What is democratic socialism?

1. A phoenix and its ashes

Democratic socialism arises like a phoenix from the ashes of its predecessor.  After the downfall of the Soviet bloc and pompous proclamations of the “end of history” and “no alternative” to capitalism, the notion of democratic socialism – perceived as the antidote to the excesses of capitalism - again starts gaining popularity.  This is evidenced by opinion polls as well as swelling membership in Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) – an organization whose central mission entails spreading socialist ideology in the country considered to be the bastion of unbridled capitalism.

As the phrase “democratic socialism” again entered the political discourse in the US, this raises the question what is democratic socialism anyway?  Indeed, this is the question that people frequently ask DSA activists  Answering this question is muddied by the fact that this newly reborn socialist phoenix is often associated with the ashes of its predecessor – socialism of the Soviet bloc countries.  How is “democratic socialism” different from the Soviet version of socialism which, as it is commonly believed, was a quite nasty authoritarian and inefficient system that collapsed under its own weight?

While the legacy of the soviet system is still being debated, the reality is that none of the Soviet bloc countries were socialist even by their own admission.  Socialism was merely a goal that, according to the official state propaganda, these countries were supposed achieve in some unspecified future, but at the current historical juncture they implemented the so-called “dictatorship of the proletariat” – or consolidation of all political power in the political party ostensibly representing the proletariat.  The official justification of the dictatorship of the proletariat was a threat posed by “class enemies” and foreign agents to the attainment of socialism in the future.  To what extent that threat was real (after all, imperialist countries like the US and Great Brittan have a long record of orchestrating coups and otherwise meddling in the affairs of other countries) or manufactured for political expediency may be subject to debate.  The main point is that the Soviet bloc countries officially espoused a certain level of authoritarianism as the necessary measure to achieve socialism in some unspecified future than never materialized.

This distinction between the authoritarian means and the socialist ends is not mere semantic sophistry.  The logic of equating an entire political philosophy or belief system with practices of its followers in one place and time may serve propaganda purposes but is fundamentally flawed.  Few people would seriously argue that Christianity is characterized by the Spanish Inquisition and child abuse by priests, Islam is characterized by terrorism and suicide bombers, or capitalism is characterized by enslaving of Blacks and genocide of Native Americans.  The logic is faulty, because there are adherents of Christianity, Islam, capitalism, and socialism who are free of the aforementioned excesses, and those excesses are not limited to the adherents of any particular political philosophy or religion.

Neither socialism, nor capitalism, or for that matter, any system of religious beliefs can be identified with a particular set of nation-states.  Instead, each of these concepts represents a set of principles that can be implemented in various ways by political regimes governing nation states.  Christianity practiced in Poland is different from Christianity practiced in Sweden, Islam practiced in Saudi Arabia is different from Islam practiced in Uzbekistan, capitalism practiced in Germany is different from capitalism practiced in the United States.  To define these doctrines, we need to focus on their core principles not on their implementations.  To understand the essence of a phoenix it is necessary to grasp the concept of rebirth, not to rummage through the ashes.

2. A break from history

Socialism is a political philosophy that gained prominence in the 19^th century in response to capitalist industrialization and its discontents.  The essence of that philosophy was to keep good things brought by industrialization, which can be summarized as liberation from the “idiocy of rural life” and the production of vast quantities of useful stuff, while getting rid of its discontents – general unavailability of that useful stuff to people who actually produce it.  The root cause of that discontent, according to the 19^th century thinking, was private ownership of the means of production, which allowed factory owners to sell the stuff produced by the workers and pocket the proceeds, instead of sharing them with the people who actually produced them.  Therefore, the socialist remedy to the discontents of industrialization was changing the ownership of the means production – from private to social. 

Social ownership of the means of production is the common theme of various strands of the 19^th century socialist doctrines, even though those doctrines gave divergent responses on the form of that social ownership as well as the role of the markets and money in the distribution of the produced stuff.  This 19^th century concept of socialism as social ownership of the means of production survived to the 21^st century.  It is also the ash of the previous phoenix that stains the feathers of the newly born one. 

The chief reason is that the concept of the ownership of the means of production evolved since the 19^th century.  Today, most of the economic activity is conducted by joint stock corporations whose key feature is separation of ownership from control.  Legal ownership of a corporation may be vested in an entity that has little or no control of its operations, such as a holding company or a government.  Economic ownership, defined as exposure to risks associated with its operation, is typically distributed among shareholders, both natural persons and institutions, who also have no direct control of the operations of the corporation whose stock they own.  The operational control is exercised by the management, who nominally are employees, but who often have considerable ownership interest through stock ownership. 

