Democratic socialism

Democratic socialism is a political ideology advocating a democratic political system alongside a socialist economic system. This may refer to extending principles of democracy in the economy (such as through cooperatives or workplace democracy), or may simply refer to trends of socialism that emphasize democratic principles as inalienable from their political project.

There is no exact definition of democratic socialism. It may be described as a multi-party system, constitutionalism, freedom of speech, universal suffrage with common ownership and/or a planned economy. Some forms of democratic socialism overlap with social democracy, while many forms reject social democratic reformism in favor of more transformative methods, and other forms overlap with Revolutionary Socialism.

Definition

Democratic socialism is difficult to define, and groups of political scientists have radically different definitions for the term.

Some definitions simply refer to all forms of socialism that follow a gradual, reformist or evolutionary path to socialism, rather than a revolutionary one.[1] Often, this definition is invoked to distinguish democratic socialism from Stalinist socialism, as in Donald Busky's Democratic Socialism: A Global Survey,[2] Jim Tomlinson's Democratic Socialism and Economic Policy: The Attlee Years, 1945-1951, Norman Thomas Democratic Socialism: a new appraisal or Roy Hattersley's Choose Freedom: The Future of Democratic Socialism.

But for those who use the term in this way, the scope of the term "socialism" itself can be very vague, and include proposals that exist within and are compatible with capitalism. For example, Robert M. Page, a Reader in Democratic Socialism and Social Policy at the University of Birmingham, writes about "transformative democratic socialism" to refer to the politics of the Clement Attlee government (a strong welfare state, fiscal redistribution, some government ownership) and "revisionist democratic socialism," as developed by Anthony Crosland and Harold Wilson:

The most influential revisionist Labour thinker, Anthony Crosland..., contended that a more "benevolent" form of capitalism had emerged since the [Second World War] ... According to Crosland, it was now possible to achieve greater equality in society without the need for "fundamental" economic transformation. For Crosland, a more meaningful form of equality could be achieved if the growth dividend derived from effective management of the economy was invested in "pro-poor" public services rather than through fiscal redistribution.[3]

A variant of this set of definitions is Joseph Schumpeter's argument, set out in Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy (1941), that liberal democracies were evolving from "liberal capitalism" into democratic socialism, with the growth of workers' self-management, industrial democracy and regulatory institutions.[4]

Some proponents of market socialism see the latter as a form of democratic socialism.[5]

In contrast, other definitions of democratic socialism sharply distinguish it from social democracy.[6] For example, Peter Hain classifies democratic socialism, along with libertarian socialism, as a form of anti-authoritarian "socialism from below" (using the term popularised by Hal Draper), in contrast to Stalinism and social democracy, variants of authoritarian state socialism. For Hain, this democratic/authoritarian divide is more important than the revolutionary/reformist divide.[7] In this definition, it is the active participation of the population as a whole, and workers in particular, in the management of economy that characterises democratic socialism, while nationalisation and economic planning (whether controlled by an elected government or not) are characteristic of state socialism. A similar, but more complex, argument is made by Nicos Poulantzas.[8] Draper himself uses the term "revolutionary-democratic socialism" as a type of socialism from below in his The Two Souls of Socialism. He writes: "the leading spokesman in the Second International of a revolutionary-democratic Socialism-from-Below [was] Rosa Luxemburg, who so emphatically put her faith and hope in the spontaneous struggle of a free working class that the myth-makers invented for her a 'theory of spontaneity'".[9] Similarly, about Eugene Debs, he writes: "'Debsian socialism' evoked a tremendous response from the heart of the people, but Debs had no successor as a tribune of revolutionary-democratic socialism."[10]

Other definitions fall between the first and second set, seeing democratic socialism as a specific political tradition closely related to and overlapping with social democracy. For example, Bogdan Denitch, in Democratic Socialism, defines it as proposing a radical reorganisation of the socio-economic order through public ownership, workers' control of the labour process and redistributive tax policies.[11] Robert G. Picard similarly describes a democratic socialist tradition of thought including Eduard Bernstein, Karl Kautsky, Evan Durbin and Michael Harrington.[12]

The term democratic socialism can be used in a third way, to refer to a version of the Soviet model that was reformed in a democratic way. For example, Mikhail Gorbachev described perestroika as building a "new, humane and democratic socialism."[13] Consequently, some former Communist parties have rebranded themselves as democratic socialist, as with the Party of Democratic Socialism in Germany.

