What is Democratic Socialism and does Trump Need to Protect Us from Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez?

What does it mean to be a Democratic Socialist and are Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez supporters such that Trump needs to protect us from them as he declared in his State of the Union speech?

The simple answer is that historically democratic socialism meant democratic ownership and control of the means of production or of the economy, including major corporations.  Democratic socialism is not simply providing government benefits such as Social Security or health benefits.  This is enlightened capitalism or welfare state capitalism but certainly not socialism.  Conflating all this with democratic socialism is simply another effort to Red bait anyone who believes in government helping others.


 In 2015 Sanders declared:
And what democratic socialism is about  is saying that it is immoral and wrong that the top one-tenth of 1 percent in this country own almost 90 percent - almost - own almost as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent.  That it is wrong, today, in a rigged economy, that 57 percent of all new income is going to the top 1 percent.

That when you look around the world, you see every other major country providing health care to all people as a right, except the United States.  You see every other major country saying to moms that, when you have a baby, we're not gonna separate you from your newborn baby, because we are going to have - we are gonna have medical and family paid leave, like every other country on Earth.

For Sanders, economic justice and leveling the opportunity and income gap between the rich and poor is what part of what it means to be a democratic socialist.  Yet historically the term has meant  more that economic justice, it also included democratic control of the economy.

Democratic socialism emerges as a political movement in response to Karl Marx’s criticism of capitalism in the mid nineteenth century.  To simplify, Marx had argued that the core problem of capitalism was  a class exploitation and struggle between the bourgeoisie and proletariat where the latter sells labor power which is extracted as surplus value by the former.  The bourgeoisie own the means of production and over time in their race to maintain profits they increasingly replace human labor power with machines, they drive down wages placing more and more individuals into poverty.  This process creates an economic crisis, intensifying class struggle, and eventually creating conditions for a capitalist struggle.  As the theory was eventually amended by Engels, it suggested an economic inevitability for the revolution.  With Lenin, the communist party would serve as a vanguard movement to lead the revolution.  As further amended by Stalin, this party in practice was highly undemocratic.

Starting in the late nineteenth century individuals such as Eduard Bernstein in Evolutionary Socialism argued that the revolutionary tactics and economic inevitability of the revolution were not  practical or certain.  He and others agreed with much of the basic criticism of Marx but instead tied the future of a classless society to parliamentary democracy.  Specifically, the emphasis was upon linking universal franchise to socialist ideals with the hope that socialism could be brought about by elections.  For Bernstein, socialism was an ethical imperative, it was about treating everyone with respect, and it was grounded in the French Revolution ideas of promoting “Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity.”  It was taking the ideals of political liberalism and translating them into economic democracy.  In effect, workers would have democratic control not just of the government but of the economy.

There was serious debate over whether parliamentary socialism was possible, with writers such as Rosa Luxemburg, Karl Kautsky, and Leon Trotsky reaching various conclusions.  But the core argument about what constituted democratic socialism centered on democratic control of the marketplace–it was democratic control of capitalism.  It was about ensuring that workers and not capitalists made decisions about what to invest, not letting the choice simply remain in the boardrooms of corporate executives.

The dividing line between democratic socialism and what we might call enlightened capitalism or liberalism is significant.  John Stuart Mill’s Principles of Political Economy argued that social injustices could be addressed by simple redistribution of economic resources–the classic welfare state.  Here the government would tax the rich and redistribute economic resources, or use its power to improve the economy.  Eventually this would be the Keynesian economics of the New Deal and Great Society.  It is state capitalism for the benefit for middle class and poor, but it is still capitalism.  Yes, the government can act and manipulate the economy for the benefit of the people, but it can also do that for the benefit of the rich.  This is what the US government has essentially done for the last couple of generations, and this is the criticism that Sanders is leveling.

In so many ways, Sanders is a left liberal following Mill and Keynes–we can use state capitalism to augment  economic redistributions–but he is not a democratic socialist in the classic meaning where the emphasis is upon democratizing both the political and economic systems.  It is about subordinating market choices and the free market to serving democratic imperatives.