It is therefore clear that ownership of the means of production can be socialized to include all employees through Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOP) or in an extreme form, the entire society by distributing shares to every citizen.  This, however, will not make the corporation any more socialistic if the actual control of the operations is concentrated in the hands of the management.  The economies of the Soviet bloc countries are a case in point.  Although the majority of the means of production were nominally owned by “the people”, their operations were controlled by the management and state planning boards, while the workers, let alone “the people” had very little say how these companies were run, what they produced, and how they distributed it, how much they paid in wages, etc.  In that respect, they were no fundamentally different from “capitalist” corporations.

It is therefore clear that the 19^th century definition of socialism as social ownership of production is no longer adequate in the 21^st century economy.  Not that the fundamental idea of social ownership is irrelevant or wrong, but that the concept of ownership evolved and has been separated from operational control.  And it is the operational control not legal ownership that matters.

The second limitation of the old definition of socialism stems from the macroeconomic dimension, namely that the producers, whether privately or collectively owned, operate in an environment in which they have to interact with other producers to obtain raw materials and intermediate products as well as with customers buying their finished products.  This unavoidably creates the markets in which exchange of goods and services must be negotiated by the producers and consumers.  The unavoidability of the markets is demonstrated by the fact that they existed even in centrally planned economies of the Soviet bloc countries, which distributed raw materials, intermediate products, and finished good by a central plan.  Despite these allocations, firms had shortages of some materials or intermediate products and surpluses of other, so they developed a secondary market system outside the central plan in which surpluses were traded among firms.

The importance of markets in complex economic systems was recognized by many socialist theorists.  Among them, the Polish economist Oskar Lange argued that markets can not only function in a socialist economy, but they can function better than they do under capitalism.  Managers of socialist enterprises can set their prices the same way as managers of capitalist firms – by observing changes in supply and demand and adjusting prices accordingly, by trial and error.  However, a socialist economy has an advantage in the allocation of capital, which is based on genuine social need rather than interests of individual capitalists, according to Lange.  To illustrate, the capitalist Elon Musk can invest vast sums of money to boost his ego, like sending his car into the outer space.  In a socialist economy that money would be invested in more socially useful pursuits, such as public transit or education. 

The macro-economic dimension – efficient allocation of capital resources and distribution of goods to optimally meet social needs – cannot be addressed by the form of ownership alone.  A worker cooperative needs capital and has to sell its product just as an individually owned firm does.  On the other hand, consumers do not care about ownership form of good producers. What matters to them is the availability, quality, and price of the goods and services they need.  All these aspects are affected by macro-economic factors that are set by government policy in socialist and capitalist economies alike.  It is government that regulates the supply of money and its availability to different producers, decides which goods are public and which must be procured through the market, controls the prices of many critical goods such as energy or food, sets minimum wage, etc.  The only difference is what policy goals are being pursued and who wins and who loses as a result.

We need a new definition of socialism that, while true to its 19^th century roots, can nonetheless address two most important aspects of modern economy: the actual control of the production process and macroeconomic policy affecting production and distribution of goods and services.  That definition must also clearly and plausibly show that socialism a more favorable alternative to capitalism.

Capitalist doctrines conceptualize capitalism as a production and exchange of goods and services through voluntary market transactions among private parties free of unnecessary regulations.  The policy goal in such a system is to protect private property rights and make sure that markets operate free from any impediments.  This free operation of the markets, Milton Friedman, one of the chief proponents of this doctrine claims, will result not only in optimal distribution of economic benefits in a society, but also in elimination of social “bads” such as exploitation and discrimination in the work place.

Yet, even the most cursory observation of a capitalist markets revels that the expected outcome - optimal distribution of economic benefits in society – often fails to materialize.  While Elon Musk can blow millions of dollars to send his car to outer space, millions of people do not have adequate transportation, which impedes their ability find employment.  While Hollywood celebrities can spend millions on plastic surgeries, millions cannot afford even the most rudimentary health care.  The super-rich not only waste money on wanton pursuits, but use their resources to affect public policies to their own advantage at the expense of the majority of the population.  A recent study of US politics by two Princeton University researchers found that economic elites have substantial impact on US government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no influence.  What is more, as the markets became freer thanks to globalization, working conditions in the developed economies worsened, wages declined, and the weak position of labor created ample opportunities for discrimination of workers.

So for the socialism to offer a more attractive alternative to capitalism, it must meet tow conditions.  First, it must plausibly show that it can avoid the negative consequences of capitalism – wasteful consumption of the wealthy while most basic social needs are unfulfilled, subversion of democracy by concentrated wealth, and increasingly exploitative conditions of work for a vast number of people.  Second, it must also ascertain that the good things that the capitalist economy created, high living standards and freedom of choice and movement, will be enhanced, or at least not be jeopardized or diminished by its policies.  To this end, the following conceptualization of socialism is being proposed here:

Socialism is any set of public policies that aim to optimize economic well-being and freedom to achieve a full human potential for all citizens by prioritizing, where appropriate, public goods over individual consumption, and democratic decision making on the ‘one person one vote’ principle over concentration of decision making authority in individuals. 

