Democratic socialism - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Democratic socialism is a description used by various socialist

Socialism

Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...

movements and organizations to emphasize the democratic

Democracy

Democracy is generally defined as a form of government in which all adult citizens have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives. Ideally, this includes equal participation in the proposal, development and passage of legislation into law...

character of their political orientation. Democratic socialism is contrasted with political movements that resort to authoritarian

Authoritarianism

Authoritarianism is a form of social organization characterized by submission to authority. It is usually opposed to individualism and democracy...

means to achieve a transition to socialism, instead advocating for the immediate creation of decentralized economic democracy

Economic democracy

Economic democracy is a socioeconomic philosophy that suggests a shift in decision-making power from a small minority of corporate shareholders to a larger majority of public stakeholders...

from the grassroots level, undertaken by and for the working class

Working class

Working class is a term used in the social sciences and in ordinary conversation to describe those employed in lower tier jobs , often extending to those in unemployment or otherwise possessing below-average incomes...

itself. Specifically, it is a term used to distinguish between socialists who favor a grassroots-level, spontaneous revolution or gradualism over Leninism

Leninism

In Marxist philosophy, Leninism is the body of political theory for the democratic organisation of a revolutionary vanguard party, and the achievement of a direct-democracy dictatorship of the proletariat, as political prelude to the establishment of socialism...

– organized revolution instigated and directed by an overarching Vanguard party

Vanguard party

A vanguard party is a political party at the forefront of a mass action, movement, or revolution. The idea of a vanguard party has its origins in the Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels...

that operates on the basis of democratic centralism

Democratic centralism

Democratic centralism is the name given to the principles of internal organization used by Leninist political parties, and the term is sometimes used as a synonym for any Leninist policy inside a political party...

.

In contemporary use, it often refers to the break-away ideology from social democracy

Social democracy

Social democracy is a political ideology of the center-left on the political spectrum. Social democracy is officially a form of evolutionary reformist socialism. It supports class collaboration as the course to achieve socialism...

that opposed the rise of the prominent Third Way

Third way

Third Way may refer to:* Third Way , a political philosophy* Third Position, a nationalist political philosophy* Third Way , a socio-economic philosophy* The Third Way, a 1998 book by British sociologist Anthony Giddens...

movement in social democracy in many countries. Third Way social democracy has effectively abandoned the social democratic movement's original goal of democratic evolution to socialism in favour of welfare capitalism

Welfare capitalism

Welfare capitalism refers either to the combination of a capitalist economic system with a welfare state or, in the American context, to the practice of businesses providing welfare-like services to employees...

. Democratic socialism in this sense has sought to emphasize a commitment to socialism in contrast to Third Way.

Definition

Democratic socialism is difficult to define, and groups of scholars have radically different definitions for the term. Some definitions simply refer to all forms of socialism

Socialism

that follow an electoral, reformist

Reformism

Reformism is the belief that gradual democratic changes in a society can ultimately change a society's fundamental economic relations and political structures...

or evolutionary path to socialism, rather than a revolution

Revolution

A revolution is a fundamental change in power or organizational structures that takes place in a relatively short period of time.Aristotle described two types of political revolution:...

ary one. Often, this definition is invoked to distinguish democratic socialism from communism

Communism

Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...

, as in Donald Busky's Democratic Socialism: A Global Survey, Jim Tomlinson's Democratic Socialism and Economic Policy: The Attlee Years, 1945-1951, Norman Thomas Democratic Socialism: a new appraisal or Roy Hattersley

Roy Hattersley

Roy Sydney George Hattersley, Baron Hattersley is a British Labour politician, author and journalist from Sheffield. He served as Deputy Leader of the Labour Party from 1983 to 1992.-Early life:...

's Choose Freedom: The Future of Democratic Socialism.

But for those who use the term in this way, the scope of the term "socialism" itself can be very vague, and include forms of socialism compatible with capitalism

Capitalism

Capitalism is an economic system that became dominant in the Western world following the demise of feudalism. There is no consensus on the precise definition nor on how the term should be used as a historical category...

. For example, Robert M. Page, a Reader in Democratic Socialism and Social Policy at the University of Birmingham

University of Birmingham

The University of Birmingham is a British Redbrick university located in the city of Birmingham, England. It received its royal charter in 1900 as a successor to Birmingham Medical School and Mason Science College . Birmingham was the first Redbrick university to gain a charter and thus...

