Actually, who here at The PhilosophyNow Forums doesn't agree with this framework?
Democratic socialism is a political ideology advocating a democratic political system alongside a socialist economic system, involving a combination of political democracy with social ownership of the means of production. Sometimes used synonymously with "socialism", the adjective "democratic" is added to distinguish democratic socialism from Marxist-Leninist Communism.
Democratic socialism is distinguished from both the Soviet model of centralized socialism and from social democracy. This distinction arose from the allegedly authoritarian form of socialism that emerged in the Soviet Union in the 20th century.
Democratic socialism rejects the social democratic view of reform through state intervention within capitalism, seeing capitalism as incompatible with the democratic values of freedom, equality and solidarity. From this perspective, democratic socialists believe that the issues inherent to capitalism can only be solved by a transition from capitalism to socialism - by superseding private property with some form of social ownership; and that any attempt to address the economic contradictions of capitalism through reforms will only cause problems to emerge elsewhere in the economy.
However, "democratic socialism" is sometimes used as a synonym for social democracy, where "social democracy" refers to support for political democracy, regulation of the economy, and a welfare state.
There is no exact definition of democratic socialism. Some forms of democratic socialism overlap with social democracy, while many forms reject social democratic reformism in favor of more transformative methods, while some forms overlap with Revolutionary Socialism. The "democratic" element may refer to extending principles of democracy in the economy (such as through cooperatives or workplace democracy), or it may refer to support for a multi-party parliamentary democracy.
Reasonably uncorrupted democracy, functioning at a humanish 70% efficiency, will inevitably lead to socialism, as more and more of the people demand that their requirements be met. That's why the electoral systems of capitalist countries are regularly hijacked by the economic elite and turned to serve their own purposes. Then they're free to do business as they please, which invariably leads to a major depression and/or political breakdown and/or war, which requires government response, so the elite relinquish the reins to competent administrators, who then institute reform and regulation so the state can function again. Until they grow confident enough to hijack it again.
Under the AEP, there would be no such thing as tax breaks, and the only source of funds for the government would be a single Federal tax on property, property being defined as anything with intrinsic market value. These funds would be further allocated to the States, Counties and Local governments. Crony capitalism would be replaced by free-market capitalism.
Wrong country. He's the last of the species, isn't he? The last political leader I could get behind died a couple years ago, at which point I switched off. Just a passive observer now.
Bill Wiltrack wrote:GREAT! So...where is it that I actually vote for one of them there AEP politicians?
Well, first of all, you've got to get your head out of your ass. I realize this will be an exceedingly difficult extraction, but once it's accomplished, you'll be ready for step No. 2.
Last edited by bobevenson on Tue May 19, 2015 9:44 pm, edited 1 time in total.