Michael Harrington was perhaps America’s finest theoretician of democratic socialism.  He was one of the founders of the Democratic Socialists of America.  His book The Other America in the early  1960s is one of the clearest criticisms of American capitalism and it inspired many.  But in his Socialism Past & Future he crisply defines democratic socialism as:

[D]emocraticization of decision making in the everyday economy, of micro as well as micro choices.  It looks primarily but not exclusively to the decentralized, face-to-face participation of the direct produces and their choices in determining the matters that shape their social lives.  It is not a formula  of a specific legal mode of ownership, but a principle of empowering people at the base...This project can inspire a series of structural reforms that introduce new modes of social ownership into a mixed economy.

Democratic socialism is not the central state planning of the economy where the government owns  all the businesses.  It is as Alec Nove describes in the Economics of Feasible Socialism a variety of business types, but all are connected by the idea that there is democratic control over basic economic choices.  What China has with its state-owned enterprises is not socialism, it is state capitalism, and mostly to the benefit of a few.  Few Chinese have much say over the economic choices being made in that country, one where there is a sharper and sharper class divide.

Democratic socialism for Harrington, and Dorothy Day, as well as Norman Thomas, Eugene Debs, and Emma Goldman, is also as Bernstein argued, infused with ethical imperatives about respecting human dignity and the banner of individual rights as articulated by classical writers such as John Locke and John Stuart Mill. Democratic socialism would assail  the power of the rich and of corporations in America, contending that is not enough just to tax them and redistribute wealth.  Instead, it is about saying they do not get to make the political and economic choices that govern the rest of society.  It is saying that the people get to own the economy and decide for themselves.  Capitalism does not dictate how democracy operates, it is vice-versa.

This is what democratic socialism has historically meant. Sanders may or may not be one or he may be redefining what the term means.  But orthodox democratic socialism is something different than what Sanders described in 2015, what Trump disparages, and what so many think of when the discuss matters such as free health care, college education, or other programs.

The DNC v. Sanders: Why Bernie is in Trouble

Sanders is in trouble.  And it is not simply the problem with staffers hacking Clinton’s voter database.  The problem runs deeper, much of which has little to do with Sanders, per se.  Instead,  the forces that are perhaps beginning to do Sanders in are entirely predictable and resident in the nature of leftist politics in America and its relationship with the Democratic Party.

The Party v. Sanders
Democrats have a long history of animosity with socialist candidates.  Yes many were elected at the local level in Minnesota and Wisconsin in the 1920s and 1930s, but one should also remember how fiercely Democrats and Liberals often joined in the communist witch hunts of McCarthy during the 50s.  Out of fear of being red-baited or considered pinkos, Democrats were slow to condemn what he did.
But even at a less extreme level, it comes as absolutely no surprise that the Democratic National Committee (DNC), Deborah Wasserman Schultz, and the establishment Democratic Party are pressing the scales and favoring Hilary Clinton over Bernie Sanders.  Face it, two things are going on here. First, remember that Bernie is not a Democrat–he is an independent and self-described democratic socialist running within the Democratic Party.  He and his supporters are challenging the hierarchy and establishment of the Democratic Party.  He is to the Democrats as Trump is to the Republicans in so many ways.  He has not build up favors within the party, he is not married to a former president of the US who was a Democrat, and he is not beholden to the same special interests that so much of the party, including Clinton is.  The current Democratic Party is a pro-business corporate entity, this is not who Sanders is.  Given all of that, should one be surprised that the party would shun him.
Sanders is part of a long line of progressives nationally and in Minnesota taking on the Democratic Party establishment.  Think of Eugene McCarthy to Johnson, or Howard Dean v. John Kerry.  Or even consider Jesse Jackson in 1988.   He and hie delegates were shunned in Minnesota and across the country.  Party leaders and regulars are basically conservative.  They go with incumbents over challengers, old faces as opposed to new, and are loath to accept those who have not paid their dues or sworn their allegiance to party endorsements and traditions.  Political parties are insular, often unable to change, adopting a strategy that is more protective of their interests than that of what the people want.  In effect, often leaders think “they” are the party and not the people who attend caucuses or vote.  For years I have levied this criticism against the Minnesota DFL–a party still often living in the past, basking in the legacy of Humphrey, Freeman, Mondale, and Wellstone, not realizing that times have changed and that the keying to winning is developing a strategy and narrative that will be broader than one which is only good for winning in Minneapolis and St Paul.  Robert Michels classic Political Parties, published a century ago, described the oligarchical tendencies of political parties, well described this phenomena, and it still worth reading.