The concept of actualization of a full human potential – popularized by the psychologist Abraham Maslow but having its roots in the philosophy of Aristotle – emphasizes the holistic nature of human needs, ranging from basic physiological needs, such as food or rest, to the needs for safety and security, the need to belong and be loved, and to the need for respect, social status and self-esteem.  A political system is “correct” is it enables actualization of the full human potential of all citizens, and “deviant” if it aims only at the advantage of the rulers. 

While the professed aim of socialism – fulfillment of human needs and desires – may not substantially differ from the promises of capitalism, socialism fundamentally differs from capitalism in the means through which it pursues those aims – enabling achieving full human potential through provision of public goods and democratic decision making on the one person one vote (as opposed to votes proportional to shares of wealth held), especially in the workplace.

3. Prioritizing public goods

In conventional economic theory, a “natural state” of the economy is exchange of goods and service through market transactions.  What makes is “natural” is a belief that market exchange will invariably create a situation in which all human needs and sacrifices to meet those needs will be balanced at some optimal equilibrium point.  However, certain types of goods or services cannot be efficiently distributed through ordinary market exchanges (goods for payment).  This happens if it is too expensive or impractical to exclude people unwilling or unable to pay for a good from enjoying its benefits or utility (the so-called non-excludability feature).  For example, if fire protection were offered only to the clients paying the market prices, it would not be very effective, because unextinguished fires in the non-covered houses could easily spread to the covered ones.  To avert that, fire fighters could extinguish fires in the non-covered houses as well, but the drawback of this solution a “free rider effect.”  Knowing that their homes will receive fire protection regardless of whether they pay for it or not, many people would decide to “free ride” and not pay for the service.  This, in turn, will bankrupt the fire protection providers.

Conventional economic theory offers a more efficient solution to this problem – fund the service though compulsory payments, such as taxes or insurance premiums, levied from all potential beneficiaries.  However, for this solution to work, the good or service in question must have another property – it must be “non-rival”, which means that one person’s receiving the benefit of a good does not diminish another person’s benefit.  To use the fire protection example, if fire fighters save my neighbor’s house, it does not diminish the level of fire protection I receive, and in fact it enhances it.  By contrast, if my neighbor eats a cake, there is nothing left for me.  All goods that are both “non-excludable” and “non-rival” are more efficiently delivered through institutional arrangement involving compulsory cost sharing such as insurance premiums or taxes, rather than through ordinary market transactions.  As a result, this class of goods and services is called “public goods.”

In conventional economic theory, private goods exchanged through market transactions are assumed to be a “natural state” of any economy, while public goods are an exception due to their peculiar combination of non-excludability and non-rivalry.  However, this assumption is an article of faith grounded in ideology of the market rather than an accurate reflection of reality.  In reality, there is nothing “natural” about being a private or a public good.  All goods and services are social constructs and as such their properties reflect preferences of societies that create them.  They have a certain degree of non-excludability and non-rivalry, depending on the institutional mode (or “institutional sector” in the macro-economic parlance) of their production and delivery, which in turn is defined by social circumstance and government policy.  Take, for example, roads.  If the government builds them using general taxes and makes them available to everyone, they are public goods.  That is, it is not possible to exclude non-payers from using them, and one person’s using them does not diminish the utility of another person using them.  If the government turns them into toll roads, however, they become private goods.  Although they are still non-rival (unless congested beyond capacity, but that is a temporary limitation affecting every user equally), non-payers are prevented from using them.  Another example is health care or education – they can be a public good and funded by taxes or private goods and funded by service fees paid by patients or students.

Being “public” does not necessarily means that a good or service is provided free of charge to anyone .  It means that the procurement of that good or service is funded through public funding of some sort (e.g. taxes or insurance premiums) and made available to all eligible people.  However, the recipients of such goods may be asked to pay an additional user fee to prevent waste and promote efficiency.  Examples include “co-pays” based on the actual visit in addition to insurance premiums, or public transit fare or toll in addition to transportation taxes.  What distinguishes these user fees for public goods from private market transactions is that the former are set only to facilitate an efficient use of a particular resource and rarely, if ever, cover the cost of procuring them.  The difference between user fees and the actual operating costs is covered by public cost sharing mechanism (premiums or taxes).  By contrast, private market transactions must fully cover the cost of procuring the goods, including remuneration of all people involved in this process as workers or owners of capital. 

