Democratic Socialists are not Social Democrats

I read George Orwell’s Animal Farm in the ninth grade. I’ve been thinking a lot about the novella in recent weeks as candidates from the Democratic Socialists of America face more moderate Democrats in primary elections across the country.

In Orwell’s story, the animals of Manor Farm rebel against their human owner. The rebellion is inspired by the vision of an elderly boar named Mr. Major who imagines a world free from human exploitation, and the pigs take charge to lead the revolt. The revolution succeeds and the animals name the farm Animal Farm. They all agree to seven commandments — one of which is “All animals are equal.”

No sooner has the utopia been established when two pigs — Snowball and Napoleon — begin vying for leadership of the farm. Napoleon manages to manipulate the other animals to run Snowball off the farm and through propaganda and fear rewrites the history of the revolution. Eventually, the commandments are changed to justify the pigs dominating everyone else. By the end of the story, the rest of the animals on the farm are worse off than they had been under human rule.

Orwell’s story holds multiple truths. It is an allegory about the rise of communism in Russia. It is also an allegory about the corrupting influence of power inside any number of political and ideological movements. Animal Farm illuminates how well-intentioned revolutions become corrupted. It also shows how propaganda can be used to manipulate and control the masses.

So, why am I thinking about Orwell’s Animal Farm these days?

I’ve read the Democratic Socialists of America’s national platform and I’ve interacted with members of my local chapter of the DSA. Their rhetoric and political philosophy are very clearly Socialist and not reflective of Social Democrats — an entirely different political ideology entirely.

Yet, there seems to be a lot of confusion among even members of the DSA about the differences between these two political ideologies. After listening to some DSA candidates articulate their platforms and seeing online comments from Democratic voters, it seems to me we all could use a little refresher on the terms used to describe the major political and ideological movements of our time.

Political ideologies and economic theories

Having found no suitable graph that illustrates how our present-day political systems interact with economic theories, I created my own simple one. I have only included terms and systems that are being bantered around in casual conversation in the United States (for example, I’ve excluded the Democratic/Constitutional Monarchy that also operates within the framework of capitalism). Undoubtedly, the political scientists among us will wince at my reducing whole, complicated systems to a simplified graph; but I think it’s useful for our present moment.

Authoritarianism is not restricted to the political Right or Left. Communism and fascism are, essentially, mirror images of one another.

Sure, the economic systems within which these two ideologies operate are different — communism exists in a framework of collective ownership whereas fascism operates in the capitalistic framework of private ownership. However, while the economics governing who owns what and how wealth is distributed are different, both communists and fascists use the levers of the state to retain total control over the people, the press, public institutions, the economy and the political processes.

“Communism and fascism are, essentially, mirror images of one another.”

Considering communism and fascism as the extremes on either end of the political spectrum, the next steps toward the center for both these ideologies still represent oppressive systems.

Oligarchies can be thought of as “fascism lite” just as socialism should be viewed as “communism lite.” Whereas socialism seeks to erase class differences and distribute wealth equally, oligarchies leverage capitalism to consolidate wealth to the upper class and emphasize class differences. Oligarchies establish the conditions for full-blown fascism to emerge in a society as has been the case in Turkey during the more than 20-year rule of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Sure, fascism has an element of forced nationalism that isn’t present in all oligarchies. But as oligarchs consolidate their power, they make it easier for a charismatic dictator to take the helm and lead the country into full-throated fascism.

Pure socialism allows for some private ownership but still seeks to erase class differences by redistributing wealth equally across society. Individuals and the press still retain some freedoms, but it’s hard for anyone who has read Animal Farm not to instinctively recoil from the rhetoric and vision of socialism. It’s also a relatively easy slide from socialism into full-blown communism as the history of the former USSR demonstrates.

Socialist societies can be thought of as the flip side of oligarchies — a fact that becomes abundantly apparent when reading the DSA’s website and platform:

DSA has written this program for ending capitalist oligarchy and creating a real democracy. Some of these demands may be won under our current system, but we know complete victory will require building a new society from the ground up. We push these demands to their furthest extent today, so we can fight for their fullest realization in a socialist future.

What the DSA often gets right in its platform is that the U.S. is functionally an oligarchy today and quickly headed toward fascism. The people have long been at the mercy of a handful of individuals and companies who have amassed huge sums of wealth by imprisoning fellow citizens (the for-profit prison industrial complex) and denying access to health care (the for-profit medical industrial complex).

More recently, the U.S. has entered an era in which media and technology companies — the arbiters of information — are wholly owned by a few individuals and their conglomerates.

While a supermajority of Americans oppose these industries being wholly owned and controlled by a handful of individuals, the answer isn’t to burn down our society and institute socialism. The DSA and their candidates seem to know this, because elsewhere in their platform, they embrace the rhetoric of social democrats who are capitalists.

Embracing social democracy and rejecting Democratic Socialism

The very phrase “democratic socialism” is a bit of an oxymoron. Apparently what makes socialism “democratic” is that it comes about through elections. However, on closer inspection, the DSA’s vision for a completely restructured government begins to look a lot like Animal Farm including:

“The DSA’s vision for a completely restructured government begins to look a lot like Animal Farm.”

Expand(ing) the House of Representatives, implement(ing) proportional representation and ranked choice voting in all elections, and abolish(ing) the Senate.

Replac(ing) the president and Supreme Court with an executive and judiciary chosen by and subordinate to Congress.

Did you catch that? In eliminating the Senate, expanding the House and removing from the people choosing who will lead the executive branch, this setup begins to look nothing like a democracy.

The DSA’s platform aside, there are major differences between social democracies and societies that embrace socialism.

Whereas socialism seeks equal outcomes for individuals — distributing wealth evenly — social democracies seek to provide minimum quality-of-life standards for their citizens. Think of the Nordic countries.

There is variety in the economies and governance structures of Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland. Some lean heavily on taxation to generate the revenue necessary to provide a baseline living standard for their citizens. Others rely on the public ownership of certain industries (like natural gas and logging) to generate the necessary revenue. All are some variety of democracy and all are capitalistic.

Confusingly, some use the moniker “democratic socialists” while others use “social democrats.” But in our context in the United States, those two things are quite different.

I’ve written many, many times about our country’s democratic backslide. I’m not alone in the belief that we’re living in an oligarchy and quickly sliding towards fascism. As we seek to shore up our democratic institutions, the answer cannot be resorting to socialism. Authoritarianism — be it on the Left or the Right — is still oppressive.

As Democrats support DSA candidates around the country, we must get really clear about what each candidate means when they say they are aligned with the DSA. Are they seeking to destroy the very structure of our government and erase private ownership, or are they looking to leverage capitalism through regulation and taxation of corporations and the wealthy to ensure all citizens have a minimum standard of living and can go to the doctor when needed?

Democratic socialists are not social democrats, and the distinction really matters.

 

Mara Richards Bim serves as a Clemons Fellow with BNG and as the first Justice and Advocacy Fellow at Royal Lane Baptist Church in Dallas where she recently was ordained to the gospel ministry. She earned the master of divinity degree and a certificate in spiritual direction from Perkins School of Theology at SMU. She also is an award-winning theater artist and founder of the nationally acclaimed Cry Havoc Theater Company, which operated in Dallas from 2014 to 2023.