. Read and engage on the original instance.
View original on lemmy.worldhttps://jacobin.com/2026/07/democratic-socialism-new-deal-liberalismOpen linkView original on lemmy.world
187 replies
While neither party can be trusted, I'll take socialism over fascism every damned time.
It's the catchy songs right?
https://youtu.be/vvCGZEqk8Ak
Nope. It’s the catchy original definitions untainted by despots.
You. All the upvotes to you.
and what does socialism mean in this case
what does democratic socialism mean
is it just defund israel or is it defund the police? indeed is it destroy israel or own that means of production you love so much?
i guess we and you will find out which fantasy we'll all be larping eventually
Socialism and fascism have always gone hand in hand.
Edit: I'm sorry that so many of you have such an issue with this statement.
Most leaders of socialist countries have governed in a fascistic or authoritarian manner. I understand that the historical consensus does not classify self-described socialist leaders as fascists, but I believe that distinction is based primarily on their stated ideology rather than how they actually governed. In my view, ideology should not exempt these monsters from being recognized for the authoritarian and fascistic characteristics of their regimes.
I'll bite.
Why?
Edit: and how? Specific examples please
He's also said socialism and not democratic socialism, so... He's changing the narrative on you.
North Korea, the Soviet Union, Vietnam, Cuba, Venezuela, Cambodia... Man, Cambodia was really bad.
The only real exception people point to is China, but they've embraced market capitalism to such an extent that even they recognized a purely socialist economy wasn't sustainable. You can't take that away from them.
I always ask the same question of people who enthusiastically support socialism but don't seem to understand what the word actually means: What country would you want to move to that is currently socialist, or that has been socialist in the past?
It's a simple question, and I rarely get a direct answer.
So... do you understand that authoritarianism isn't necessarily fascism? You're listing authoritarian regimes, but none of those were fascist. At an extreme simplification, authoritarian/libertarian is an entirely separate axis from left/right.
Stalin is one of the most evil men in history and committed atrocities against his own people but he and his regime were most emphatically not fascists.
All governments are authoritative. They necessarily have to be so according to the social contract.
It's just funny that the person responding to you only cares about if a given government and ideology is authoritative when it's something they don't like.
Capitalist liberalism is also authoritative and seeks to suppress and oppress dissent against weath consolidation and rights violations.
I mean I guess that's true but it's certainly a spectrum. There's a fair difference between a Western democracy like Canada and whatever we're saying the PRC is these days. And an even bigger difference between that and Stephen Miller's fantasy, and there'd still be a difference between Stephen Miller's rotten mind and what Stalin was doing.
A government must to some extent be authoritarian but that doesn't necessarily mean it's mutually exclusive with civil and personal freedoms.
Fascism is a far-right, authoritarian political ideology characterized by dictatorial leadership, extreme nationalism, suppression of political opposition, and the subordination of individual rights to what the state or nation is said to require.
Stalin wasn't an fascist? Are you taking the piss?
Red fascism is more or less something ginned up in the early stages of the Cold War as a way to conveniently carry the fight through to the new enemy.
Stalin was not fascist, nor is Stalinism related to fascism. Stalin was a fucking monster regardless of whatever label you prefer, though.
If we look at other cited regimes, your footing is even weaker. Mao wasn't a fascist, and none of the leaders of the PRC since then have been. Same for Castro and Cuba. Pol Pot was one fucked up dude, but he wasn't fascist.
Stalin is certainly the closest comparison, but he's still not fascist.
I understand where you're coming from, and I understand why you believe this is true, especially when you take into account the current consensus among historians and other authority figures on the subject. They generally agree that Stalin and the other figures you mentioned were not fascists.
I disagree.
They qualify as fascists under every metric of the definition, and in abundance. Being communist, or labeling Stalin’s system “Stalinism,” does not exclude it from being fascism. Those labels do not change the underlying structure.
By every measurable standard, they were fascists, unequivocally,
Saying that a totalitarian ultra-nationalistic authoritative and violent regime isn't fascist because they called themselves communists is historically and morally disingenuous.
What a great little technical out for some of the worst people on Earth and in human history to not be called fascists.
Tell me, in your opinion, how do you define and differentiate Socialism and Communism?
Socialism is an economic system in which the means of production are owned collectively by the public rather than by private individuals.
Communism, as it has existed in practice, is a political and economic system in which a one-party state controls the means of production and directs the economy, with the stated goal of advancing the interests of society as a whole. In theory, however, communism was originally envisioned by as a stateless, classless society that would emerge after socialism.
Noticed that the definition of communism is more involved and longer than the definition of socialism that is of course by necessity as it's more complicated than the other.
I'd also preemptively like to point out that not every communist government is a one-party system, nor is it predicated upon that. That's just what it's been historically in the majority.
Also nobody ever answers the question. What country would you like to live in that is socialist historically or today?
Technically, the single party state thing is intended to be a temporary thing. It's meant to last only long enough until the whole stateless, classless thing comes to be.