It is the government policy and social circumstance that determine not only which particular good is public or private, but also the overall balance between public and private goods in the entire economy.  Here is where it makes sense to distinguish between different approaches governing the balance of such goods.  They range on a continuum between two extreme positions: all goods in the economy are private and delivered via market transaction, and all goods are public and distributed by some kind of institutional arrangement, with an array of various “in-between” arrangements.  This can be visually represented by  a scale of the saturation of the economy by public goods ranging from “none” (no public goods) to  “all” (all goods are public).  Of course, values “none” and “all” represent only hypothetical situations.  In reality, we can identify three broadly defined economic environments falling in-between these extremes:

·         “Effective market” in which most goods are private and delivered through market transactions, while public goods are limited to bare minimum, such as roads, elementary education, or rudimentary social protections, such as unemployment insurance:

·         “Mixed economy” in which public goods represent a substantial share of all goods in that environment (the midpoint on our scale);these may include wide range of transportation services, education at all levels, health care, housing, and various forms of public insurance ranging from unemployment to income support, to maternity and old age support. However, most other goods, services and assets are still private, and some public goods are funded by a combination of public funds and private user fees, which makes this environment “mixed public/private economy”

·         “Effective public goods economy” further expands the share of public goods in the economic environment;  this may include nationalization of key industries to produce goods that are funded mostly by the public sector, although they may be distributed through market transactions. 

Which of these three economic environments represent socialism?  The quick and easy answer is, of course, the third one, the effective public goods economy.  However, this quick and easy answer may lead to a dogmatic position of insisting on one answer to all problems, no different from free market dogmatism espoused by many libertarians.  Therefore, a more appropriate answer is a qualified one – the deployment of public good economy when needed to effectively meet social need. This more nuanced approach may lead to “effective markets” in some situations, “mixed economy” in other, and “effective public goods economy” in certain circumstances.

To illustrate, consider two services provided by a university: education and food for the student population.  Education in most countries is public good for a reason – it is non-rival and non-excludable.  The fact that there are other students in the classroom in no way diminishes the value or quality of instruction I receive, and it often enhances it.  Excluding people unable to pay for education is highly undesirable and will lead to dire social and economic consequences – illiteracy, low productivity, and shortages of skilled labor.  The food service is a different story, however.  The university can decide to provide it is a public good by charging the funding source  a fixed per student premium, and give every student a coupon to the cafeteria.  Such solution was once the norm, and it does the job, but not very efficiently.  People’s tastes in food vary widely, and if the cafeteria serves food that some students detest, those students will go hungry and will be forced to buy food elsewhere.  A more efficient solution is to open a food court on the campus, where different vendors can offer different types of food that suit different tastes.  Therefore a socialist university would provide education as a public good funded by general taxes, and food services on the market basis.  It will also provide subsidies of one kind or another to those students who cannot afford to buy food. 

4. Prioritizing democratic decision making

Control, or decision making capacity, reflects the concentration of power in the political or organizational environment.  To define power, we need to introduce t concept of social actor – a group of people sharing some common interests (real or perceived) and acting to pursue those interests in the political or organizational arena.  Power of a social actor is that actor’s capacity to prevail when confronted by opposing efforts of other social actors.  In the words of the British sociologist Anthony Giddens “power is to social science what energy is to thermodynamics.”  It determines whether there is social change and, if so, in which direction.

In real life, power can be concentrated in one social actor or distributed among multiple actors.  Concentration of power in the hands of one social actor means that this actor typically prevails when confronted by actions of other social actors that threaten his interest.  Diffusion of power means that no single actor can typically prevail when confronted by other actors, and therefore must collaborate with other actors to achieve his interests.  Stated differently, concentration of power means that one or a few social actors have a hegemonic position in society whereas diffusion of power means no social actor has such a position. 

Using an approach similar to that used to describe the economic dimension, it is possible to use a scale ranging between two extremes: “hegemony”  (power concentrated in the hands of a single individual or a small elite) to “diffusion” (power shared equally by all social actors).    In reality, we can identify three broadly defined political environments:

·         “Effective hegemony” means that political power is concentrated for all practical purposes in the hands of few social actors that form an oligarchy.  The members of the oligarchy can come from the same socio-economic class (e.g. landed aristocracy or industry owners), or the same institutional background (e.g. government bureaucracy, the military, or religious organization):

·         “Contested power relations” means that while power is still concentrated in the upper strata of the society (e.g. landowners or industrialists), the ability of those strata to prevail against interests of the lower strata is relatively limited and not assured.  This can be a result of a variety of factors, such as internal divisions within upper classes, coordinate action of lower classes, economic development, foreign intervention, or even changes in the natural environment;

·         ”Effective power diffusion” means that political power is shared among many social actors or groups.  This of course does not mean that all social actors have equal power, power inequalities still exist, but none of these actors  occupies a hegemonic position allowing it to systematically prevail over other social actors.  On a macro-social scale, this is typically represented by a multi-party parliamentary democracy in which none of the parties can achieve a majority on its own and must form coalitions with other parties.  On a micro-social scale, this is represented by a membership association or a cooperative in which every member has equal voting rights and capacity to determine the policy of the organization.