Justification of democratic socialism can be found in the works of social philosophers like Charles Taylor and Axel Honneth, among others. Honneth has put forward the view that political and economic ideologies have a social basis, that is, they originate from intersubjective communication between members of a society.[14] Honneth criticises the liberal state because it assumes that principles of individual liberty and private property are ahistorical and abstract, when, in fact, they evolved from a specific social discourse on human activity. Contra liberal individualism, Honneth has emphasised the inter-subjective dependence between humans; that is, our well-being depends on recognising others and being recognised by them. Democratic socialism, with its emphasis on social collectivism, could be seen as a way of safeguarding this dependency.

History

Forerunners and formative influences

Fenner Brockway, a leading British democratic socialist of the Independent Labour Party, wrote in his book Britain's First Socialists:

The Levellers were pioneers of political democracy and the sovereignty of the people; the Agitators were the pioneers of participatory control by the ranks at their workplace; and the Diggers were pioneers of communal ownership, cooperation and egalitarianism. All three equate to democratic socialism.[15]

The tradition of the Diggers and the Levellers was continued in the period described by EP Thompson in The Making of the English Working Class by Jacobin groups like the London Corresponding Society and by polemicists such as Thomas Paine. Their concern for both democracy and social justice marks them out as key precursors of democratic socialism.[16]

The term "socialist" was first used in English in the British Cooperative Magazine in 1827[17] and came to be associated with the followers of the Welsh reformer Robert Owen, such as the Rochdale Pioneers who founded the co-operative movement. Owen's followers again stressed both participatory democracy and economic socialisation, in the form of consumer co-operatives, credit unions and mutual aid societies. The Chartists similarly combined a working class politics with a call for greater democracy. Many countries have this.

The British moral philosopher John Stuart Mill also came to advocate a form of economic socialism within a liberal context. In later editions of his Principles of Political Economy (1848), Mill would argue that "as far as economic theory was concerned, there is nothing in principle in economic theory that precludes an economic order based on socialist policies."[18][19]

Henry George promoted an idea called geoism, which was popularly know at the time as the "Single Tax Movement". George sought a form of democratic socialism by collecting economic rent via taxation of economic rents from land (economics) and monopolies over other natural opportunities. George believed that by removing privilege and monopoly, which he saw as private taxation, the free market would be able to allocate goods and services fairly.[20]

Modern democratic socialism

James Keir Hardie was an early democratic socialist, who founded the Independent Labour Party in Great Britain

Democratic socialism became a prominent movement at the end of the 19th century. In Germany, the Eisenacher socialist group merged with the Lassallean socialist group, in 1875, to form the German Social Democratic Party.[21] In Australia, the Labour and Socialist movements were gaining traction and the Australian Labor Party (ALP) was formed in Barcaldine, Queensland in 1891 by striking pastoral workers. A minority government led by the party was formed in Queensland in 1899 with Anderson Dawson as the Premier of Queensland where it was founded and was in power for one week, the world's first democratic socialist party led government. The ALP has been the main driving force for workers' rights in Australia, backed by Australian Trade Unions, in particular the Australian Workers' Union. Since the Whitlam Government, the ALP has moved towards Social Democratic and Third Way ideals which are found among many of the ALP's Right Faction members. Democratic Socialist, Christian Socialist, Libertarian Marxist and Agrarian Socialist ideologies lie within Labor's Left Faction.

In the US, Eugene V. Debs, one of the most famous American socialists, led a movement centred on democratic socialism and made five bids for President, once in 1900 as candidate of the Social Democratic Party and then four more times on the ticket of the Socialist Party of America.[22] The socialist industrial unionism of Daniel DeLeon in the United States represented another strain of early democratic socialism in this period. It favoured a form of government based on industrial unions, but which also sought to establish this government after winning at the ballot box.[23] The tradition continued to flourish in the Socialist Party of America, especially under the leadership of Norman Thomas.[24] The largest democratic socialist organization in the U.S. for the last decade has been Democratic Socialists of America. Upon the DSA's founding in 1983, Michael Harrington and socialist-feminist author Barbara Ehrenreich were elected as co-chairs of the organization. Currently philosopher and activist Cornel West is one of several honorary chairs. DSA has its roots in the Socialist Party of Eugene Debs and Norman Thomas. The organization does not run its own candidates in elections but instead "fights for reforms... that will weaken the power of corporations and increase the power of working people."