, writes about "transformative democratic socialism" to refer to the politics of the Clement Attlee

Clement Attlee

Clement Richard Attlee, 1st Earl Attlee, KG, OM, CH, PC, FRS was a British Labour politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1945 to 1951, and as the Leader of the Labour Party from 1935 to 1955...

government (a strong welfare state

Welfare state

A welfare state is a "concept of government in which the state plays a key role in the protection and promotion of the economic and social well-being of its citizens. It is based on the principles of equality of opportunity, equitable distribution of wealth, and public responsibility for those...

, fiscal redistribution, some nationalisation) and "revisionist democratic socialism", as developed by Anthony Crosland

Anthony Crosland

Charles Anthony Raven Crosland , otherwise Tony Crosland or C.A.R. Crosland, was a British Labour Party politician and author. He served as Member of Parliament for South Gloucestershire and later for Great Grimsby...

and Harold Wilson

Harold Wilson

James Harold Wilson, Baron Wilson of Rievaulx, KG, OBE, FRS, FSS, PC was a British Labour Member of Parliament, Leader of the Labour Party. He was twice Prime Minister of the United Kingdom during the 1960s and 1970s, winning four general elections, including a minority government after the...

The most influential revisionist Labour thinker, Anthony Crosland..., contended that a more "benevolent" form of capitalism had emerged since the [Second World War] ... According to Crosland, it was now possible to achieve greater equality in society without the need for "fundamental" economic transformation. For Crosland, a more meaningful form of equality could be achieved if the growth dividend derived from effective management of the economy was invested in "pro-poor" public services rather than through fiscal redistribution.

Indeed, some proponents of market socialism

Market socialism

Market socialism refers to various economic systems where the means of production are either publicly owned or cooperatively owned and operated for a profit in a market economy. The profit generated by the firms system would be used to directly remunerate employees or would be the source of public...

see the latter as a form of democratic socialism.

A variant of this set of definitions is Joseph Schumpeter

Joseph Schumpeter

Joseph Alois Schumpeter was an Austrian-Hungarian-American economist and political scientist. He popularized the term "creative destruction" in economics.-Life:...

's argument, set out in Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy (1941), that liberal democracies were evolving from "liberal capitalism" into democratic socialism, with the growth of workers' self-management

Workers' self-management

Worker self-management is a form of workplace decision-making in which the workers themselves agree on choices instead of an owner or traditional supervisor telling workers what to do, how to do it and where to do it...

, industrial democracy

Industrial democracy

Industrial democracy is an arrangement which involves workers making decisions, sharing responsibility and authority in the workplace. While in participative management organizational designs workers are listened to and take part in the decision-making process, in organizations employing industrial...

and regulatory institutions.

In contrast, other definitions of democratic socialism sharply distinguish it from social democracy

Social democracy

. For example, Peter Hain

Peter Hain

Peter Gerald Hain is a British Labour Party politician, who has been the Member of Parliament for the Welsh constituency of Neath since 1991, and has served in the Cabinets of both Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, firstly as Leader of the House of Commons under Blair and both Secretary of State for...

classifies democratic socialism, along with libertarian socialism

Libertarian socialism

Libertarian socialism is a group of political philosophies that promote a non-hierarchical, non-bureaucratic, stateless society without private property in the means of production...

, as a form of anti-authoritarian

Anti-authoritarian

Anti-authoritarianism is opposition to authoritarianism, which is defined as a "political doctrine advocating the principle of absolute rule: absolutism, autocracy, despotism, dictatorship, totalitarianism." Anti-authoritarians usually believe in full equality before the law and strong civil...

"socialism from below

The Two Souls of Socialism

The Two Souls of Socialism by Hal Draper is a socialist pamphlet that posits a fundamental division in socialist thought and action between those who favor "Socialism from Above" and those who favor "Socialism from Below."...

" (using the term popularised by Hal Draper

Hal Draper

Hal Draper was an American socialist activist and author who played a significant role in the Berkeley, California, Free Speech Movement and is perhaps best known for his extensive scholarship on the history and meaning of the thought of Karl Marx.Draper was a lifelong advocate of what he called...