Historically, the “effective power diffusion” was the ideal sought by socialist movements.  This is represented, among other, by a key defining principle of cooperatives, “one person one vote” , as opposed to capitalist principle in which voting power is proportional to ownership shares.  The effective power diffusion model works well in environments with little differentiation of functions and responsibilities, such as housing or food cooperatives in which every resident or worker has basically the same relation to the organization.  However, things get more complicated in complex environments, with highly specialized roles and widely ranging responsibilities.  This is why there are plenty housing and food cooperatives but not that many airline coops. 

So how would an ideal distribution of decision making power look like in a socialist airline?  Here, we have different groups of actors, pilots, flight attendants, mechanics, baggage handlers, ticket agents, administrators, and last but not least passengers.  A proposition that all these groups share power on the one person one vote principle is absurd on its face.  Instead, different aspects of airline operation require different power sharing arrangements.  In  a socialist airline, all these groups would have equal say in determining certain aspects of operations, such as passenger comfort or conflict resolution and procedures.  I practical terms, passengers would have an equal say how much leg room they can have, what kind of food is being served, how seats are assigned, and what is a reasonable price for these amenities.  All employees – pilots, flight attendants, mechanics, and baggage handlers, and administrators – would have an equal say in setting personnel policy, pay scale, benefits, scheduling, grievance procedures.  On the other hand, a “socialist” flight would look very much like a “capitalist” one – the pilot making all decisions about the flight itself, cabin crew making decisions about what happens in the cabin, and passengers basically following the direction of the pilot and the cabin crew.  Perhaps the only difference is that no passenger would be kicked out of a socialist flight when a higher paying passenger wants his or her seat. 

5. Classification of political-economic regimes

The characterization of political regimes in nation states is heavily influenced by ideological distortions aimed to portray a particular regime of policy in an unreasonably favorable or unfavorable light.  Those distortions typically involve some form of the pars pro toto fallacy, or selectively using one element of a complex whole as a description of the whole.  I this particular case, the ‘whole” is the array of multiple political and economic institutions of any given country, which typically involve various combinations of political controls and market operations.  The ideology inspired par pro toto characterization focuses on one element of that array and ignore other elements to form a narrative advanced by this ideological position.  A typical example of this fallacy is selective focus on extensive social protections in countries like Denmark or Sweden and call them “socialist”, while ignoring the fact that these countries have market economies.  The same narrative focused on the market operations in the US and label it “capitalist”, while ignoring vast government outlays on public goods (defense, roads, etc.) and government regulations, and quasi monopolistic nature of many industries (e.g. telecoms, aerospace, energy and to lesser degree retail).  In the same vein, policy proposals of modest expansion of social programs (e.g. Medicare) are portrayed as “socialism” that will ruin the supposedly “market” economy of the US. 

Those ideological distortions make it rather difficult to discuss democratic socialist in a constructive matter-of-fact way.  Years of indoctrination resulted in a situation in which geo-political enmities are viewed as fundamental ideological differences.  As a result accepting socialism is often viewed as an act of treason and siding with countries declared as the enemies by the US political elites, such as Russia, Venezuela or North Korea.  One way to counter this ideological distortion is to accurately position “ideal type” or hypothetical and actually existing political economic regimes on a conceptual “map” defined by the dimensions proposed above: share of public goods and diffusion of power (Figure 1).

Figure 1 Classification of political regimes

0= low; 1 = high

The four corners in Figure 1 represent hypothetical (i.e. not actually existing) regimes representing four ideological archetypes.  The hypothetical libertarianism is characterized by the virtual absence of public goods (near 0 on the horizontal axis) and the diffusion of power among individuals (near 1 on the vertical axis).  Hypothetical communism falls on the polar opposite to libertarianism on the share of public good scale, but on the same side of the diffusion of power axis.  Hypothetical corporatism is characterized high concentration of power and absence of public goods (near 0 on both scales).  Finally, hypothetical statism scores as low as corporatism on the diffusion of power scale, and as high as communism on the share of public goods scale.

Real economies fall in the middle among these hypothetical regime types.  The ex-USSR, former Eastern Bloc countries, and the US fall within the same range of the distribution of power dimension, but far apart on the share of public god dimension.  The low diffusion of power in the US is due largely to the two party monopoly that effectively excludes all other forms of political participation (cf. Walter Karp, Indispensable Enemies: The Politics of Misrule in America, Harper’s Magazine Foundation, 2011), and the domination of the political institutions by elite interest groups (cf. Gilens and Page, “Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens” https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-politics/article/testing-theories-of-american-politics-elites-interest-groups-and-average-citizens/62327F513959D0A304D4893B382B992B ).  Western European and Scandinavian countries score higher than both the US and former eastern Bloc countries on the diffusion of power scale thanks to their multi-party parliamentary systems (cf. Lijphart, Patterns of Democracy: Government Forms and Performance in Thirty Six Countries. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999).  They also score higher than the US on the share of public goods scale thanks to their social welfare systems, but not as high as the former Eastern European countries, thanks to their predominantly market economies. 

