Democratic Socialism
Encyclopedia of Activism and SocialJustice
Sage Reference Project
(forthcoming)
Democratic Socialism --The relationship between democracy and socialism is acurious one. Both traditions are rooted philosophically in the concept of equality,but different aspects of equality are emphasized. Democracy appeals topolitical equality, the right of all individuals to participate in setting therules to which all will be subject. Socialism emphasizes materialequality--not strict equality, but an end to the vast disparities of income andwealth traceable to the inequalities of ownership of means of production.
Of course there can be materialequality without democracy as well as democracy without material equality.Plato advocated a material equality for the "guardians" of his idealstate. (Those entrusted with ruling would live modestly, take their meals incommon, and, to forestall the temptation to enrich themselves, keep theirstorehouses open for inspection, and never handle gold or silver.) Manyreligious orders have practiced a material egalitarianism while emphasizingstrict obedience to one's superiors. Conversely, in most contemporarydemocratic societies, material inequalities are vast and growing. (The upper1% ofU.S. households now own nearly 40% of allthe privately-held wealth of the nation.)
From the beginning it has beenrecognized that political equality is likely to produce demands for materialequality. If people are truly "equal," why should a few be so richand so many so poor? If the majority can make the laws, what is to preventthem from redistributing the wealth? Political theorists from Plato through theFounding Fathers of theUnited States, through JohnStuart Mill to the present have warned of this tendency.
Plato saw democracy as inevitablydegenerating into tyranny, for thedemoswould try to redistributewealth, the wealthy would rebel, the people would call on a strongman to aidtheir cause, but he would not relinquish power once installed. AlexanderHamilton urged that "first class" people, the rich and well-born,be given a permanent share of the government, so as to check the"imprudence" of democracy. Mill worried that majority would compelthe wealthy to bear the burden of taxation, so he proposed that the "moreintelligent and knowledgeable" be allowed multiple votes, and that mode ofemployment serve as a marker for intelligence. He took it to be self-evidentthat "the employer of labor" is on average more intelligent than alaborer.
More recently the TrilateralCommission, a gathering of elites from theU.S.,Western Europe andJapan (brainchild of David Rockefeller and forerunner of the WorldEconomic Forum) issued a widely-read report warning that the "democraticdistemper" of the 1960s, early 70s, threatened to render capitalistcountries ungovernable.
Unlike the preeminent politicaltheorists from antiquity until quite recently, virtually all the earlyself-described "socialists" (a term that seems to have been firstused as a self-ascription by Robert Owen in 1827) were ardent democrats. Marxand Engels in theirCommunist Manifesto proclaimed that the first stepin the replacing capitalism by a new and better economic system is "toraise the proletariat to the position of ruling class, to win the battle ofdemocracy." Marx and Engels and virtually all of their socialistcontemporaries saw the political empowerment of society's disenfranchised as anecessary step in the transformation of capitalism into a more humane socialorder.
Few socialists prior to the 1920swould have imagined a "contradiction" between socialism anddemocracy. Prior to the Russian Revolution, there were no socialist countriesanywhere, nor any fully democratic ones. (In no country did women have the rightto vote. Racial minorities were often excluded from the political process. Dominant capitalist countries presided most undemocratically over theircolonial empires.) It seemed obvious to socialists everywhere that democracywas a stepping stone to socialism.
The Russian Revolution changed theequation dramatically. Many socialists began to question the link betweensocialism and democracy. On the one hand, actually-existing democracies showedthemselves to be deeply hostile to socialism. On the other hand, actually-existingsocialism turned out to be anything but democratic.
The United States, for example,having gone to war to "make the world safe for democracy," reactedswiftly to the events in Russia (well before the Bolshevik Revolution hadbecome Stalinist), imprisoning the nation's leading socialist, Eugene Debs,along with dozens of other socialist leaders. (Debs had garnered 6% of thevote in the 1912 presidential election, and hundreds of socialists had beenelected to public office.) Socialist legislators were expelled from office,and the socialist press banned from the mails.
Moreover, there was virtually no resistance onthe part of democratic capitalist countries to the spread of fascism throughoutEurope. Indeed, theU. S.,France andBritain remained resolutely neutral whilethe forces of General Franco, aided by fascistItaly and Nazi Germany, waged a successful civil war against thedemocratically-elected government ofSpain.So long as anti-democratic forces were anti-socialist or anticommunist, theycould count on the support of the democratic governments of the West. Meanwhile, the one country in the world calling itself socialist turned out notto be "democratic" in any recognizable sense of the term.