People being people though... the people in charge start to enjoy the benefits of being in charge and tend to not want to keep going. Mao sure never missed a meal during that famine his regime caused.
It's a critical weakness in the Marxist-Leninist ideology and why I can't buy into it myself. I feel like any would-be "better way of doing things" has to take into account how people actually behave when exposed to and given power over others.
And you touched on a very interesting point that I rarely get to in discussions about socialism here on Lemmy: the human condition, the very nature of the human species. In my view, that's what negates socialism as a viable option. It's great on paper, and I even support it from a technical standpoint. It just doesn't work because, to rehash an old slogan, absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Would you classify democratic socialism and social democracy under the umbrella of socialism, or would you classify them differently? For the record, I am not a Stalinist, Leninist, or Maoist, if that clarifies matters.
Social democracy is a capitalist economic system supplemented by large and robust welfare programs and a heavily regulated private sector. Things like strong anti-monopoly laws, relatively small wage gaps between workers and executives, strong unions, and progressive taxation are all characteristic of social democracy.
Democratic socialism is similar in many respects, but its long-term goal is to eliminate capitalism entirely by transitioning the means of production to public ownership. That does not necessarily entail communism, since most democratic socialists advocate maintaining a democratic system of government rather than adopting a one-party state.
I do not classify social democracy as socialism because its economy remains fundamentally capitalist.
I do consider democratic socialism to be a form of socialism, though with many important caveats. It does not inherently require or inevitably lead to communism.
I am personally less supportive of democratic socialism because I have a deep distrust of both the human condition and the long-term viability of a fully publicly owned economy. Historically, I do not believe such systems have produced consistently successful outcomes.
I usually reply to that with: "And if you love capitalism that much why don't you move to the US instead?"
That still doesn't answer the question.
I live in the United States, and I love my country.
The fact is that, as far as I'm aware, there has never been a single socialist country that has been broadly successful, and I don't think there ever will be. So answer the question.
You say you support socialism, but you choose to live in a country that isn't socialist because it's prosperous, stable, and safe. If socialism is the superior system, why wouldn't you want to live in a country that actually practices it?
Why do you like socialism so much? Have you ever lived in a socialist country? Have you even visited one? Can you point to a socialist country, either current or historical, that you would willingly move to?
It seems like you're just repeating things you've read on Lemmy or elsewhere on the internet. You don't appear to understand what socialism actually is, how it functions, or how it differs from social democracy or democratic socialism. You keep calling welfare programs "socialism," when they aren't.
Answer the fucking question, what country would you move to that is currently socialist or has been socialist in the past?
And don't you even dare deflect to the fact that I live in America and that you think it's a terrible country? Don't even try it. It's not going to work.
Do you know that most successful countries in the world are social-democracies right? Like most of Europe. You don't need to go full communist or follow the red party book to incorporate the good bits of modern social-democratic practices to counter bad capitalism abuse. Im not a communist or "socialist" btw (assuming the typical American biased understand of those terms).
Yes. Some of the most successful countries on earth are social democracy's which has nothing to do with socialism.
I encounter us problem on Lemmy all the time. ALL THE TIME! I'll leave you with my regular disclaimer.
Gaslight somewhere else.
And here we have another Lemmy user that doesn't know what a word means. But he sure is using it and that's nice.
Socialist: We want you all to have free readily available healthcare
Republican Base: OVER OUR DEAD BODIES!!
*"OVER YOUR DEAD BODIES!"
ftfy
WHERE IS THE MONEY COMING FROM screams my family as I tell them that they will pay the same or less in taxes than they were for insurance in the first place.
Universal healthcare is not socialism nor is it socialist.
Literally any kind of government can have universal healthcare. What type of government is completely irrelevant for What kind of healthcare the country has.
Not necessarily, if we're in a democracy where a strong majority of people want the true socialism - ie: collective ownership of the means of production - then is that not democratic socialism?
Social democrats and democratic socialists are not the same thing.
Social democrats are liberals who want to improve conditions under capitalism.
Democratic socialists want to replace capitalism with worker ownership of the means of production by means of electoral politics instead of a revolution.
With the way things are going, probably.
Then the USA would actually have two parties instead of one?
But there are the De…
Oooh. I see what you did there.This would be far more accurately titled as 'returns to' given FDRs New Deal and the fact that 99% of socialist policies enacted over the last century are from the Democrats, instead of the inflammatory weasel-wording 'what if socialism takes over' like it's some kind of coup.
It might be some dumb play to drum up clicks from right-wing people who have never seen a Jacobin article I guess, but it puts off their base, and looking through the article.. it doesn't hide its socialist-positive bias at all even from the first few sentences, so I kinda doubt that intent. Just dumb.
If I can give some context, as a DSA member, while DSA is parasitizing the Democratic ballot line, it essentially acts like an independent party.
The goal isn't necessarily to "take over" the Democratic Party. Rather, the dominant position in DSA is what's called a "Dirty Break", where the org parasitizes the Dems in the short term, essentially until they kick us out (Ideally in such a way that DSA comes out the stronger org, and that the Dems whither not unlike the Whigs).