The main conclusion of this brief comparison is that differences among political-economic regimes of actually existing countries are the matter of degree, different shades of grey rather than contrasting black/white images favored by ideological narratives.  It illustrates the main claim of this article, that socialism (or capitalism) is not a country or a place, but a set of principles that are implemented, in varying degrees, in different countries and different areas of the economy.

6. In Lieu of Conclusion

This paper proposes a novel conceptualization of democratic socialism that goes beyond the historical conceptualizations equating socialism with common ownership of the means of production.  The concept of the ownership of the means of production evolved, and today most of the economic activity is conducted by joint stock corporations whose key feature is separation of ownership from control.  As a consequence, ownership of the means of production cannot guarantee the attainment of the key socialist goal – the satisfaction of all human needs through fair sharing of all resources produced by the economy. 

The proposed conceptualization of democratic socialism emphasizes the same goal as that sought by the historical socialism, but proposes a different set of means to attain it.  First is public policy prioritizing public goods in various combinations with market mechanisms to satisfy diverse demands.  Second is the democratic political and economic decision making on the one person one vote principle.  Unlike doctrinaire approaches insisting on a single solution with little regard to the circumstances (e.g. market only or nationalization only approaches), the proposed conceptualization calls for flexibility in crafting the right balance of private and market goods, and the right combination of centralized and decentralized decision making structure that is suitable to a particular area of the economy.

The intended purpose of this article is to facilitate public discussion about democratic socialism in an objective, free of ideological distortions manner.

Stability and freedom

:

A spectre is haunting the world— the spectre of authoritarian nationalism. All the powers of old neoliberal order have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this spectre: Democrats and Republicans, Koch brothers and Soros, French socialists and American conservatives, Silicon Valley technocrats and Hollywood actors.  Two things result from this fact:

1. Authoritarian nationalism is already acknowledged by all world powers to be itself a power; and

2. It is widely perceived as a threat to democracy and the liberal order, only 20 or so years after democracy and liberalism had been proclaimed the end of history to which there was no alternative.

How can we explain this sudden shift in the winds of history? 

If we were to believe the American political establishment, the Washington Post, the New York Times, CNN, NPR and the American and British intelligence services, this shift has been orchestrated by a small group of Russian internet trolls personally directed by Putin.  In this narrative, most people are incorrigible dupes unable to think on their own and easily manipulated by professional advertisers and opinion leaders.  The emergence of the social media created an opportunity for the Russian trolls who upstaged the professional advertisers and opinion manipulators by a sneak attack consisting of spreading fake news on the internet.  And voila, here goes the democracy, courtesy of Mr. Putin. 

The fact that otherwise serious and respectable media outlets stoop to such way-out-in-left-field conspiracy theories tells us something very important – that the professional and managerial classes that form the backbone of the neoliberal political establishment have a hard time to accept that this shift is a response to popular demand.  After all, there was supposed be no alternative to the brave new neoliberal world, so what we see must be the work of some clever manipulators trying to stop the clock. 

However, if we acknowledge that this recourse to illiberal authoritarian nationalism meets popular demand, we are back to our original question “How can we explain this sudden shift in public sentiments?” 

To answer this question, a good place to start is to listen to what the authoritarian nationally are actually saying to their supporters.  Since authoritarian nationalism has established itself in a number of culturally diverse countries across the world, from Turkey, to Russia, to the Philippines, to Israel, to Poland, to Hungary to Austria, and to the United States, and it made substantial advancement in most other European countries, the key task is to uncover commonalities beneath this cultural diversity.  This common theme is the promise of stability amidst chaos unleashed by the neoliberal globalization.  The call for stability frequently appears in messages form authoritarian nationalistic leaders, Putin in Russia, Karimov in Uzbekistan, Orban in Hungary, Duarte in the Philippines, Erdogan in Turkey, and Trump in the US, as well as prominent right wing intellectuals (cf. Jordan Peterson, 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos). 

How can we explain this emergence of popular demand for stability? It turns out that sociology has an answer to this question.  Karl Polanyi (The Great Transformation) argued that industrialization and the laissez faire market economy it unleashed in the 19^th century uprooted the traditional social order and social institutions, and social dislocation of a great mass of people.  In response to this upheaval, social movements emerged to counteract this upheaval and re-establish social order and stability.  This resulted in the popular demand for social protections, which socialist and social democratic parties promised to deliver.