 War and Socialism
Sander’s other problem is his narrative.  He speaks of the problem of class politics–the gap between the rich and the poor, the power of corporations in American society. It is not a message of fear.  Contrary to Trump, he does not blame the rational perception of many that economically it is worse for them now than in the past by attacking Muslims or immigrants.    His message is one of working and middle class solidarity.  Yet the events in Paris and San Bernardino have eclipsed his theme of economic justice.  In so doing, he would not be the first progressive candidate felled by this.
The late nineteenth and early twentieth century socialist parties of Europe were derailed by World War I and nationalism that pitted workers against workers across the continent.  In the US, WW I ended Eugene Debs’ career as it did too for Norman Thomas with WW II.  War is a great way to break up progressive politics.  Find another enemy, fight another war, distract workers from their economic plight by playing on and to  their fears and prejudices.  War is a wonderful to divert peoples’ attention from domestic issues.  George Bush did that with Afghanistan and Iraq.  “You need to wait because we need to fight a war and you need to sacrifice for the war effort.”  This is what we are again hearing.  Sanders’ message of economic justice is getting eclipsed and drowned out by the drum beat of war that not only the Republicans are sounding, but so is Clinton.  No she is not saying send ground troops in yet, but there is no question that her political status is benefitted by a war.

The Arrogance of Power
Perhaps the only bright side for Sanders is Clinton’s continued sense of entitlement and arrogance. Clinton’s recent debate performance was strong, but she talked right past Sanders and O’Malley.  She and her supporters still act as if she is entitled to the presidency–it is her time, she is due it.    Yes Clinton has a lot to offer and she is the establishment candidate for the party, but she has yet to offer a compelling narrative to why she should be president.    She has lots of positions and views on subjects, but there is no compelling and overarching narrative for her presidency.  She needs to solve that problem.
Sanders has a narrative and an argument, but alas, it may not be enough.  With less than 45 days to the Iowa caucuses Clinton appears to be consolidating her hold there, New Hampshire, and beyond. Yes 45 days is an eternity, and yes surprises can happen during that time, but right now Sanders is in trouble, with much of his problems no surprise given what has happened in the past with really progressive candidates who take on the establishment in the US.

What does it mean to be a Democratic Socialist? (And Why Bernie Sanders may not be one)

So what is democratic socialism?  Both the Washington Post and NY Times recently tried to answer that question. In the first Democratic presidential debate candidate Bernie Sanders described in part what it means for him to be a democratic socialist:

And what democratic socialism is about  is saying that it is immoral and wrong that the top one-tenth of 1 percent in this country own almost 90 percent - almost - own almost as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent.  That it is wrong, today, in a rigged economy, that 57 percent of all new income is going to the top 1 percent.

That when you look around the world, you see every other major country providing health care to all people as a right, except the United States.  You see every other major country saying to moms that, when you have a baby, we're not gonna separate you from your newborn baby, because we are going to have - we are gonna have medical and family paid leave, like every other country on Earth.

For Sanders, economic justice and leveling the opportunity and income gap between the rich and poor is what part of what it means to be a democratic socialist.  Yet historically the term has meant  more that economic justice, it also included democratic control of the economy.

Democratic socialism emerges as a political movement in response to Karl Marx’s criticism of capitalism in the mid nineteenth century.  To simplify, Marx had argued that the core problem of capitalism was  a class exploitation and struggle between the bourgeoisie and proletariat where the latter sells labor power which is extracted as surplus value by the former.  The bourgeoisie own the means of production and over time in their race to maintain profits they increasingly replace human labor power with machines, they drive down wages placing more and more individuals into poverty.  This process creates an economic crisis, intensifying class struggle, and eventually creating conditions for a capitalist struggle.  As the theory was eventually amended by Engels, it suggested an economic inevitability for the revolution.  With Lenin, the communist party would serve as a vanguard movement to lead the revolution.  As further amended by Stalin, this party in practice was highly undemocratic.