), in contrast to Stalinism

Stalinism

Stalinism refers to the ideology that Joseph Stalin conceived and implemented in the Soviet Union, and is generally considered a branch of Marxist–Leninist ideology but considered by some historians to be a significant deviation from this philosophy...

and social democracy, variants of authoritarian state socialism

State socialism

State socialism is an economic system with limited socialist characteristics, such as public ownership of major industries, remedial measures to benefit the working class, and a gradual process of developing socialism through government policy...

. For Hain, this democratic/authoritarian divide is more important than the revolutionary

Revolutionary socialism

The term revolutionary socialism refers to Socialist tendencies that advocate the need for fundamental social change through revolution by mass movements of the working class, as a strategy to achieve a socialist society...

/reformist divide. In this definition, it is the active participation of the population as a whole, and workers in particular, in the management of economy that characterises democratic socialism, while nationalisation and economic planning

Economic planning

Economic planning refers to any directing or planning of economic activity outside the mechanisisms of the market, in an attempt to achieve specific economic or social outcomes. Planning is an economic mechanism for resource allocation and decision-making in contrast with the market mechanism...

(whether controlled by an elected government or not) are characteristic of state socialism. A similar, but more complex, argument is made by Nicos Poulantzas

Nicos Poulantzas

Nicos Poulantzas was a Greek Marxist political sociologist. In the 1970s, Poulantzas was known, along with Louis Althusser, as a leading Structural Marxist and, while at first a Leninist, eventually became a proponent of eurocommunism. He is most well known for his theoretical work on the state...

.

Other definitions fall between the first and second set, seeing democratic socialism as a specific political tradition closely related to and overlapping with social democracy. For example, Bogdan Denitch

Bogdan Denitch

Bogdan Denitch is an American sociologist of Yugoslav origin who is an emeritus professor at the City University of New York . He is a leading authority on the political sociology of the former Yugoslavia...

, in Democratic Socialism, defines it as proposing a radical reorganization of the socio-economic order through public ownership, workers' control

Workers' control

Workers' control is a term meaning participation in the management of factories and other commercial enterprises by the people who work there. It has been variously advocated by anarchists, socialists, Communists, Social Democrats and Christian Democrats, and has been combined with various...

of the labor process and redistributive tax policies. Robert G. Picard similarly describes a democratic socialist tradition of thought including Eduard Bernstein

Eduard Bernstein

Eduard Bernstein was a German social democratic theoretician and politician, a member of the SPD, and the founder of evolutionary socialism and revisionism.- Life :...

, Karl Kautsky

Karl Kautsky

Karl Johann Kautsky was a Czech-German philosopher, journalist, and Marxist theoretician. Kautsky was recognized as among the most authoritative promulgators of Orthodox Marxism after the death of Friedrich Engels in 1895 until the coming of World War I in 1914 and was called by some the "Pope of...

, Evan Durbin

Evan Durbin

Evan Frank Mottram Durbin was a British economist and left-wing politician, whose writings combined a belief in central economic planning with a conviction that the price mechanism of markets was indispensable....

and Michael Harrington

Michael Harrington

Edward Michael "Mike" Harrington was an American democratic socialist, writer, political activist, professor of political science, radio commentator and founder of the Democratic Socialists of America.-Personal life:...

.

The term democratic socialism can be used in a third way, to refer to a version of the Soviet model

Soviet democracy

Soviet democracy or sometimes council democracy is a form of democracy in which workers' councils called "soviets" , consisting of worker-elected delegates, form organs of power possessing both legislative and executive power. The soviets begin at the local level and onto a national parliament-like...

that was reformed in a democratic way. For example, Mikhail Gorbachev

Mikhail Gorbachev

Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev is a former Soviet statesman, having served as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1985 until 1991, and as the last head of state of the USSR, having served from 1988 until its dissolution in 1991...

described perestroika

Perestroika

Perestroika was a political movement within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union during 1980s, widely associated with the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev...

as building a "new, humane and democratic socialism". Consequently, some former Communist parties have rebranded themselves as democratic socialist, as with the Party of Democratic Socialism in Germany.

Hal Draper

Hal Draper

uses the term "revolutionary-democratic socialism" as a type of socialism from below

Socialism from below

Socialism from below , founded in 1997 and disbanded in 2007, was one of two socialist groups in France based on the International Socialism tradition of the Trotskyist movement...

in his The Two Souls of Socialism
The Two Souls of Socialism
The Two Souls of Socialism by Hal Draper is a socialist pamphlet that posits a fundamental division in socialist thought and action between those who favor "Socialism from Above" and those who favor "Socialism from Below."...