 

This argument is the core of current narratives, popular especially on the Left, explaining the raise of authoritarian nationalism.  The neoliberal market model, this argument goes, reduced a vast number of people to the precariat status, producing anxiety about uncertain future and a demand for stability.  The traditional socialist and social democratic parties, which had embraced the neoliberal model, were unable to effectively respond to this popular demand.  This created a window of opportunity for right wing and nationalist parties that offered a promise of stability in exchange for accepting their xenophobic, misogynist, racist and authoritarian ideology. 

However, this argument tells only half of the story.  The part that is left untold is the enormous popularity of liberal ideologies promising personal liberty and freedom in the 1960s and 1970s, which, according to David Harvey (A Brief History of Neoliberalism) was the popular force behind the growth of neoliberalism in the 1980s.  If we take the second half of the story into account, a picture that emerges is that of cyclical changes in demand for freedom followed by demand for stability. 

This tension between freedom and social stability was first introduced by Emile Durkheim (Suicide) to explain variations in suicide rates in different countries.  In Durkheim’s explanation, suicide results from an imbalance of two social forces: social integration and moral regulation.  Too much integration and regulation can lead to individuals committing suicide for altruistic (sacrifice for the group) or fatalistic (despair caused by excessive regulation and oppressive discipline).  Too little integration and regulation can lead to egoistic or anomic suicide, or (respectively) suicide in response to despair produced by a sense of not belonging or being integrated in a community, or moral confusion and lack of social direction related to dramatic social changes and economic upheaval.  While Durkheim’s argument has been criticized on various grounds, its lasting contribution is the conceptual framework positioning societies and communities on a continuum ranging from “too little” to “too much” social integration.

Within this conceptual framework, modern history can be portrayed as a movement away from excessive social integration (pre-industrial society), toward excessive liberalization (19^th century industrialization), and then back toward stability and integration (welfare state in the mid 20^th century), than again back toward liberalization (the 1960s countercultural evolution and 1980s neoliberalism) and then back again toward demands for greater security and integration (the emergence or authoritarian nationalism in the 21^st century).  An important takeaway from this conceptualization is that the political party that senses which way the wind is blowing and is able to meet popular demand for freedom or stability wins the day.  The party that fails to see the change or is unable to meet the popular demand gets kicked out from the halls of power.

The second important takeaway from this conceptualization is that not every party that promises deliverance from the current excesses of liberalization or stability can carry the day.  That promise has to be credible i.e. offer a genuine alternative to the status quo, and legitimate i.e. consistent with fundamental norms and values shared in a society or community.  A promise that is not credible i.e. too incoherent or insufficiently different from the status quo, or illegitimate i.e. too inconsistent or contradicting the shared norms and values has little chance of gaining popular support.

It is clear that the promise of the authoritarian nationalist parties and their intellectual backers is both credible and legitimate.  Their credibility is achieved by offering solutions that are on the opposite pole to that offered by neoliberalism: nationalism vs. globalism, traditional gender roles vs. sexual liberation, protectionism vs. free market, strengthening vs. weakening of authority, closed borders vs. open society.  Their legitimacy is achieved by portraying their positions as “common sense” and “pragmatic” solutions vs. “radical” proposals of their opposition.  This is further achieved by distancing themselves , at least in appearance, from the radical elements within their own ranks, such as extreme racism, antisemitism, misogyny or calls for violence (c.f. Stefanie Ehmsen and Albert Scharenberg, eds, The Far Right in Government: Six Cases from Across Europe).  

Given the popular demand for stability and the perceived credibility and legitimacy of authoritarian nationalism, it is unreasonable to expect that its appeal will wane, especially is no viable alternatives are present.  Neoliberals may temporarily halt its progress here and there, as Macron did in France, but authoritarian nationalism is here to stay here for a while.  The only question is what can be done about it.

The emergence of democratic socialism as an alternative to both neoliberalism and authoritarian nationalism is a promising sign, but it is not ready for the prime time at the time of this writing.  The chief reason is shortcomings in the credibility and legitimacy areas. 

The credibility of democratic socialism is undermined by the fact that it does not offer a coherent vision that is sufficiently different from both the status quo and the authoritarian nationalist pitch.  A cursory survey of opinions published by self-identified supporters of socialism or democratic socialism reveals a wide range of demands, ranging from very moderate and similar to those proposed by mainstream Democrats (minimum wage, protection of social safety programs, ending racism and police brutality), to somewhat more radical proposed by progressive Democrats (single payer health care system or tuition-free higher education), to supposedly even more radical but vague and nondescript ideas borrowed from socialist programs of the past (e.g. nationalization of the means of production).  It is clear that those most radical but very vague proposals do not appear very credible to anyone but the true believers.  As to the more moderate ones, they are hard to distinguish from those entertained by the Democratic Party.  This also poses a credibility challenge as well, since Democrats are widely perceived as the key architects of the neoliberal order who betrayed the working class.