Something which is already starting to happen, with Democrats telling us to go "make our own party" as though we haven't looked at the US political system, and ruled that out for now.
Further, DSA is a big tent organization, with everyone from reformist social democrats, to Anarchists, Trotskyists, Marxist-Leninists, etc. And the DSA party platform (the updated version of which gets released on the 14th, I believe) expresses an overt desire by DSA to transcend capitalism. So this isn't just a return to FDR style social Democracy, like you're suggesting, there's a bit more going on
Thanks for the clarification, I feel like very little of this was discussed in the article and you explain it better.
Good luck getting that motley crew to get along. Everyone can agree on anticapitalism but that's basically it. How exactly to go about it is going to vary widely. It's hard to see Marxist-Leninists wanting to play ball with reform advocates.
It's still a good idea worth trying. I'm just skeptical of lefties ever turning into a cohesive force since there's such a wide array of leftism and some of the particulars of given ideologies are mutually exclusive.
I mean, this isn't a project that started yesterday, and it isn't some hypothetical. DSA has existed in its current form, a big tent with ideological and strategically based caucuses, for a little over a decade at this point. If anything the caucus system, which currently codifies those different tendencies in the org, makes it stronger. People within DSA debate endlessly about everything under the sun, but the minute any one part of the org is attacked by someone on the right, the org rallies around them, generating greater organizational coherence. It's like having siblings. You can bully your little brother, but god forbid anyone else tries it.
Additionally, caucuses allow DSA members to collaborate across chapters in ways that national is improving on, but not currently able to fully facilitate. Caucuses also exchange ideas, strategies, etc. in ways that general membership might not do otherwise.
And that, I think, is what has allowed DSA to grow in the way that it has. All of these left tendencies are forced to come to the table in order to get what they want, instead of just imploding into a billion little sects. And those negotiations, both among caucuses, and with material conditions, mean that DSA is able to formulate a cohesive program and strategy.
I think the Caucus system, as it currently stands, will probably have to be done away with at some point, if DSA is to cohere more power, and thus a greater sense of party discipline, but for now, I think it's a strength of the org, not a weakness.
Yeah, the left is unfortunately mired with purity tests and No True Scotsman fallacies. Meanwhile, the right is laser focused on marching directly towards fascism. It’s like watching a game of tug-of-war, except one side has people tripping their teammates, or loudly complaining about how they got rope burn one time so they’re going to refuse to participate.
If you think socialism is bad, you either are an evil piece of shit or ignorant of what socialism actually is.
Or both!
I'd be okay with just democracy taking over the Democratic party
You just get another Trump like candidate sooner or later. Recognize the symptoms.
I'd love to go socialist at this point. Capitalism has only fucked me over and over and over.
I'm pretty wealthy and I want the USA to be way more socialist. I want medical for all, free daycare, food security for everyone, and a huge expansion of public education. Unfortunately about 50% of the population equates any socialism with Marxism and refuses to even hear how bad they're getting screwed by their Corp sponsored overlords.
I'm literally explaining social democracies vs Marxism to grown adults on nextdoor constantly. These knuckle draggers have the strongest political opinions and the weakest base of knowledge, it's infuriating. The 24 hour news cycle has turned our dumb neighbors into hateful mean little people.
Social democracy isn't socialism. Which is why it has the same problems as capitalism.
They don't equate socialism and marxism, they haven't read Marx like most people and implies think anything left of Bill Clinton is Marxist because that's what talking heads have told them.
Exactly what I was trying to say.
Nice of you to give socialism its turn.
Alternatively workers should earn a pension for every hour they labour on behalf of someone else.
Anyone under a predetermined amount when they retire should be able to collect the difference between the what they received and what they are short.
Any business that does not pay enough to those working for them should have their taxes increased to double the difference, as a punitive action.
Also do this with other things
They had decades to figure out how to unite their base. Obama and Bernie's popularity gave them the building blocks. They remained willfully ignorant because they like those corporate checks too much.
Good. Elected representatives funded by their constituents and others in the working class mean there's less of a risk they pull up the ladder behind them and fuck those who got them into power.
Doesn't mean this won't ever happen. That's why I said risk.
Long term goals are of course to ban Citizen's United, set a cap on money needed to campaign for an elected position, and pass Ranked Choice Voting (RCV).
What if a foreign genocidal ethnostate takes over the Democratic Party?
Russia took over the GOP, not Democrats.
Democrats are very obviously in bed with Israel (not to say GOP isn’t as well).
Don't play dumb. Of course you know I meant Israel. Here you are discussing and downplaying the Gaza genocide:
Using a death toll that quit counting YEARS AGO because the people doing the counting (Gazan health ministry) were wiped out. You think Israel is counting? Who is counting how many people they're rounding up and killing and putting mass graves in occupied Gaza?
Good?
Good.
Doog?
Not good enough. Wake me up when its Scientific Socialism and Capitalism is dead.
Author of the article never got to any sort of point. Just some random rambling. Jacobin needs to do better than this garbage.
