What is Democratic Socialism
What it isn't, and why it is presently the only realistic path forward for all socialists in America
(Disclaimer: I am a member of DSA.)
To know democratic socialism one must first know what socialism is; to be a socialist requires one principle: to have internalized and accepted Marx’s theory on historical materialism, that being, that human civilization can be primarily defined by their present material conditions, and that changes in these conditions made via all sorts of factors (entropy, ecological changes, technological changes, environmental changes, etc.) are the prime determinant factors of how a civilization functions. Further, that the current stage of history that human civilization falls under can best be classified as capitalism, arising out of the din of feudalism at around the early-to-mid modern period (circa pre-1600 to mid-1750). Of course, we all know capitalism all too well nowadays, existing as it does across every span of the planet, reaching and affecting our lives in intricate and unknowable ways.
And yet what is capitalism? Again, we turn to Marx. It is more than the factories, more than the wage labor, more than the near-abolition of agricultural work, more than the technological advances: it is the sum of its parts and much more. To Marx, the prime definition was class-based, that in capitalism, there exists a vast, often supermajority of the population comprising the working or proletariat class, which labors daily for employers under some form of contract (legal or not) in return for a daily wage. This is in contrast to the prior extant feudal mode of production, where very few (less than 10% of the population) earned wages; most people instead farmed food for their own survival, giving whatever else they could scrounge (and often more) to their liege lords.
The employers in our capitalist system form classes unto themselves as the owning or bourgeois class They were named after the feudal burgher class, which operated much the same way as the modern bourgeoisie but with far fewer material resources than their modern counterparts. This class, as the name implies, owns capital, which is to say, stock, or, an otherwise purely legal fiction that denotes how much of a corporation a person owns. It is entirely fictive in that ownership itself exists solely on the basis of traditional norms and mores, of laws written and unwritten, bound by centuries of custom. A stock after all is worthless; it only has worth in that it is a commodity, perhaps the prime commodity. While it can’t be eaten, or turned into energy, or otherwise have any real material value, the stock is nevertheless the central gear churning which makes capitalism function. By selling stock, the owners of that capital can transform their fictive wealth into real, liquid wealth, either in cash or in kind, and further use that wealth to buy commodities (to sell for greater profit) or to buy more stock, dipping back into the lucrative money-making machine that is the stock market.
In addition, all stock denotes ownership, and thus these people who own stock, this tiny class of individuals, this bourgeoise, end up owning the vast majority of all businesses across the entire world, and are thus able to direct their actions. When the socialists talk about the Means of Production, we don’t mean some abstract concept, we mean literal individuals and groups, as in, the Bezos, the Musks, the Buffets of the world, and the various other hundreds of thousands of individuals, who daily command the direct of the economy. This doesn’t mean of course that ownership of capital by these classes is some great virtue, quite the contrary. Suppose a person, with no great education, talent, or willingness to work inherited an ownership portfolio consisting of several disparate businesses ranging from biochip production in Tokyo to cattle farms in Idaho to even Seaworld in Miami. By what right, by what merit, does that individual have to captain such industries? Yes, the obvious retort is that that individual, if they have intelligence at all, could hire a team of experienced C suite executives to run the show, but that’s the rub, isn’t it? Why should those executives, why should any employee at all, labor in those companies when the true wealth and power of the company, its stock, is held by people who put in nothing into the well-being of the business?
Our opposition to capitalism is primarily a continuation of our past revulsion of feudalism, the prior stage of history. Feudal societies prioritized familial inheritance, a trait to be sure well-practiced in prior stages but yet totally inadequate for a scientific, post-enlightenment epoch. We all saw, after all, the Spaniard King Charles the Second expire from his accursed inbred blood, which spawned a bloody war of succession. Every person that prized science observed that, and observed the further failures of the Bourbons, of the Hohenzollerns, of the Roosevelts and the Romanovs, of the Bonapartes and the Bushes, and more, to confirm the unmistakable truth that even at its best, familial inheritance only works for one, two generations at most before degenerating entirely and completely.
It’s unstable, it’s unsafe, and moreover, it’s inhumane. By letting a tiny sliver of humanity’s population (in a world of 8 billion, we are talking about at most 10,000 people) command all the wealth and power in the world, we have made a world where the many suffer for the pleasure of the few. It disgusts as surely as the First and Second Estates disgusted the Third, with all their exemptions, false pieties, and honors. And so when socialists look upon capitalist inheritance laws we come away with pure disgust. It’s not that we want to make everyone poor; quite the opposite. Under the scientific and democratic economic management of the masses, we can all be richer, happier, healthier.