Some socialists tried to reconcilethese deeply disappointing developments by distinguishing between"bourgeois democracy" and "proletarian democracy," theformer viewed as fraudulent. Some went on to argue that, given the implacablehostility of powerful capitalist countries to socialism, a"dictatorial" phase was necessary in order to make the transition toauthentic (proletarian) democracy.
Others felt that Stalin had"betrayed" the revolution. TheSoviet Union was declared to be neither democratic nor socialist. Still others,non-socialists as well as socialists, argued that "democracy" was apolitical category, whereas "socialism" designated an economicsystem. Hence any of four categories is possible: democratic capitalism,non-democratic capitalism, democratic socialism, non-democratic socialism. There is no necessary connection between democracy and either form of economicorganization.
Following World War II, the discoursetook another turn. TheSoviet Union was no longer thesole representative of "actually existing socialism." The Red Armyhad defeated Hitler's army on the Eastern Front and driven it out ofEastern Europe. As it retreated, pro-Sovietregimes were installed in its wake, none of them democratic. Moreover, asocialist revolution occurred inChina,and many were brewing elsewhere in the "Third World." In almost all instances these movements, inspired bythe successes ofRussia andChina, had little sympathy for "bourgeois democracy."
As the cleavage between socialism anddemocracy appeared to widen, the connection between capitalism and democracyseemed to grow stronger. Having lost the war,Japan andGermany lost their colonies. So too, soonenough, did most of the other European nations (reluctantly and often onlyafter fierce struggle). TheU.S., for itspart, granted (quasi-)independence to thePhilippines. With capitalist fascism and overt colonialism mostly gone (Portugal would retain its African coloniesinto the 1970s), a new pair equations gained prominence: capitalism=democracy,socialism=totalitarianism.
Of course the first equation couldnot be defended intellectually, however much it was imbedded in popularconsciousness. (In theUnited States the Cold Warwas typically seen to be a battle between democracy and communism.) After all,there had been and still were non-democratic capitalist countries. Moreover,capitalist democracies continued to support non-democratic regimes abroad,however brutal, so long as they were "anti-communist." On occasion,capitalist democracies would even instigate the replacement ofdemocratically-elected governments with viciously authoritarian ones.
The second equation, however, had itsintellectual supporters. Milton Friedman (later to be awarded a Nobel Prizein Economics) argued that capitalism was a necessary, although admittedly notsufficient, condition for democracy. He argued that socialism involvesreplacing decentralized market mechanisms with conscious central planning, andthat such central planning is not only inherently inefficient, but itnecessarily concentrates power in the hands of the small class of planners.With economic power so concentrated, the concentration of political power isinevitable. Moreover, this concentration virtually rules out dissent, sinceall media, indeed all jobs of any sort, are controlled by these planners. Theinevitable outcome: totalitarianism.
Friedrich von Hayek (also awarded a Nobel Prizein Economics) went still further, arguing that even social democratic reformsintended, not to overthrow capitalism, but only to curb the excesses of themarket, would have the same result, being nothing less than "the road toserfdom."
Hayek's argument was in part aresponse to a new division that had emerged among socialists, the divisionbetween "social democrats" and "democratic socialists." The former had made peace with capitalism, and concentrated on humanizing thesystem. Social democrats supported and tried to strengthen the basicinstitutions of the welfare state--pensions for all, public health care, publiceducation, unemployment insurance. They supported and tried to strengthen thelabor movement. The latter, as socialists, argued that capitalism couldneverbe sufficiently humanized, and that trying to suppress the economiccontradictions in one area would only see them emerge in a different guiseelsewhere. (E.g., if you push unemployment too low, you'll get inflation; ifjob security is too strong, labor discipline breaks down; etc.)
This division has become ever morepronounced since the demise of theSoviet Union. Today the major socialist parties ofEurope, as well as the Labour Party of Great Britain and manyformer Communist Parties, have explicitly distanced themselves from socialismas traditionally understood, and are now social democratic parties. Thereremain smaller parties in almost all countries, often split-offs from the majorparties, that retain their allegiance to socialism. In the United Statesthose small parties still bearing the name socialist, e.g., Socialist PartyUSA, Socialist Workers Party, are still committed to socialism, as is thelargest socialist organization, the Democratic Socialists of America, anorganization that does not consider itself a political "party."