Instead of a "what if" we need a "how" and "when"
100%!
The right wing has been pushing the Democratic Party to the right by making the Republicans more conservative/fascist. This pulls the Overton window to the right and the Democrats with it.
Socialism in the Democratic Party is the natural reaction to this pull. While welcome, the real solution is to do away with the two party system. Otherwise, it’s just a see-saw forever swinging back and forth.
How do envision getting from here to there?
I think it has to happen locally. Ranked choice voting (or similar) needs to be pushed through. Then, school boards, city/county councils and state elections.
People need to recognize and relate to new parties. National elections are not the way to do it (fuck you Stein and the American Green Party).
So I'm inferring you believe people will suddenly start voting for 3rd parties in order to then get voting reforms enacted, rather than voting reform being the necessary catalyst to making 3rd parties viable?
Just look at the numbers. At present there are a grand total of 3 (out of 535) federal legislators who are not either Democratic or Republican. Bernie Sanders ran in the Democratic primary for Senate in 2008, winning the nomination but then declining it to run as an Independent. Kevin Kiley was first elected as a Republican and then declared as Independent after several years in office. In all state legislatures combined, there are a total of 6 state senators and 22 state representatives out of 7,578 total state legislative seats.
Fewer than half of US states have a process for voters to initiate new legislation by direct ballot initiative (if you include voter-led veto ballot initiative of existing legislation, or state Constitutional amendments it's 26, but strictly for writing and passing new legislation it's 21).
https://ballotpedia.org/States_with_initiative_or_referendum
And 13 states have already banned RCV.
https://news.ballotpedia.org/2025/03/25/thirteen-states-have-now-banned-ranked-choice-voting-as-municipalities-decide-on-whether-to-adopt-it/
So I think we need the 3rd party candidates and voters to run and vote in the major party primaries in order to get elected. Like we've been seeing with DSA candidates winning Democratic primaries and previously Tea Party candidates winning Republican primaries. Either that or successfully calling a new Constitutional Convention to rewrite the whole damn thing, and I really don't think that will play out the way we would want it to in the current political climate.
Accept that a centuries old constitution is totally outdated.
How do we action the acceptance? What actual step comes after that?
Just copy European countries that have renewed their constitutions as time passes instead of asking empty rhetorical questions.
Which of our existing processes do you think will produce the result you want? Passing an amendment through Congress seems quite unlikely with our current field of partisan legislators. We can't even meet the lower thresholds for passing legislation for things like raising minimum wage, which is supported by about 2/3 of the population. The Koch brothers were highly successful at stacking state legislatures with Tea Party nutjobs with the ultimate goal of calling for a Constitutional Convention to rewrite it. Republicans still control 28 state legislatures, and they're generally pretty beholden to Trump and the MAGA base, so I don't think we'd have a positive outcome with a Constitutional Convention.
So in my opinion, we need to have favorable majorities in our representation before we can have a favorable outcome with amending the Constitution. Do you have a different approach in mind?
You have this backwards, you're giving rhetorical answers to non-rhetorical questions.
I started by the need to acknowledge centuries-old constitutions are outdated. That is the first step. Get citizens being a push for change. No "existing process", that is the main point.
As stated, the first step is really to push the idea of rewriting a constitution.
If you don't have the people pushing, you are never getting a new document or a positive vote for such a document. And you won't even start to have a favorable majority for something that is not claimed.
Then people in power (elected or through a crisis caused by an uprising) can push a new constitution, with no care for the old document. This is how European countries have mostly done it.
Plus US is not facing a simple constitutional crisis, it is a religion-like crisis seeing how the document has been sanctified for so long. So no amending. Rewriting. And won't happen without a huge push for trashing the old one.
I'm asking what does that look like to you? Voting? Protesting in the streets and/or at the capitol buildings? Armed revolution?
My own belief is that it comes down to voting. We do not currently have a legal means for the people to directly initiate a Constitutional Convention. So we need state legislators who say they will vote to call for one, and federal legislators who say they will vote for Constitutional Amendments. But I don't want the current majorities to be in charge of that. We would just end up with a fully Christo-fascist Constitution given the makeup of the delegations. Most states don't have any means to recall legislators or for voters to directly initiate ballot initiatives to write new legislation. So we need to put better representatives in office first. My belief, as stated in other comment in this thread, is that we have to have 3rd party and independent candidates run in the major-party primaries, and we have to vote in those primaries for those candidates. We're seeing it work more and more for DSA-aligned candidates, so hopefully we can keep building on that momentum and finally get some real change.
Rank choice voting
Gotta win elections to ram that through, though.
Well, I'm not a one issue voter...but if someone says they'll implement rank choice voting than that tends to get my vote.
Are you using that metric to vote in the primary? Major party or 3rd party?
Well, I vote in a rank choice district, so all. But I want our politicians to get it to be federal
Nice. You're actually free to vote for 3rd parties!
RCV is just one of many alternative voting systems that has alot of warts. I think there are better options that should be explored:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison/_of/_electoral/_systems
https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop%5C&v=O-dzK3YIAf8
What do you think of my observations on that in my other comment I'm this thread?