. He writes: "the leading spokesman in the Second International of a revolutionary-democratic Socialism-from-Below [was] Rosa Luxemburg

Rosa Luxemburg

Rosa Luxemburg was a Marxist theorist, philosopher, economist and activist of Polish Jewish descent who became a naturalized German citizen...

, who so emphatically put her faith and hope in the spontaneous struggle of a free working class that the myth-makers invented for her a 'theory of spontaneity. Similarly, about Eugene Debs, he writes: Debsian socialism' evoked a tremendous response from the heart of the people, but Debs had no successor as a tribune of revolutionary-democratic socialism".

Justification of democratic socialism can be found in the works of social philosophers like Charles Taylor

Charles Taylor (philosopher)

Charles Margrave Taylor, is a Canadian philosopher from Montreal, Quebec best known for his contributions in political philosophy, the philosophy of social science, and in the history of philosophy. His contributions to these fields have earned him both the prestigious Kyoto Prize and the...

and Axel Honneth

Axel Honneth

Axel Honneth is a professor of philosophy at the University of Frankfurt, Germany and director of the Institut für Sozialforschung in Frankfurt am Main, Germany.-Biography:...

, among others. Honneth has put forward the view that political and economic ideologies have a social basis, that is, they originate from intersubjective communication between members of a society. Honneth criticises the liberal state because it assumes that principles of individual liberty and private property

Private property

Private property is the right of persons and firms to obtain, own, control, employ, dispose of, and bequeath land, capital, and other forms of property. Private property is distinguishable from public property, which refers to assets owned by a state, community or government rather than by...

are a historical and abstract, when, in fact, they evolved from a specific social discourse on human activity. Contra liberal

Liberalism

Liberalism is the belief in the importance of liberty and equal rights. Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but generally, liberals support ideas such as constitutionalism, liberal democracy, free and fair elections, human rights,...

individualism

Individualism

Individualism is the moral stance, political philosophy, ideology, or social outlook that stresses "the moral worth of the individual". Individualists promote the exercise of one's goals and desires and so value independence and self-reliance while opposing most external interference upon one's own...

, Honneth has emphasised the inter-subjective dependence between humans; that is, our well-being depends on recognising others and being recognised by them. Democratic socialism, with its emphasis on social collectivism

Collectivism

Collectivism is any philosophic, political, economic, mystical or social outlook that emphasizes the interdependence of every human in some collective group and the priority of group goals over individual goals. Collectivists usually focus on community, society, or nation...

, could be seen as a way of safeguarding this dependency.

In recent years, some have suggested replacing "democratic" with "participatory" upon seeing the reduction of the former to parliamentarism.

Forerunners and formative influences

Fenner Brockway, a leading British democratic socialist of the Independent Labour Party

Independent Labour Party

The Independent Labour Party was a socialist political party in Britain established in 1893. The ILP was affiliated to the Labour Party from 1906 to 1932, when it voted to leave...

, wrote in his book Britain's First Socialists:

The Levellers
Levellers
The Levellers were a political movement during the English Civil Wars which emphasised popular sovereignty, extended suffrage, equality before the law, and religious tolerance, all of which were expressed in the manifesto "Agreement of the People". They came to prominence at the end of the First...

were pioneers of political democracy and the sovereignty of the people; the Agitators were the pioneers of participatory control by the ranks at their workplace
Workers' control
Workers' control is a term meaning participation in the management of factories and other commercial enterprises by the people who work there. It has been variously advocated by anarchists, socialists, Communists, Social Democrats and Christian Democrats, and has been combined with various...

; and the Diggers were pioneers of communal ownership, cooperation
Cooperation
Cooperation or co-operation is the process of working or acting together. In its simplest form it involves things working in harmony, side by side, while in its more complicated forms, it can involve something as complex as the inner workings of a human being or even the social patterns of a...

and egalitarianism
Egalitarianism
Egalitarianism is a trend of thought that favors equality of some sort among moral agents, whether persons or animals. Emphasis is placed upon the fact that equality contains the idea of equity of quality...

. All three equate to democratic socialism.