A better world is possible. It requires that the ownership of capital and means of production be given to the working class, to democratically place the direction of economy and state in the hands of that class. What’s stopping this from taking place today? It’s a force of habit more than anything else. It’s a contradiction of modern society, of having a tiny elite with all the wealth and all the power, with little else but the weight of centuries at their back, all while the masses have little wealth, little power, and little organization or hope for success. And nevertheless, we persist.
It does seem a hopeless fantasy, the ambition to abolish capitalism, but so too was the ambition to abolish the monarchy and feudalism. No one thought it could be done until, in a span of less than 3 years from 1789 they accomplished both tasks in France. So it will be here: an impossibility one day and a confirmed reality the next.
Thus we shall arrive at socialism, the first step to the next phase of human civilization, that being communism. To be clear: socialism does not mean the immediate abolition of capitalism and enshrinement of communism; it is merely the necessary first step on that long march.
Why can’t communism be established on day one? Because it means a classless and stateless society, where every class and every state has withered away. If Marx has any utopian qualities to it, this is it: communism is a humanity with a total abolition of exploitation; i.e. “from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.” To get there though, we must first transform our capitalist society into a socialist one: that is the essential predicate. Once we get there, it will take time and changes in the material productive forces to “wither away” the state and the classes that comprise it.
So, how do we achieve socialism and thereby communism? Here then is the birth of all the various factions and subideologies of the Marxist school. To define the democratic socialism we are here to define, we should begin with their negation; to understand democratic socialism we must first understand what it is not. Then we may better define what precisely it is.
Of course, it is not national or nationalistic socialism. The former, better known by their pejorative Nazi, have absolutely nothing to do with socialism (read https://www.crittingpower.com/p/1-article for more details), and the latter to be an abrogation to our shared human destiny (or conclusion) in achieving communism; that is, a stateless society. When communism exists, there will be no America, no Canada, no Germany, no China; not even a United Nations. Humanity will have surpassed beyond the need of having those structures at this stage of development.
Nor is it reformism; the mandate of a democratic socialist is inherently revolutionary. After all, a democratic socialist is a Marxist first and foremost; i.e. with a belief in the possibility of communism, of a classless and stateless society, which thereby means a change, a revolution, from capitalism to socialism. Now, this does not mean our aim is violence, to attempt a coup d’etat or a civil war or a protracted people’s war: all Marxists are like water. We have no set path but that is where the tides may take us. The end of the path is clear, we all agree on that, at least from where we are to where we are going: to a position where we can help guide society towards socialist governance, in preparation for the transition to communism. And whatever path we take, we all support reformism in the immediate term only so far as we support the workers and the other toiling classes in bettering their lot, by whatever means the bourgeoisie see fit to grant and the other classes are able to snatch. But there will never come a day when we pass all reforms we ever desire and yet leave the bourgeois class untouched. That would be contradictory to Marxism and thus an impossibility on our part.
Nor is it Marxist-Leninist, or Maoist, or Hoxhaist, or Titoist, or Dengist, or any of the other national tendencies which emerged from the Long 20th Century. Never forget! A person’s ideology and therefore socialist ideas develop according to material conditions in the specific time and place they exist. Many of these formulations were made for the exact prevailing national conditions. And indeed, many of these had obvious theoretical, material, and scientific gaps. Many of these leaders and their composite ideologies for instance either said little about women and queer people or otherwise denigrated them. This isn’t to condemn them, ignore them, or worse, toss them into the dustbin of history: quite the contrary, we must instead study them, to know what they did right and what they did wrong. (And study everything! That too is a mandate for any Marxist!). Thus we do not advocate a repetition of Soviet commissariats or peculiar bureaucraticisms of other past socialist states. Indeed, a socialist America should be totally alien in form to a Soviet observer, or to any other socialist, not-modern American. The socialism we build will be peculiar to our time, our space, and our conditions.
Nor, to be clear, is democratic socialism social democracy. There’s little resource rich, sparsely populated, ethnically homogenous Scandinavian states that can teach us in terms of how to run a government. Nor do we really look to any other state or polity for inspiration. We are America, for better and worse, and our nation is unlike any other (just as they are to us).