The Democratic Party needs an anti-trump:
Someone who is the opposite of trump in every way...
Smart, wise, humble, charitable, brave, gregarious, kind, caring, socialist, democratic, and good.
Essentially, someone who embodies all the virtues that the hypocrites of the Christian Right eschew.
Smart and wise folk generally do their best to stay out of formal politics. politics sucks.
Closest I can think of is Bernie Sanders, but he may have aged out of a presidential run.
That person is very much staying at home happy and content with their loved ones.
Like Obama?
Not so scary if you do five minutes of research.
Socialism refers to collective ownership of the means of production. Social democracy/democratic socialism refers to a capitalist market economy supplemented by welfare programs, labor protections, and public services. The two terms are not interchangeable despite frequent misuse on the internet. You are describing and advocating for social democracy/democratic socialism not socialism.
https://youtube.com/shorts/zMmjKRettxA
Social democracy and democratic socialism are not the same.
Social democracy, yes, is what you describe: try to regulate capitalism and make it livable via labor protections, public services and a welfare state. The end horizon is something like the Scandinavian dream.
Democratic socialism is different: the end horizon is indeed full blown socialism, with social ownership of the means of production and ultimately with abolition of capitalist relations altogether. However, for democratic socialists, the path to that horizon does not pass via revolution but via the democratic process.
In practice social-democrats and democratic-socialists end up finding it easy to agree on a political program for the here and now and so very often they coexist. Both want to reform capitalism.They just don't agree as to how deep that reform can go. For the democratic socialists, the things social-democrats want are in fact the means towards the end result. For the social-democrats that end result is not necessary considered possible or even desirable. But the two have never won that much that their differences would actually come to a head.
I'd be surprised that anyone would want to stop at the SocDem phase of things. Like if you actually get that far and things are going well, wouldn't you want to take that next step? I guess it depends on perceived risk?
Nobody has ever reached a point where that was actually a practical decision to make. So nobody has ever said oh yea this is enough we should stop :)
Edouard Bernstein, the first theoretical of social democracy famously said that the "the final goal of socialism is nothing, the movement is everything". I think it's a matter of perspective, of what you choose to care about. My most sympathetic read of this position is that actually abandoning capitalist relations is not something that you can "choose" to realistically do because capitalism is too tied up with the survival needs of people.
While I agree that the end goal of democratic socialism is an economy in which the means of production are publicly owned, it differs significantly from the Marxist-Leninist model advocated by Lenin and later implemented by Stalin. Democratic socialism rejects the one-party state and instead maintains that democratic institutions, competitive elections, and civil liberties should continue to exist even after the economy is fully socialized.
That's a massive distinction, especially considering that every major one-party socialist state has produced severe authoritarian outcomes.
China is a notable exception in one respect: while it remains governed by a single-party communist state, its economy has embraced extensive market mechanisms, private enterprise, and foreign investment. Whether it should still be described as socialist depends largely on which definition of socialism is being used.
Yes it is very different from Leninism. But what you're describing are still "how" elements not "what". And to call a spade a spade, Democratic socialism and social democracy are both deeply rooted in the Marxist tradition. The former in the thought of Karl Kautsky, the latter in the thought of Eduard Bernstein.
Bernstein is exactly who Rosa Luxemburg is responding to in "Social Reform or Revolution?". Kautsky positioned himself in the centre between Bernstein's revisionist reformism and what he saw as Luxembourg's adventurism. He was in fact a huge influence on Lenin himself, who considered Kautsky a real authority in Marxism but disagreed on his tactical analysis and ultimately he ended up rejecting it.
Long story short, democratic socialism is not external to the body of Marxist thought. It played a key role in its intellectual development. For Leninists it became the anvil on which they hammered their own understanding. But since the fall of the Soviet experiment and the dengist/nationalist turn of the Chinese one, taking a serious second look at democratic socialism is, I think, the intellectually robust thing to do.
That's a lot of a lot dude. And you're basically right.
So what does this have to do with people not understanding and misusing the term socialism versus social democracy and Democratic socialism?
And I see that you obviously don't fall into that camp. You know what you're talking about.
Well, when it comes to practice there are a few things:
People should not be scared to call themselves socialists and still lay claim to liberal democratic bona fides. That combination is not a ruse and a fraud as the Right would like to insist but a real current in socialist thought since the beginning. The newly elected leader of the NDP here in Canada actually came out and called it recently.
I would actually also argue that honest social democrats, can in practice be more radical than self proclaimed socialists, if in practical politics they propose and achieve deeper reforms. I'll trade an effective Mamdani for a high falutin big mouth talking European self proclaimed socialist that does fuck all (looking at Tsipras) any day of the week. It's easy to talk a big game and do nothing and we shouldn't underestimate the transformative power of promising modest reform and delivering.
It's also important to keep reminding so called moderates eg in the Democratic Party that DSs and SDs can very much coexist in a left of centre party and that cosplaying the red scare all the time is extremely self defeating. Common ground exists.