Senator Bernie Sanders from Vermont is a self-described democratic socialist, and is the only self-described socialist to ever be elected to the United States Senate.[25]

In Britain, the democratic socialist tradition was represented in particular by the William Morris' Socialist League, and in the 1880s by the Fabian Society, and later the Independent Labour Party (ILP) founded by Keir Hardie in the 1890s, of which George Orwell would later be a prominent member.[26] In the early 1920s, the guild socialism of G. D. H. Cole attempted to envision a socialist alternative to Soviet-style authoritarianism, while council communism articulated democratic socialist positions in several respects, notably through renouncing the vanguard role of the revolutionary party and holding that the system of the Soviet Union was not authentically socialist.[27]

Italian President Giuseppe Saragat

In other parts of Europe, many democratic socialist parties were united in the International Working Union of Socialist Parties (the "Two and a Half International") in the early 1920s and in the London Bureau (the "Three and a Half International") in the 1930s. These internationals sought to steer a course between the social democrats of the Second International, who were seen as insufficiently socialist (and had been compromised by their support for World War I), and the perceived anti-democratic Third International. The key movements within the Two and a Half International were the ILP and the Austromarxists, and the main forces in the Three and a Half International were the ILP and the Workers' Party of Marxist Unification (POUM) of Spain.[28][29] In Italy, the Italian Democratic Socialist Party broke away from the Italian Socialist Party in 1947, when this latter joined the Soviet-funded Italian Communist Party to prepare the decisive general election of 1948. Despite remaining a minor party in Italian Parliament for fifty years, its leader Giuseppe Saragat became President of Italy in 1964.

During India's freedom movement, many figures on the left of the Indian National Congress organised themselves as the Congress Socialist Party. Their politics, and those of the early and intermediate periods of Jayaprakash Narayan's career, combined a commitment to the socialist transformation of society with a principled opposition to the one-party authoritarianism they perceived in the Stalinist revolutionary model. This political current continued in the Praja Socialist Party, the later Janata Party and the current Samajwadi Party.[30][31] In Pakistan, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto introduced the concept of democratic socialism, and the Pakistan Peoples Party remained one of the prominent supporter for the socialist democratic policies in the country.

In the Middle East, the biggest democratic socialist party is the Organization of Iranian People's Fedaian (Majority).

The Folkesocialisme (translated into "popular socialism" or "people's socialism") that emerged as a vital current of the left in Nordic countries beginning in the 1950s could be characterised as a democratic socialism in the same vein. Former Swedish prime minister Olof Palme is an important proponent of democratic socialism.[32]