The tradition of the Diggers and the Levellers was continued in the period described by EP Thompson in The Making of the English Working Class
The Making of the English Working Class
The Making of the English Working Class is an influential and pivotal work of English social history, written by E. P. Thompson, a notable 'New Left' historian; it was published in 1963 by Victor Gollancz Ltd, and later republished at Pelican, becoming an early Open University Set Book...

by Jacobin

Jacobin (politics)

A Jacobin , in the context of the French Revolution, was a member of the Jacobin Club, a revolutionary far-left political movement. The Jacobin Club was the most famous political club of the French Revolution. So called from the Dominican convent where they originally met, in the Rue St. Jacques ,...

groups like the London Corresponding Society

London Corresponding Society

London Corresponding Society was a moderate-radical body concentrating on reform of the Parliament of Great Britain, founded on 25 January 1792. The creators of the group were John Frost , an attorney, and Thomas Hardy, a shoemaker and metropolitan Radical...

and by polemicists such as Thomas Paine

Thomas Paine

Thomas "Tom" Paine was an English author, pamphleteer, radical, inventor, intellectual, revolutionary, and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States...

. Their concern for both democracy and social justice

Social justice

Social justice generally refers to the idea of creating a society or institution that is based on the principles of equality and solidarity, that understands and values human rights, and that recognizes the dignity of every human being. The term and modern concept of "social justice" was coined by...

marks them out as key precursors of democratic socialism.

The term "socialist" was first used in English in the British Cooperative Magazine in 1827 and came to be associated with the followers of the Welsh

Wales

Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...

reformer Robert Owen

Robert Owen

Robert Owen was a Welsh social reformer and one of the founders of utopian socialism and the cooperative movement.Owen's philosophy was based on three intellectual pillars:...

, such as the Rochdale Pioneers

Rochdale Pioneers

The Rochdale Society of Equitable Pioneers, founded in 1844, was an early consumer co-operative, and the first to pay a patronage dividend, forming the basis for the modern co-operative movement....

who founded the co-operative movement. Owen's followers again stressed both participatory democracy

Participatory democracy

Participatory Democracy, also known as Deliberative Democracy, Direct Democracy and Real Democracy , is a process where political decisions are made directly by regular people...

and economic socialisation, in the form of consumer co-operatives, credit unions and mutual aid societies. The Chartists similarly combined a working class politics

Labour movement

The term labour movement or labor movement is a broad term for the development of a collective organization of working people, to campaign in their own interest for better treatment from their employers and governments, in particular through the implementation of specific laws governing labour...

with a call for greater democracy. Many countries have this.

The British moral philosopher John Stuart Mill

John Stuart Mill

John Stuart Mill was a British philosopher, economist and civil servant. An influential contributor to social theory, political theory, and political economy, his conception of liberty justified the freedom of the individual in opposition to unlimited state control. He was a proponent of...

also came to advocate a form of economic socialism within a liberal

Liberalism

context. In later editions of his Principles of Political Economy
Principles of Political Economy
Principles of Political Economy by John Stuart Mill was arguably the most important economics or political economy textbook of the mid nineteenth century. It was revised until its seventh edition in 1871, shortly before Mill's death in 1873, and republished in numerous other editions...

(1848), Mill would argue that "as far as economic theory was concerned, there is nothing in principle in economic theory that precludes an economic order based on socialist policies".

In North America, Henry George

Henry George

Henry George was an American writer, politician and political economist, who was the most influential proponent of the land value tax, also known as the "single tax" on land...

promoted the Single Tax Movement, which sought a form of democratic socialism via progressive taxation, with tax only on natural resource

Natural resource

Natural resources occur naturally within environments that exist relatively undisturbed by mankind, in a natural form. A natural resource is often characterized by amounts of biodiversity and geodiversity existent in various ecosystems....

s. George remained an advocate of the free market

Free market

A free market is a competitive market where prices are determined by supply and demand. However, the term is also commonly used for markets in which economic intervention and regulation by the state is limited to tax collection, and enforcement of private ownership and contracts...

for the allocation of all other goods and services.

Modern democratic socialism

Democratic socialism became a prominent movement at the end of the 19th century. In the US, Eugene V. Debs

Eugene V. Debs

Eugene Victor Debs was an American union leader, one of the founding members of the International Labor Union and the Industrial Workers of the World , and several times the candidate of the Socialist Party of America for President of the United States...