Finally, I would say it is also important to not cede the socialist vision to the MLs as if they are the sole and rightful owners of it. They are not, never have been, and liberal democracy is not as alien a concept to socialist thought as they pretend it to be. Political liberalism is not only reconcilable with socialism but there are very legitimate currents of Marxist thought that assert it. Nicos Poulantzas famously argued that "socialism will be democratic or it will not be at all", asserting that institutions of representative democracy are essential for a socialist transition to avoid authoritarian state-socialism.
Given that, so far, precisely none of the Marxist-Leninist states have successfully transitioned into a classless system (or even tried to), I'd say that the last bullet point is especially relevant.
It's awfully tempting to retain that total power over others, once given it. There's only been a handful of people throughout history that have willingly handed the reins of power back after the crisis was resolved.
I think you're missing the point I was making.
There isn't a "real" socialist or a "fake" socialist. Socialism has a definition: public ownership of the means of production. That's the defining characteristic. Everything else, whether it's democratic socialism, Marxism-Leninism, libertarian socialism, or anything else, is a modifier that describes how someone thinks that goal should be achieved or what political system should accompany it.
My point wasn't about which branch of socialism is better or more democratic. It was that people routinely use the terms socialist, social democrat, and democratic socialist interchangeably when they are not the same thing.
So how does your comment address that? My original point was about people misusing basic political terminology, not about whether one type of socialist is preferable to another.
There's also a recurring pattern on this platform where people simply don't know what these terms mean. "Socialism," "social democracy," "democratic socialism," and even "capitalism" all get thrown around as interchangeable labels, when they describe different concepts. That's the misconception I'm pushing back against, and it's one I run into constantly. You and I seem to be the exception here, we at least understand the terminology well enough to have a discussion about the ideas instead of arguing over incorrect definitions.
I guess I'm helping by articulating my understanding?
Otherwise, yes we seem to not be disagreeing.
At some point we're just masturbating over minutia.
In practice, in the real world, there will never be such a thing as a purely socialist or purely capitalist economy. You could have a fully automated luxury communist economy, and there would still be someone out there doing what is effectively capitalism, just in exchange for favors and owed favors. You could organize your society into Ayn Rand's dream world, and there would still be some folks there giving each other things for free out of the kindness of their hearts. Hell, even the Soviets tried running an economy without money for awhile, and it failed miserably.
There is a continuous spectrum between a fully government-run economy and an entirely stateless economy. And all real-world governments lie somewhere on that spectrum. The governments that we call "socialist" just lie more towards the government-run side of things. Neither extreme has ever existed. The USSR was not a complete collective ownership of the means of production. The US is not and never has been a purely market economy.
Masturbating over pointless minutia is just pointless masturbation.
Wow. You used "masturbation" way too many times.
And you're right it's about as pointless as your comment, considering why I left mine in the first place.
People on this platform don't seem to know the difference between basic terms like capitalism, socialism, social democracy, and democratic socialism. They lump every good thing the government does under "socialism" and every bad thing under "capitalism." Reality isn't that black and white. It isn't simply capitalism versus socialism.
Some of the most successful countries on Earth are social democracies with large welfare states and strong regulations that curb predatory business practices. They are not socialist economies. They are fundamentally capitalist economies, and that's a distinction people constantly miss.
Unions, fair wages, wealth equality, universal healthcare, and social safety nets have nothing to do with socialism as an economic system. They are hallmarks of social democracy. Socialism and social democracy are two distinct ideologies with different definitions.
I'm not masturbating over words. I'm using those words according to their actual definitions.
We can hope.
What socialism is happening? Who is advocating workers controlling the means of production? All I see are social programs being touted.
That would be communism, not socialism. Lennonist communism is where the workers control the means of production in a collectivist but decentralized manner (Stalinist communism is where the state (Stalin) controls the means of production). Socialism is where the capitalists are allowed to maximize profit all they want (hell they keep most of that under the socialist model), but society guarantees a minimal quality of life (the social bit) by taxing the capitalists to ensure a base-level of universal health-insurance and/or housing for the masses.
Basically, democratic socialism is the logical conclusion of FDR's New Deal.
Where are you getting this from?
It sounds like they just plucked it out of their ass.
Explained here
The article you linked is what happens when you hire a “content marketer” to write for you. Not sure why the home of ancient aliens would be a definitive source.
The Wikipedia article is a better place to start.
Where did you get this definition of socialism from? There’s no such thing as as socialism that allows for capitalist ownership of the means of production; if a socialist says it’s fine, they’re not a socialist.
As per Einstein himself (in his article entitled “Why Socialism?”):
As you can see, as the means of production are owned and maintained by society itself in a socialist economy, there would be no possibility for any aspiring capitalist to accrue those means for themselves, and thereby maximize their own profit. In theory they would just be another worker without any special economical advantage over anyone else.