“America is a tune. It must be sung together.” - Gerald Stanley Lee
And it isn’t liberal or bourgeois either; liberals especially have no place amongst our ranks for they refute out of hand the science of Marx. And it is a science. Much like declaring that the Earth is flat, or that germs aren’t real, or that the Sun revolves around the Earth, liberals believe in a deluded form of economics and the material world; they simply do not understand it, and reject the premise outright. And for the few liberals who have read Marx and still reject it: where is it all going? If the endpoint is not a classless, stateless society, are we then to accept the doom of eternal exploitation until our final extinction? It lacks a certain intelligence and belief in ourselves.
As to the bourgeoises: we are coming to abolish your class. This is not a sentence of death but a notice of termination. Your services will simply no longer be required. In return, you, your family, your descendants, will all live happier, healthier lives in a world that is ever closer to abolishing scarcity, class, and state. If that sounds like a good bargain to you, then your fealty to the democratic socialist cause would be welcome, otherwise, you are not.
No, indeed, it’s none of those things, it is unique. Democratic socialism, that is, a democratic socialism that exists in America is, in 2025, a moment. It is the path to socialism for the here and right now. To know democratic socialism, we must first freeze it in time. This article is being written in late August 2025, and it reflects the present material conditions as they exist. A million different things can happen that can wildly change the material conditions: a natural disaster, a war, a brutal crackdown, and so on. This must be stressed because as stated previously, all Marxists are adaptative. The world is not static and neither are we. Thus, our conditions alone give rise to the guiding principles of democratic socialism.
In truth, ‘democratic’ is extraneous in the name. While many states and parties have fallen short in implementation, true socialism cannot exist without democracy; in fact, it can only succeed with more democracy than any society that has ever existed has ever had. All questions of the day, at every level and system of organization, throughout the entirety of the country, are to be deliberated and decided upon democratically. If you think socialism is totalitarian, you’re dead wrong. Socialism is meetings, for as a scientific implementation of governance, science by its nature is meticulous and exhaustive. Now, this doesn’t mean we move slowly or not at all: quite the contrary. When a decision is made, when all opinions have been consulted and all the votes tabulated: that is that. Heaven and earth will be moved by the will of the people. This system of democratic governance may not be perfect (perfection would be perfect science, some machine-god complex that puts us on an easy glidepath straight to communism), but it is the only system that can afford political legitimacy and support for the agenda we enact; if a majority, following the proper rules and procedures, are on board, then all will consent to the decisions made and actions taken. And when made, actions will be taken: faster, immediately, FASTER, always!
‘Democratic’ in actuality means the general acceptance of a democratic electoral tactic as a means to achieve governance, as well as being a cheeky snub to the harshly anti-democratic Democratic Party. It is true that prior to this year, the last time the American people considered socialism as a governance policy seriously was right before the October Revolution of 1917. For about a century thereafter, you had enough people, always over 50% but often as high as 90, 95%, who would never willingly elect a socialist government. Propaganda, mass killings, deportations, and some genuine mistakes made in other implementations of socialism wrecked any hope of domestic mass popular support.
And indeed, the only other ways to socialist governance (i.e. the way that every other state has achieved socialism) has been through very painful, differing means. Russia had World War 1, China had a civil war, Vietnam had a war of national independence, and so on. We aren’t someone’s colony, we aren’t in a civil war, we aren’t fighting a mass industrial war with millions of men dying on the front every year while women and children go hungry in the cities. We’re America: docile, rich America. So socialism was dead, shut out of any possible path to power.
When the USSR fell and China opened, socialism appeared to die a final death. That was the first domino, in actuality, that made the possibility of our ascent possible. Then came the market crashes, and the inability of whatever flavor liberal bourgeois governance you can think of to resolve the roiling crises (from climate, to housing, to health, to finances, to pandemics, and so on). A world on fire, with the end of history very much no longer in sight.
The ruling establishment of America is out of answers. They are in a moment of acute crisis, spurred on by unique material conditions that they themselves gave birth to. On the one hand, we have the Democrats, with their willingness to go along with whatever cockamamie war crime the Defense Department bureaucracy cooks up, their inability to properly tackle Republican malfeasance and crimes, their diehard lockstep support for an undemocratic, unaccountable leadership, their fundamental inability to make people’s lives better. And on the other, we have the cult of Trump: who doesn’t know Epstein is, who doesn’t know who Putin is, who doesn’t even probably know who he is anymore, leading his flock of sheep into a suicide pact with his insane and criminal foreign, economic, and immigration policies (and those are just the worst of the pack).
