Democratic socialism just means you believe in democratically governed socialism, not that you think you can just vote capitalism into socialism. There’s both reformist and revolutionary democratic socialists. I both believe in democracy and also see that the only way to overturn capitalism (at least in the US) would be through revolution. All the democratic part means is that they’re opposed to monarchies or dictatorships.
Are you saying that you can have undemocratic socialism?
besides the oxymoron of a dictatorship of the people, yes, you can have government that claim to be socialits that are a dictatorship
Yes, under a dictatorship, it’s literally happened before. Are you being serious or is this supposed to be some sort of gotcha where you go “socialism can’t exist without democracy so the label is pedantic”?
Socialism under one party governments have happened, that is not democracy, even if democratic elements exist within. You can’t have democracy under one party, the people need the ability to form an opposition party if the need arises.
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Having a single party simply means that the society as a whole agreed on a single collective vision. There can be plenty of debate within the framework of a party on how to actually implement this vision. Meanwhile, any class society will be a dictatorship of the class that holds power. Given that socialist society would arise from an existing capitalist society, it would necessarily inherit existing class relationships. What changes is which class holds power. That’s the difference between the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie and the dictatorship of the proletariat.
Finally, the notion of dictatorship in a sense of a single person running things is infantile beyond belief. People who peddle this notion are the ones who should truly be ashamed of themselves. As Anna Louise Strong puts it in This Soviet World:
if we’re going on about pedants then I might as well add that a democracy can’t exist with only two parties, either.
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a wild dronie appears
You’re right, I’m just wasting my time in a really dumb losing battle.
What about democracy? Can’t voting fix our problems?
- Red Phoenix - Pacifism - How to do the enemy’s job for them. Youtube Audiobook
- Why not just vote leftists into office: what’s wrong with democratic socialism?
- Halim Alrah - Why liberal democracies are a sham.
- What about social democracy / democratic socialism / the Nordic model? Isn’t Sweden socialist?
- On the unraveling of the Nordic welfare states: increasing inequality and forced austerity.
- Scandinavia’s covert role in western imperialism
- Paul Cockshott - On Socialism and Democracy. 2 3
- Comrade Hakim - Why electoralism always fails.
- An Overview of Leninism, audiobook. Lenin - State and Revolution , audiobook
- LeftVoice - Bourgeois Democracy - What do Marxists mean by this term?
The voting for leftists into office one is there twice.
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Thank you, as a democratic socialist this is what I was looking for.
More like, under new management.
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
Sometimes I wonder how many “Marxists” really have read Marx.
Only those that did know that you can’t vote away capitalism.
No you can’t. It collapses on the weight of its own contradictions. Any imposition of socialism without the right material conditions is doomed.
- What I remember from Marx and/or Engels is that a sharpening of capitalism’s internal contradictions are necessary but not sufficient. Revolution is still needed. We can’t expect some automatic transition from capitalism to socialism.
- Marx wasn’t a prophet. The first successful communist revolution happened in Russia under feudalism, not capitalism.
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It’s not a passive process and the arising of socialism isn’t guaranteed.
What’s that im reference to?
In reference to how socialism will truly come about, Marx literally criticized the kind of thinking that dominates left wing thinking nowadays.
Communism and Marx are objectively left wing, and “left wing thinking” could mean any number of things. Without being specific about what you mean, it’s unfalsifiable.
Pity he was banned. I was curious to see what his specific points were.
There’s some interesting discussions to be had of Marx’s writings on electoralism, revolution, and republics.
What thinking did he criticise so literally?
The DSA has everyone from reformist soc dems, to anarchists, to MLs, to Maoist Third Worldists
and that’s precisely the reason it’s been so effective
Marxist: Let me mock one of my closest ideological allies. That will help bring about revolution.
Democratic Socialist: The fuck did I do to you, bro?
Democratic socialists are not our ally
And that’s why you’ve got no chance as a movement. And you couldn’t create anything sustainable even if you did. Congrats.
This is simplistic. If reform works, do it. If it cannot, use force. Even Marx, if I remember correctly, supported the reformist Chartists in relatively democratic countries like England (while supporting revolutionary methods in feudal Germany).