The distinction between socialism and communism is well known and studied. The key differences are:
Communism:
Socialism:
You can find the basis of my quotes here, on the history channel's very own website. You can also see the clear distinction in Europe's current Democratic Socialism vs. Russia's Communist stuff.
The History channel? As in the channel that hosts and broadcasts “Ancient Aliens”? You’re not exactly helping your case here.
Additionally, you’re incorrect in your citing of the notion that all property in a communist state is communally owned. All private property is communally owned, but that only goes for anything falling into the category of productive assets used to generate profit and subsume labour. You’re by all means still entitled in such states to owning any personal property, i.e. various forms of entertainment, food, toiletries, housing, etc. The whole basis of your distinction pretty much falls apart through that correction alone.
For the sake of providing an external source, you can read further on socialist/communist ideas through this website, particularly the first two paragraphs which once again thoroughly deconstructs your false distinction of the aforementioned ideologies.
Just curious if your head hurts from banging it against so many walls...
Sorry, but the stupid people's website, Reddit, is that way ------>
That's seems pretty rude for someone who is on your side. Maybe I'm missing your joke though.
My words were an expression of solidarity with you. I thought it was funny way to recognize you banging your head against the wall as the expression goes, but maybe you didn't get my joke?
I found it funny how you kept having to educate people and they seemingly didn't understand what you were saying.
Sorry if I wasn't clear on that friend
Americans don’t understand that distinction.
What FDR did with a New Deal and socialism are not the same thing. FDR's goal was to save capitalism while feeding the working class stale bread crumbs so they do not demand better, so that they do not advocate for more socialism.
All those words and not a single one of them correct.
Explain that to history channel. Also, look at the distinction between Europe's socialist implementation. Then, compare that to Russia's Communist stuff.
You mean explain it to a contributor to the History Channel that knows nothing about either?
So, that bit in my response as related to how Europe implements socialism is conceded?
There is nowhere in Europe where any form of socialism is practiced at the state level
Socialism is 1950's conservatism now.
Well obviously more dems would become republicans than would become socialists...
If someone reveals themselves to be garbage, they were always garbage
Yeah! People never change! They never have experiences that make them worse, or better!
Oh. If you actually read the article, it's about nomenclature. Nothing of substance. What a waste.
Fucking authwall
https://archive.is/6kIli
Archive is also doesn't load. Due to captchas
Maybe, just maybe, that will bring Republicans back to the center
https://archive.is/6kIli
It'd probably mean more GOP victories, perhaps like in 1972.
wp:1972 United States presidential election
Not that it invalidates the process, no more than voting for a third party.
And look what that got us. People have always been fucking stupid.
In voting for a President,
to vote 3rd party is to mostly waste a vote,
but to vote established Democratic candidate is also to mostly waste a vote.
That was over 50 years ago. Most of those voters are dead.
and about 16 months after the voting age went from 21 to 18. 😁 🙂
As in social security and other safety nets including retirement systems where my purchasing power doesn't dacay as I age until I'm not able to pay my mortgage or feed myself. Sounds like a plan.
As far as image goes, I would change the color from red to blue.
Like actual socialism or just the watered down socialism which may be barely palatable to most Americans?
It won’t.
The democrats won’t allow anything that makes the establishment neolibs look bad.
E: lol downvotes. I hope y’all prove me wrong, but the Dems are still mostly shit. I’ll vote blue, but they no longer represent pulling us back from the edge to me. They’re “don’t upset the apple cart” and “we can’t undo anything, it’s water under the bridge.”
With such wimpy ass whiner/quitter attitudes like this it's a miracle you guys can do anything.
We need a benevolent dictator for a few years while we wash the stains out of the social fabric.
perhaps a dictatorship of the proletariat....
If only I were king for a day...
Technically correct. Not sure why you are downvoted.
People are emotional.
You'd just have two parties debating over which failed system is better.
Can you elaborate
Socialism failed. You have a bunch of people making excuses for it, but it obvious to anyone with any common sense that a system involving excessive central planning always winds up being an Animal Farm kind of thing. This has been proven by history but there's people making dumb excuses about how the started conditions weren't right and "next time it will work for sure." Socialists are basically that old guy from Jurassic Park.
Supply side economics failed. Should be obvious that businesses aren't benevolent organizations that are going to "create jobs" just because they have some extra money lying around. They aren't charities, they're businesses.
Reasonable people understand that neither extreme works. It makes sense to use more socialist policies where it makes sense to (like healthcare) and have regulated capitalism where that makes sense. The peak of human prosperity was under a capitalist system before the oil crisis of the 1970s (and before Reagan). Maybe we should go back to "we're all Keynesian now" kind of system because that fucking worked? Instead what a lot of people learned was oil dependence is good (despite oil crises always causing economic problems) and if the wealthy are even wealthier then that's good for everyone somehow. It's as dumb as socialists believing some altruistic vibes by the people in power will make everything work out.
But the internet has resulted in people being incapable of understanding anything beyond "thing good" or "thing bad" and preferring slogans and populism over economic policies that have been proven to work. Compromise is considered a bad thing to those with brain rot, so people are gravitating towards radical extremes which have been proven by history to be complete failures.