, one of the most famous American socialists, led a movement centered around democratic socialism and made five bids for President, once in 1900 as candidate of the Social Democratic Party

Social Democratic Party (United States)

The Social Democratic Party of America was a short-lived political party in the United States, established in 1898. The group was formed out of elements of the Social Democracy of America , and was a predecessor to the Socialist Party of America, established in 1901.-Forerunners:Following the...

and then four more times on the ticket of the Socialist Party of America

Socialist Party of America

The Socialist Party of America was a multi-tendency democratic-socialist political party in the United States, formed in 1901 by a merger between the three-year-old Social Democratic Party of America and disaffected elements of the Socialist Labor Party which had split from the main organization...

. The socialist industrial unionism of Daniel DeLeon in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

represented another strain of early democratic socialism in this period. It favored a form of government based on industrial unions, but which also sought to establish this government after winning at the ballot box.

In Britain, the democratic socialist tradition was represented in particular by the William Morris

William Morris

William Morris 24 March 18343 October 1896 was an English textile designer, artist, writer, and socialist associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and the English Arts and Crafts Movement...

' Socialist League

Socialist League (UK, 1885)

The Socialist League was an early revolutionary socialist organisation in the United Kingdom. The organisation began as a dissident offshoot of the Social Democratic Federation of Henry Hyndman at the end of 1884. Never an ideologically harmonious group, by the 1890s the group had turned from...

in the 1880s and by the Independent Labour Party

Independent Labour Party

The Independent Labour Party was a socialist political party in Britain established in 1893. The ILP was affiliated to the Labour Party from 1906 to 1932, when it voted to leave...

(ILP) founded by Keir Hardie

Keir Hardie

James Keir Hardie, Sr. , was a Scottish socialist and labour leader, and was the first Independent Labour Member of Parliament elected to the Parliament of the United Kingdom...

in the 1890s, of which George Orwell

George Orwell

Eric Arthur Blair , better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English author and journalist...

would later be a prominent member.

In other parts of Europe, many democratic socialist parties were united in the International Working Union of Socialist Parties

International Working Union of Socialist Parties

The International Working Union of Socialist Parties was a political international for the co-operation of socialist parties.-History:...

(the "Two and a Half International") in the early 1920s and in the London Bureau (the "Three and a Half International") in the 1930s. These internationals sought to steer a course between the social democrats of the Second International

Second International

The Second International , the original Socialist International, was an organization of socialist and labour parties formed in Paris on July 14, 1889. At the Paris meeting delegations from 20 countries participated...

, who were seen as insufficiently socialist (and had been compromised by their support for World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

), and the perceived anti-democratic Third International. The key movements within the Two and a Half International were the ILP and the Austromarxists

Austromarxism

Austromarxism was a Marxist theoretical current, led by Victor Adler, Otto Bauer, Karl Renner and Max Adler, members of the Social Democratic Workers' Party of Austria during the late decades of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy and the First Austrian Republic...

, and the main forces in the Three and a Half International were the ILP and the Workers' Party of Marxist Unification (POUM

Poum

Poum is a commune in the North Province of New Caledonia, an overseas territory of France in the Pacific Ocean. The town of Poum is located in the far northwest, located on the southern part of Banare Bay, with Mouac Island just offshore....

) of Spain.

In America, a similar tradition continued to flourish in Debs' Socialist Party of America

Socialist Party of America

, especially under the leadership of Norman Thomas

Norman Thomas

Norman Mattoon Thomas was a leading American socialist, pacifist, and six-time presidential candidate for the Socialist Party of America.-Early years:...

. Senator Bernie Sanders

Bernie Sanders

Bernard "Bernie" Sanders is the junior United States Senator from Vermont. He previously represented Vermont's at-large district in the United States House of Representatives...

from Vermont is a self-described democratic socialist, and is the only self-described socialist to ever be elected to the United States Senate

United States Senate

The United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...

.

In the early 1920s, the guild socialism

Guild socialism

Guild socialism is a political movement advocating workers' control of industry through the medium of trade-related guilds. It originated in the United Kingdom and was at its most influential in the first quarter of the 20th century. It was strongly associated with G. D. H...

of G. D. H. Cole

G. D. H. Cole

George Douglas Howard Cole was an English political theorist, economist, writer and historian. As a libertarian socialist he was a long-time member of the Fabian Society and an advocate for the cooperative movement...

attempted to envision a socialist alternative to Soviet-style authoritarianism

Authoritarianism

Authoritarianism is a form of social organization characterized by submission to authority. It is usually opposed to individualism and democracy...

