Democratic Socialism

Let’s talk about socialism, communism, and democratic socialism.

Let’s first break down the term “Democratic Socialism”. A democracy, like we have currently (sort of), is government by the people, meaning we vote for representation and they are supposed to be working for US in government. Seems pretty simple. Most democracies have social assistance programs that we vote for and our representatives put into action that are there to help people. Examples are SNAP, Medicare/Medicaid, Headstart, free school lunches, after school programs. Essentially these are programs that we fund from our taxes. There are federal programs and state level programs. The key to remember is – WE PAY FOR THEM with our taxes.

And just to be clear, our government (Federal and State) makes no money by itself. It is 100% funded by our tax money. Think about that the next time you hear a politician saying they want to get rid of social security- YOU PAY FOR THAT. Or cut medicare/medicaid – YOU PAY FOR THAT. Or give congress a raise – YOU PAY FOR THAT.

Democratic Socialism as a movement that seeks to have the economy be more democratically controlled where the people benefit more from the profits vs a select few. This is NOT SOCIALISM, but maybe socialism adjacent.

Socialism was an economic theory where the government would have ownership or the collective (the people) would have ownership of the means of production to ensure equal distribution of the goods. The point was no individual ownership so everybody got a piece. It sought to eliminate inequality and take care of collective needs over individual needs. You’ll hear Marxism and Socialism as synonymous. Modern examples landed more on the authoritarian side like Leninism where ownership ended up with a governing body and the people were left with little as the ruling class kept most of benefits of the goods. The people were certainly more equal since they were all mostly poor.

Communism was the result of the actual execution of Socialism and twisting by Vladimir Lenin. The goal was to have a classless society where the means of production was publicly owned and there was no private property. In execution, authoritarianism took root where the government was ruled by one party (Dictatorship) and they had control over all aspects of life and suppressed individual freedoms and rights. Modern Communism like in China or North Korea, have embraced some economic policies that take advantage of the free market and don’t remain closed off as they had in the past like in Cuba under Fidel Castro or China under Mao Zedong.

So, Socialism with a single party dictatorship becomes Communism effectively.

Let’s get back to Democracy. We keep hearing all this hubbub about how America is going “Socialist” or “Communist”, and that just isn’t even remotely true. Here are Democratic countries that have robust social assistance programs are:
Canada
France
Italy
Austria
Finland
Belgium
Germany
Spain
Denmark
Sweden
Norway
New Zealand
Switzerland
Japan

Interesting how all of those countries manage to have great social assistance programs like universal healthcare, free education, and elder care, that help people and they aren’t communist or socialist like some would have you believe.

Weird.

Assisting people is a fantastic idea. As rich as our country seems to be, we could certainly do more to help the people, and a lot less to help the top 10%. Clearly plenty of countries have figured out how to do it, and still maintain businesses and a healthy economy. It’s really strange that with all our “American Exceptionalism” we can’t seem to figure it out.

Again, Weird.