It's probably more important to do things well than to do them based on a strict ideology.
Russia for instance was a great example of how to completely fuck up turning a country free market capitalist. And generally really just fuck up.
So you don't know what socialism is and its different types. Wikipedia has a nice overview.
So you don't know much about macroeconomics either. Supply-side is just a set if tools which works in certain conditions like a supply shock. Its opposite is pushing demand which works when there is a lack of demand (usual recessions). Krugman has good books to clarify this.
Knowledgeable people point out that extreme authoritarian capitalism worked throughout history, and that is a main concern for those who don't want to go back there. Piketty has studied the issue pretty well.
Russia went from a country lagging ~80 years behind Europe to the first space faring country. So there is an argument to be made about there not being one solution.
Plus the peak of accidental prosperity is mostly linked to the great compression.
Keynes was about something else (understanding that an economy is a closed / semi-closed system which lead to the concept of a fiscal multiplier which is still being studied.).
Do you think anyone in the working class has the time to read a bunch of hair-splitting from academia? The USSR had socialist in it's name. The word socialist will always have a connotation of "something to do with the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics". You're the ones who chose to describe yourselves with a loaded and ambiguous word. You've chosen to always be on the defensive in the political arena. Whoever you're debating with can just say "I don't want breadlines" and win the debate, because nobody in the working class has time for academic hair-splitting.
Ok so you're pedantic. When I talk about supply-side economics, I'm talking about reaganomics, trickle down, all of that bullshit, not some specific "certain conditions". Obviously.
How many people starved to death in that time period? How many people got sent to the gulag?
Also I note how you are simultaneously saying "there's many forms of socialism" to distance yourself from the Soviet Union while also wanting to stick up for the Soviet Union. You're not coming across as honest here.
And this is why socialism loses in any debate from the perspective of the working class. It only works in academia. Some "socialists" (whatever that even means) may win in safe Dem districts with a large number of people that went to university and took a poli-sci class. It loses in any debate from the perspective of the working class. Academics fail at being able to communicate with the working class. If you were serious about communicating with the working class, you'd stop using the word "socialist". But you won't because the point of 21st century socialism is to impress your peers, not to be effective.
We know Keynesian policies and trust busting solved similar economic problems we're having now. We know absolutist socialism failed.
Thank you for confirming my post. You have no clue about socialism other than USSR. You try to lash and smash everything because socialism bad. You have no clue about macroeconomics either, mixing supply side with Reaganomics and not knowing what and when demand side support “Keynesian policies" work or not (fun fact, now is not the time).
Yet you try to reach out on these exact issues on which you lack.
Wikipedia is academia now?
Also socialism in the common usage (e.g. non hair splitting lefties) covers from anarchism to European style soc-dems.
Among all these solutions several have worked or continue to do so. Your post started with "socialism failed", so even your own arguments sink your initial post.
"socialism failed"
Sonypu are not serious either. Good then, keep it that way, but don't try to act like you know what you are saying.
You're lacking in reading comprehension. The working class doesn't care about your hair splitting. You're in a socialist movement that's incapable of communicating with the working class. But your post confirms this... you care more about sounding smart than convincing anyone of anything.
Lemmy and the content algorithmically recommended to you (by systems created by capitalism) is no "common usage". You're in a bubble and you can't handle anything coming from outside your bubble.
Hasan Piker is currently on the front page of a website owned by Jeff Bezos. You never question why that is LOL.
Says the one who stated socialism doesn't work without knowing a definition and refusing to even learn in wikipedia
You don't represent working class.
So you don't know what socialism is, don't know the movement I support, nor its current political score, yet you again try to sound so sure.
Goodbuy troll
The German Democratic Republic had the word "Democratic" in its name. The Democratic People's Republic of Korea currently has the word "Democratic" in it. Therefore we can look to those nations for what the word "democratic" means, right?
Right!?
So you can't tell the difference between Canada and North Korea. Got it.
Then we'll have no good choices and have to toggle between two dumb directions every 4 years.
So, nothing will change?
I like to think that socialists would try to give the election system a makeover; get rid of FPTP and accelerate the removal of the electoral college. This of course would require them to gain control at the state level of traditionally red states.
Socialists will do whatever it takes to increase their power. For the good of the people.
And this is how lobotomy looks like.
Socialism has already taken over the Democrats. Past tense.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism
What about Republicans though?
Remember that time Trump sent autographed stimulus checks to everyone in the United States? Remember that time Trump made the United States a stakeholder in a privately-owned chip manufacturer? What about US Steel? Or how about when he gave free money to farmers?
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/08/22/intel-goverment-equity-stake.html
https://reason.com/2025/06/26/trumps-controlling-stake-in-u-s-steel-is-indefensible-socialist-nonsense/
https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/27/politics/coronavirus-stimulus-house-vote
https://www.usda.gov/about-usda/news/press-releases/2025/12/08/trump-administration-announces-12-billion-farmer-bridge-payments-american-farmers-impacted-unfair