Today there are few socialistorganizations or self-identified socialist thinkers or activists who do notconsider themselvesdemocratic socialists. Indeed, the argument is nowoften made, more forcefully than ever before, that a true democrat, a"radical democrat," must be a socialist. This argument--a mirror-imageof the Friedman argument--purports to show that it is capitalism, not socialism,that is incompatible with genuine democracy.
It is argued that capitalisminevitably gives rise to vast disparities of wealth, and that this economicpower inevitably translates into political power. In support of the firstclause of the argument, one points to the ever-increasing concentration ofwealth in capitalist countries following the collapse of capitalism'sideological rival, the existence of which had checked somewhat capitalism'srapacious tendencies. In support of the second, one points to the enormousrole that money plays in contemporary elections, and the fact that virtuallyall the major media are owned by corporations, which are, in turn, controlledby the wealthy. To these considerations is added a theoretical argument. Ifan elected government should make a serious attempt to rein in the power ofcapital, an "investment strike" would ensue, bringing on a severeeconomic downturn that will negatively impact on everybody. The offendinggovernment will be quickly voted out of office. So long as a small class hassuch power, real democracy is impossible.
This argument raises a deep questionabout the meaning of the term "democracy." Are capitalist"democracies" truly democratic? The term "socialist" isalso much contested. Virtually all socialists have distanced themselves fromthe economic model long synonymous with "socialism," i.e. the Sovietmodel of a non-market, centrally-planned economy. The validity of theFriedmanite critique of this specific form of socialism has been (at leastimplicitly) acknowledged. Some have endorsed the concept of "marketsocialism," a post-capitalist economy that retains market competition, butsocializes the means of production, and, in some versions, extends democracy tothe workplace. Some hold out for a non-market, participatory economy. Alldemocratic socialists agree on the need for a democratic alternative tocapitalism. There is no consensus as yet as to what that alternative shouldlook like.
David Schweickart
See also:democracy,socialism, social democracy, participatoryeconomics, Eugene Debs, Robert Owen, Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels.
FurtherReading and References:
Bobbio, N. (1987). Which Socialism? Marxism, Socialism and Democracy. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Busky, D. (2000).DemocraticSocialism: A Global Survey. New York: Praeger Publishers
Callinicos, Alex (1993). Socialismand Democracy. In D. Held, (ed.),Prospects for Democracy, Stanford:StanfordUniversity Press, 200-212.
Crozier, M., Huntington, S. &Watanuki, J. (1975). The Crisis of Democracy: Report on the Governabilityof Democracies to the Trilateral Commission.New York:New YorkUniversity Press.
Cunningham, F. (1987).DemocraticTheory and Socialism.Cambridge:CambridgeUniversity Press.
_____ (1994).The Real World ofDemocracy Revisited and Other Essays on Democracy and Socialism. Atlantic Highlands,NJ: Humanities Press.
Dahl, R. A. (1985).A Preface toEconomic Democracy. Berkeley:University ofCalifornia Press
_____ (1989).Democracy and Its Critics.New Haven:YaleUniversity Press.
Friedman, M. (1962). Capitalismand Freedom. Chicago:University ofChicago Press.
Gould, C. (1987).RethinkingDemocracy: Freedom and Social Cooperation in Politics, Economy and SocietyCambridge:CambridgeUniversity Press.
Plato,The Republic.
Harrington, M. (1972). Socialism.New York: Bantam
Hayek, F. A. (1944).The Road to Serfdom.Chicago:University ofChicago Press.
Howard, M. ed. (2001). Socialism.Amherst,NY: Humanities Press.
Marx, K. & Engels, F. (1848). The CommunistManifesto.
Mill, J.S. (1861). Considerations on RepresentativeGovernement.
Schumpeter, J. (1942). Capitalism,Socialism and Democracy. New York: Harperand Row.
Schwartz, J. & Schulman, J. Toward Freedom: The Theory and Practice of Democratic Socialism. www.dsusa.org/toward_ds.html. Retrieved3/21/06.
Schweickart, D. (2002). AfterCapitalism.Lanham,MD: Rowman and Littlefield.
Zinn, H. (1980). A People'sHistory of theUnited States. New York: Harper and Row.
SubmittedMarch 24, 2006