Notable democratic socialists

See also

References

  1. ↑ This definition is captured in this statement: Anthony Crosland "argued that the socialisms of the pre-war world (not just that of the Marxists, but of the democratic socialists too) were now increasingly irrelevant." (Chris Pierson, "Lost property: What the Third Way lacks," Journal of Political Ideologies (June 2005), 10(2), 145–163 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13569310500097265). Other texts which use the terms "democratic socialism" in this way include Malcolm Hamilton Democratic Socialism in Britain and Sweden (St Martin's Press 1989).
  2. ↑ See pp.7-8.
  3. ↑ Robert M Page, "Without a Song in their Heart: New Labour, the Welfare State and the Retreat from Democratic Socialism," Jnl Soc. Pol., 36, 1, 19–37 2007.
  4. ↑ See John Medearis, "Schumpeter, the New Deal, and Democracy," The American Political Science Review, 1997.
  5. ↑ For example, David Miller, Market, State, and Community: Theoretical Foundations of Market Socialism (Oxford University Press, 1990).
  6. ↑ What is Democratic Socialism? Questions and Answers from the Democratic Socialists of America.
  7. ↑ Peter Hain Ayes to the Left Lawrence and Wishart.
  8. ↑ "Towards a Democratic Socialism," New Left Review I/109, May–June 1978.
  9. ↑ Hal Draper, The Two Souls of Socialism, "Chapter 7: The Revisionist Facade."
  10. ↑ Hal Draper, The Two Souls of Socialism, "Chapter 8: The 100% American Scene."
  11. ↑ Bogdan Denitch, Democratic Socialism: The Mass Left in Advanced Industrial Societies (Allanheld, Osmun, 1981).
  12. ↑ The Press and the Decline of Democracy: Democratic Socialist Response in Public Policy (1985 Praeger/Greenwood).
  13. ↑ Paul T. Christensen "Perestroika and the Problem of Socialist Renewal" Social Text 1990.
  14. ↑ Honneth, Axel (1995). "The Limits of Liberalism: On the Political-Ethical Discussion Concerning Communitarianism". In Honneth, Axel. The Fragmented World of the Social. Albany: State University of New York Press. pp. 231–247. ISBN 0-7914-2300-X.
  15. ↑ Quoted in Peter Hain Ayes to the Left Lawrence and Wishart, p.12.
  16. ↑ Isabel Taylor "A Potted History of English Radicalism" Albion Magazine Summer 2007; M. Thrale (ed.) Selections from the Papers of the London Corresponding Society 1792-1799 (Cambridge University Press, 1983); E. P. Thompson The Making of the English Working Class. Victor Gollancz Ltd., 1963.
  17. ↑ Hain, op cit, p.13.
  18. ↑ Wilson, Fred. "Stuart Mill." Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 10 July 2007. Retrieved 17 March 2008.
  19. ↑ "Mill, in contrast, advances a form of liberal democratic socialism for the enlargement of freedom as well as to realize social and distributive justice. He offers a powerful account of economic injustice and justice that is centered on his understanding of freedom and its conditions." Bruce Baum, "[J. S. Mill and Liberal Socialism]," Nadia Urbanati and Alex Zacharas, eds., J. S. Mill's Political Thought: A Bicentennial Reassessment (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007).
  20. ↑ "Taxes: What Are They Good For?" Henry George Institute. Retrieved 17 March 2008.
  21. ↑ Eduard Bernstein, (1961). Evolutionary Socialism (from Die Voraussetzungen des Sozialismus und die Aufgaben der Sozialdemokratie). Schocken Books. p. xi. ISBN 978-0805200119. "Six years before that he (Eduard Bernstein) had had joined the Eisenacher socialist group which merged with the Lassallean socialist group in 1875 to form the German Social Democratic Party.".
  22. ↑ Donald Busky, "Democratic Socialism in North America," Democratic Socialism: A Global Survey especially pp.153-177.
  23. ↑ Donald Busky "Democratic Socialism in North America" Democratic Socialism: A Global Survey especially pp.150-154.
  24. ↑ Robert John Fitrakis, "The idea of democratic socialism in America and the decline of the Socialist Party: Eugene Debs, Norman Thomas and Michael Harrington. (Volumes I and II)" (January 1, 1990). ETD Collection for Wayne State University. Paper AAI9029621. See also "What is Democratic Socialism? Questions and Answers from the Democratic Socialists of America."
  25. ↑ Powell, Michael (2006-11-05). "Exceedingly Social, But Doesn't Like Parties". The Washington Post. Retrieved 2009-03-17. Vermont ...[is]... about to send the first avowed socialist to the Senate since ... well ... never.
  26. ↑ Donald Busky, "Democratic Socialism in Great Britain and Ireland," Democratic Socialism: A Global Survey, pp.83-5 on Morris, pp.91-109 on Hardie and the ILP. On Morris as democratic socialist, see also volume 3 of David Reisman, ed., Democratic Socialism in Britain: Classic Texts in Economic and Political Thought, 1825–1952 and E P Thompson, William Morris: Romantic to Revolutionary (London: Merlin, 1977). On the ILP as democratic socialist, see also The ILP: A Very Brief History; James, David, Jowitt, Tony, and Laybourn, Keith, eds. The Centennial History of the Independent Labour Party. Halifax: Ryburn, 1992.
  27. ↑ On Cole as democratic socialist, see also volume 7 of David Reisman, ed, Democratic Socialism in Britain: Classic Texts in Economic and Political Thought, 1825–1952.
  28. ↑ F. Peter Wagner, Rudolf Hilferding: Theory and Politics of Democratic Socialism (Atlantic Highlands 1996).
  29. ↑ Janet Polasky, The Democratic Socialism of Emile Vandervelde: Between Reform and Revolution (Oxford 1995).
  30. ↑ "Vikas Kamat Democratic Socialism in India."
  31. ↑ A. Appadorai, "Recent Socialist Thought in India," The Review of Politics Vol. 30, No. 3 (Jul., 1968), pp. 349-362.
  32. ↑ "Därför är jag demokratisk socialist," speech by Olof Palme at the 1982 congress of the Swedish Social Democratic Party.
  33. ↑ Stephen Schlesinger (June 3, 2011). Ghosts of Guatemala’s Past. The New York Times. Retrieved July 21, 2014.
  34. ↑ Martin Luther King Jr (2015). Cornel West, ed. The Radical King. Beacon Press. ISBN 0807012823.
  35. ↑ Chris Nineham (2007). The Shock Doctrine Book Review. Socialist Review. Retrieved 11 August 2013.
  36. ↑ Alan Ryan (1981). Bertrand Russell: A Political Life. Macmillan. p. 87. ISBN 9780374528201. None the less Russell joined the ILP [Independent Labour Party] and declared himself a democratic socialist, then and thereafter.

Bibliography

External links