As to the legitimacy challenge, this mainly comes from the historical baggage associated with the word socialism.  Real or perceived failures of systems labeled ‘socialist’ in countries like Russia, Poland, Hungary, China, Cuba, etc. have been significantly amplified in concert by right-wing, conservative, and neoliberal propaganda and portrayed as fundamentally antithetical to “Western” values (free market, personal liberties, democracy).  As a result, many if not most people would dismiss anything that smacks of socialism without even giving it a serious thought.

To overcome these challenges, democratic socialism must come up with a credible, legitimate and clear message that can appeal to a broad range of people.  “Make America Great Again” is a good example of such a message.  It is clear, it encapsulates the essence of authoritarian nationalist message – “people are suffering from chaos and demand return to earlier, simpler times” – and it is legitimate as it affirms the primacy of the American nation.  It is also hollow, because it says nothing what “great” really means, leaving it to the audience’s imagination.  This message echoes equally hollow messages of other authoritarian nationalist parties, e.g. “Law and Justice” (Poland), “Illiberal democracy” (Hungary), or “Justice and development” (Turkey).

One possible message of the democratic socialism is “Stability and Freedom,”   Bothe concepts well resonate with people, but unlike the hollow and vague promise of “making America great again” they are imbued with concrete meaning.  Stability means stable communities and social protections from negative effects of economic development.  Such protections may range from providing universal healthcare that frees families from the vagaries of employment, to safe and livable neighborhoods, and to communities deciding what kind of economic development they want to have instead of relying on the whims of the wealthy.  Freedom means the absence of unnecessary constraints, government regulations, and police surveillance, as well as the ability to achieve one’s full potential and dreams, instead of following dictates of corporate workplace. 

Even more importantly, a message promising stability and freedom offers a vision of a just society that balances these two social needs instead of pitting one against the other.  The concept of balance is well embedded in the political and moral philosophy, going back to Aristotle.  It also offers an alternative to the extremism of modern political gladiator fights in which people throw mud at each other but nobody listens.

Saint Francis and Karl Marx

Marx was to the working class movement what Saint Francis was to the Catholic Church. The reason why both men came to historical prominence was not the exceptional power of their ideas, but because they were turned into patron saints by the institutional forces striving to reform the corrupt status quo.

Their philosophical ideas were not new, and neither was their critique of the status quo. In fact, that critique was rooted in the foundational myths of the systems they criticized. Saint Francis called for the return to the values preached by Jesus Christ, the mythical founder of Christianity and the Catholic Church. He called for carrying out the work of Jesus Christ not just for the humans, including the poor, but also for animals and the environment.  Marx used the classical economic theory viewing the myth of free market as the foundation of capitalist world order and the bourgeoisie embodied it to critique this world order, and advocated for an alternative that can be characterized as free market sans property relations that fetter it. In other words, free interaction among all people not encumbered by accumulated wealth and state violence distorting this interaction.

Of course, similar ideas were voiced by countless reformers of Christianity and capitalism. Neither Saint Francis nor Karl Marx particularly stand out in this respect. They gained their prominence not from the ideas thy preached but from the material reality, or rather its institutional forces they sought to change - the Franciscan order and the nascent political parties of the working class. Both institutions needed patron saints represent and encapsulate their causes - and both used idealized versions of real life advocates for that purpose.

Today, it is not that the actual ideas of both philosophers that matter, but the ideas and yearning they came to symbolize after their death. Incidentally, this also make them vulnerable to the critique of institutions that made them their patron saints, but whose actual working has little to do with the actual ideas advocated by these saints. In many ways, the Catholic Church represent the opposite of Saint Francis philosophy - a powerful political institution instrumental in plunder, exploitation and oppression of the poor, people of color, and nature. Likewise, the Communist states became the exact opposite of stateless people free to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, and engage in critical thinking after dinner, advocated by Marx. But as patron saints of both institutions, they are blamed for the sins of those institutions, whose material shape became the opposite of the ideals embodied in their foundational myths.

However, “deconstructing” patron saints for the real and alleged sins of institutions that elevated them to sainthood, routinely practiced by hack propagandists, distorts the fundamental historical fact that these saints had nothing to do with the actual operations of the institutions that created them.  In fact, such ‘deconstructing” is a sure sign of intellectual mediocrity of the writers, envious of the larger than life footprints of their fellow writers, and throwing mud on them instead of engaging in a difficult intellectual task of understanding a broader social context in which the consecration of these fellow writers took place. No other writer characterized this broader social context than Marx himself when he commented on the role of religion: “Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.”
Indeed, the consecration of Saint Francis and Karl Marx is an expression of the sigh of oppressed creatures – people mercilessly exploited and oppressed by kings, aristocrats, capitalists, bankers and leaders of various stripes.  The bigger than life shadow these patron saints cast on society is not of their own making, but a reflection of the dark side of the reality itself – a reality in which countless people starve and die amidst of plenty for the sole reason of their bosses resisting relinquishing their control of the material resources.