Neither of these parties are capable of electing new leaders because their upper strata of power is so anti-democratic, so corruptly self-interested in maintaining power, that both parties are effectively relying on entropy, the mortal curse, to be able to change tracks to a better course. In other words, both parties are waiting for scions like the Clintons, Trump, Schumer et al to die to be able to change policies.
It is in that lurch, in that silent void, in that pregnant pause of a nation’s question (who can lead us! they shout) that the socialists have stepped forward with a firm answer: we can. We’ve never left, after all, this entire past century. Not that we were lurking in the shadows; we’ve always been there, shouting at street corners into the dying of the night, against Vietnam, against Iraq, against Trump and more. The difference is, now, the rest of America is listening to us. Now, they’re paying attention, because now they’ve realized they made a tremendous series of bad bets. They trusted Democrat and Republicans both and both betrayed them. Bereft of any good leaders, in their hour of desperate need, we alone appear ready as the beacon of salvation they’ve been yearning for their entire lives.
And how? The American people, realizing their folly, reinforced by our unstoppable trajectory upwards towards assured victory, shall elect us thusly as their saviors. Armed then with popular sovereignty, the consent of the masses, as well as the democratic, historic, and legal mandate, we shall enact our agenda. It’s a vast agenda, with many different ideas! Here’s one for instance: https://www.crittingpower.com/p/what-do-leftists-want. This is not the iron mandate of democratic socialists, to be clear, merely one opinion; the aim is to demonstrate we have no bounds in terms of ambition or goals.
Whatever our immediate objectives are, we must communicate them openly, because we fundamentally believe that the voting public can and should be trusted with the truth. We must be honest with them because we need them to trust us as much as we trust in them. Indeed, our politics would benefit from a concept well-known in medical circles: informed consent. After all, America, our world, is sick, and dangerously ill. Everyone knows that. Our entire species knows that, with extinction bearing ever closer across the various crises. Our prescriptions are clear, and if they are accepted by the American people, then we shall have the ability and power both to achieve our aims.
What about the DSA?
Yes. What about the DSA? If democratic socialism is a tactical appreciation of the present material conditions to achieve socialism, then the Democratic Socialists of America are the engines of that change. That’s a fact, not an opinion. It is the largest, most unified Leftist organization in the entire country. It practically just elected the Mayor of New York City! No other present socialist organization can or has done that.
This does not mean that the DSA should not change or adapt itself; again, that is contrary to the principles of Marxism. The DSA should always adapt to changing conditions, firstly by embracing fundamental organizational changes to transform itself into an organization that can not only win elections but also govern the state, from the federal government to the local level. The DSA has a very narrow, short path to victorious relevance. If it squanders the opportunity, democratic, or even any type of socialism may never have another chance again. The window may be as small as 5 years, or it may be a bit longer or shorter. Regardless, one day the establishment will face entropy and when that day comes, if the DSA is not near victory or victorious already, it is doomed.
There are of course other tactical considerations. Should the DSA have a party? How should that party be organized? Who should organize it? These presently are a firm no, as decided at the most recent DSA convention. The decision made is that running as Democrats or independents (where necessary) gives us ballot access and possibility we otherwise would not have. It’s the Bernie model: put on a Democratic mask and let rip through the Democratic base. And it reinforces the Marxist principles of being adaptive. This system works for us today. It may not work tomorrow. We should reassess, and discuss constantly.
Regardless, at present, agitation for a new party must increase, while careful surveys should be conducted to gauge popular feedback. A Democratic Socialist Party of America would ideally want 60% of the electorate at best, or a plurality at worst (e.g. 40% DSPA, 30% DEM, 30% GOP). Absent that, we may continue to use the Democratic ballot line to our own ends, and if need be, even to the Congress and the White House. That being said, it is entirely possible the Democrats will go the way of the Whigs; just as abolitionism broke the Whigs, so too may Israel break the Democrats. And in the wings, just as the Republicans were there to pick up the pieces, so too can the DSA.
However we go about it, our principal aim at the moment is to seize governmental (legislative, executive, and judicial) power away from the bourgeois-dominated extant parties. And we can do so, it is entirely within our grasp, at this moment in time. We can build an inevitable momentum of victory, and use that to propel us into running the government. And from there, we can commence the revolutionary task of abolishing capitalism and building a socialist society, as well as beginning the transition to communism.
So, don’t hesitate. Join today!: https://act.dsausa.org/donate/membership/. Only by working together in a mass organization do we have any chance of victory. And that tiny chance will be enough for us to build wonders.
Thus: arise! Arise! Arise ye workers from your slumber!