Starting in the late nineteenth century individuals such as Eduard Bernstein in Evolutionary Socialism argued that the revolutionary tactics and economic inevitability of the revolution were not  practical or certain.  He and others agreed with much of the basic criticism of Marx but instead tied the future of a classless society to parliamentary democracy.  Specifically, the emphasis was upon linking universal franchise to socialist ideals with the hope that socialism could be brought about by elections.  For Bernstein, socialism was an ethical imperative, it was about treating everyone with respect, and it was grounded in the French Revolution ideas of promoting “Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity.”  It was taking the ideals of political liberalism and translating them into economic democracy.  In effect, workers would have democratic control not just of the government but of the economy.

There was serious debate over whether parliamentary socialism was possible, with writers such as Rosa Luxemburg, Karl Kautsky, and Leon Trotsky reaching various conclusions.  But the core argument about what constituted democratic socialism centered on democratic control of the marketplace–it was democratic control of capitalism.  It was about ensuring that workers and not capitalists made decisions about what to invest, not letting the choice simply remain in the boardrooms of corporate executives.

The dividing line between democratic socialism and what we might call enlightened capitalism or liberalism is significant.  John Stuart Mill’s Principles of Political Economy argued that social injustices could be addressed by simple redistribution of economic resources–the classic welfare state.  Here the government would tax the rich and redistribute economic resources, or use its power to improve the economy.  Eventually this would be the Keynesian economics of the New Deal and Great Society.  It is state capitalism for the benefit for middle class and poor, but it is still capitalism.  Yes, the government can act and manipulate the economy for the benefit of the people, but it can also do that for the benefit of the rich.  This is what the US government has essentially done for the last couple of generations, and this is the criticism that Sanders is leveling. 

In so many ways, Sanders is a left liberal following Mill and Keynes–we can use state capitalism to augment  economic redistributions–but he is not a democratic socialist in the classic meaning where the emphasis is upon democratizing both the political and economic systems.  It is about subordinating market choices and the free market to serving democratic imperatives.

Michael Harrington was perhaps America’s finest theoretician of democratic socialism.  He was one of the founders of the Democratic Socialists of America.  His book The Other America in the early  1960s is one of the clearest criticims of American capitalism and it inspired many.  But in his Socialism Past & Future he crisply defines democratic socialism as:

[D]emocraticization of decision making in the everyday economy, of micro as well as micro choices.  It looks primarily but not exclusively to the decentralized, face-to-face participation of the direct produces and their choices in determining the matters that shape their social lives.  It is not a formula  of a specific legal mode of ownership, but a principle of empowering people at the base...This project can inspire a series of structural reforms that introduce new modes of social ownership into a mixed economy.

Democratic socialism is not the central state planning of the economy where the government owns  all the businesses.  It is as Alec Nove describes in the Economics of Feasible Socialism a variety of business types, but all are connected by the idea that there is democratic control over basic economic choices.  What China has with its state-owned enterprises is not socialism, it is state capitalism, and mostly to the benefit of a few.  Few Chinese have much say over the economic choices being made in that country, one where there is a sharper and sharper class divide.

Democratic socialism for Harrington, and Dorothy Day, as well as Norman Thomas, Eugene Debs, and Emma Goldman, is also as Bernstein argued, infused with ethical imperatives about respecting human dignity and the banner of individual rights as articulated by classical writers such as John Locke and John Stuart Mill. Democratic socialism would assail  the power of the rich and of corporations in America, contending that is not enough just to tax them and redistribute wealth.  Instead, it is about saying they do not get to make the political and economic choices that govern the rest of society.  It is saying that the people get to own the economy and decide for themselves.  Capitalism does not dictate how democracy operates, it is vice-versa.

This is what democratic socialism has historically meant. Hillary Clinton is not a democratic socialist.  Nor is Obama.  Both are state capitalists. Sanders may or may not be one or he may be redefining what the term means.  But orthodox democratic socialism is something different than what Sanders described in the first Democratic Party debate.