, while council communism

Council communism

Council communism is a current of libertarian Marxism that emerged out of the November Revolution in the 1920s, characterized by its opposition to state capitalism/state socialism as well as its advocacy of workers' councils as the basis for workers' democracy.Originally affiliated with the...

articulated democratic socialist positions in several respects, notably through renouncing the vanguard

Vanguard party

role of the revolutionary party and holding that the system of the Soviet Union

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

was not authentically socialist.

In Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

, the Italian Democratic Socialist Party

Italian Democratic Socialist Party

The Italian Democratic Socialist Party is a minor social-democratic political party in Italy. Mimmo Magistro is the party leader. The PSDI, before the 1990s decline in votes and members, had been an important force in Italian politics, being the longest serving partner in government for Christian...

broke away from the Italian Socialist Party

Italian Socialist Party

The Italian Socialist Party was a socialist and later social-democratic political party in Italy founded in Genoa in 1892.Once the dominant leftist party in Italy, it was eclipsed in status by the Italian Communist Party following World War II...

in 1947, when this latter joined the Soviet-funded Italian Communist Party

Italian Communist Party

The Italian Communist Party was a communist political party in Italy.The PCI was founded as Communist Party of Italy on 21 January 1921 in Livorno, by seceding from the Italian Socialist Party . Amadeo Bordiga and Antonio Gramsci led the split. Outlawed during the Fascist regime, the party played...

to prepare the decisive general election of 1948

Italian general election, 1948

The Italian elections of 1948 were the second democratic elections with universal suffrage ever held in Italy, taking place after the 1946 elections to the Constituent Assembly, responsible for drawing up a new Italian Constitution...

. Despite remaining a minor party in Italian Parliament for fifty years, its leader Giuseppe Saragat

Giuseppe Saragat

Giuseppe Saragat was an Italian politician who was the fifth President of the Italian Republic from 1964 to 1971.Saragat was born in Turin, from Sardinian parents....

became President of Italy in 1964.

During India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

's freedom movement

Indian independence movement

The term Indian independence movement encompasses a wide area of political organisations, philosophies, and movements which had the common aim of ending first British East India Company rule, and then British imperial authority, in parts of South Asia...

, many figures on the left of the Indian National Congress

Indian National Congress

The Indian National Congress is one of the two major political parties in India, the other being the Bharatiya Janata Party. It is the largest and one of the oldest democratic political parties in the world. The party's modern liberal platform is largely considered center-left in the Indian...

organized themselves as the Congress Socialist Party

Congress Socialist Party

The Congress Socialist Party was founded in 1934 as a socialist caucus within the Indian National Congress. Its members rejected what they saw as the anti-rational mysticism of Mohandas Gandhi as well as the sectarian attitude of the Communist Party of India towards the Congress Party...

. Their politics, and those of the early and intermediate periods of Jayaprakash Narayan

Jayaprakash Narayan

Jayaprakash Narayan , widely known as JP Narayan, Jayaprakash, or Loknayak, was an Indian independence activist and political leader, remembered especially for leading the opposition to Indira Gandhi in the 1970s and for giving a call for peaceful Total Revolution...

's career, combined a commitment to the socialist transformation of society with a principled opposition to the one-party authoritarianism they perceived in the Stalinist revolutionary model. This political current continued in the Praja Socialist Party

Praja Socialist Party

The Praja Socialist Party was an Indian political party in existence from 1952 to 1972. It was founded when the Socialist Party, led by Jayprakash Narayan, Acharya Narendra Deva and Basawon Singh , merged with the Kisan Mazdoor Praja Party led by J.B. Kripalani...

, the later Janata Party

Janata Party

The Janata Party was an amalgam of Indian political parties opposed to the state of emergency imposed by the government of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and her Indian National Congress...

and the current Samajwadi Party

Samajwadi Party

Samajwadi Party is a political party in India. It is based in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. It describes itself as a democratic socialist party...

. In Pakistan

Pakistan

Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...

, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto introduced the concept of democratic socialism, and the Pakistan Peoples Party

Pakistan Peoples Party

The Pakistan Peoples Party , is a democratic socialist political party in Pakistan affiliated with Socialist International. Pakistan People's Party is the largest political party of Pakistan...

remained one of the prominent supporter for the socialist democratic policies in the country. Pakistan Socialist Party

Pakistan Socialist Party

The Pakistan Socialist Party was a political party in Pakistan. It was formed out of the branches of the Indian Socialist Party in the areas ceded to the new state of Pakistan. The PSP failed to make any political breakthrough in Pakistani politics...

and Pakistan Social Democratic Party

Pakistan Social Democratic Party

The Pakistan Social Democratic Party is a political party in Pakistan. In 2002, with a wristwatch as the party's symbol on the ballot, it fielded 1 candidate in the National Assembly elections and the regional assembly elections, but won no seats...

, together with PPP, committed to the socialist transformations and reforms with an opposition to one-party dictatorship and authoritarianism.

In the Middle East

Middle East

The Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...

, the biggest democratic socialist party is the Organization of Iranian People's Fedaian (Majority)

Organization of Iranian People's Fedaian (Majority)

The Organization of Iranian People's Fadaian or Fedayan-e Khalq , 'Organization of self-sacrificers of the people of Iran ') is the largest socialist party in Iran and advocates the overthrow of the Islamic regime in Iran...

.

The folkesocialisme or people's socialism

Popular Socialism

Popular Socialism is a distinct Scandinavian socialist current. Around the world there are many parties called Popular Socialist Party or likewise, which does not really imply any specific ideological direction...

that emerged as a vital current of the left in Scandinavia

Scandinavia

Scandinavia is a cultural, historical and ethno-linguistic region in northern Europe that includes the three kingdoms of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, characterized by their common ethno-cultural heritage and language. Modern Norway and Sweden proper are situated on the Scandinavian Peninsula,...

beginning in the 1950s could be characterized as a democratic socialism in the same vein. Former Swedish prime minister Olof Palme

Olof Palme

Sven Olof Joachim Palme was a Swedish politician. A long-time protegé of Prime Minister Tage Erlander, Palme led the Swedish Social Democratic Party from 1969 to his assassination, and was a two-term Prime Minister of Sweden, heading a Privy Council Government from 1969 to 1976 and a cabinet...

is an important proponent of democratic socialism.

Notable democratic socialists

Clement Attlee
Clement Attlee
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Salvador Allende
Salvador Allende
Salvador Allende Gossens was a Chilean physician and politician who is generally considered the first democratically elected Marxist to become president of a country in Latin America....
Farshad Bashir
Farshad Bashir
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Harry van Bommel
Harry van Bommel
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Léon Blum
Léon Blum
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Leonel Brizola
Leonel Brizola
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Jean Jaurès
Jean Jaurès
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Agnes Kant
Agnes Kant
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Helen Keller
Helen Keller
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Naomi Klein
Naomi Klein
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Tiny Kox
Tiny Kox
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Jan Marijnissen
Jan Marijnissen
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George Orwell
George Orwell
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Emile Roemer
Emile Roemer
Emile Gerardus Maria Roemer is a Dutch politician of the Socialist Party . He has been a Member of the House of Representatives since 30 November 2006. On 5 March 2010 he was elected the new Party leader of the Socialist Party following the resignation of Agnes Kant...
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
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Ronald van Raak
Ronald van Raak
Antonius Adrianus Gerardus Maria van Raak is a Dutch politician, non-fiction writer and former academic. As a member of the Socialist Party he has been an MP since November 30, 2006. He focuses on matters of home affairs, Kingdom relations, the Dutch Royal House and general affairs...
Ken Livingstone
Ken Livingstone
Kenneth Robert "Ken" Livingstone is an English politician who is currently a member of the centrist to centre-left Labour Party...
Bernie Sanders
Bernie Sanders
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Tony Benn
Tony Benn
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Olof Palme
Olof Palme
Sven Olof Joachim Palme was a Swedish politician. A long-time protegé of Prime Minister Tage Erlander, Palme led the Swedish Social Democratic Party from 1969 to his assassination, and was a two-term Prime Minister of Sweden, heading a Privy Council Government from 1969 to 1976 and a cabinet...
Cornel West
Cornel West
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Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva
Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva
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Zulfikar Ali Bhutto
Zulfikar Ali Bhutto
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Tommy Douglas
Tommy Douglas
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Norman Thomas
Norman Thomas
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Eugene V. Debs
Eugene V. Debs
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External links

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Definition

Forerunners and formative influences

Modern democratic socialism

Notable democratic socialists

See also

External links