Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders seems to be rattling some cages with his claim of being a “democratic socialist.”
The Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza thinks Sanders’ confession has killed his chances at getting the Democratic nomination. But do most Americans even know what a democratic socialist stands for?
Fortunately, the Democratic Socialists of America have a website where they explain what they believe.
Interestingly, their first assertion is in response to the question of whether democratic socialists want the government to run everything.
Democratic socialists do not want to create an all-powerful government bureaucracy. But we do not want big corporate bureaucracies to control our society either. Rather, we believe that social and economic decisions should be made by those whom they most affect.
Defenders of the market and limited government would likely agree with all three sentences. I don’t know any conservative who believes “corporate bureaucracies should control our society.”
But with respect to the claim that “economic decisions should be made by those whom they most affect,” why doesn’t that include people who are, say, willing to work for less than the minimum wage just to get a job?
With respect to the existence of corporations, the democratic socialists claim:
In the short term we can’t eliminate private corporations, but we can bring them under greater democratic control. The government could use regulations and tax incentives to encourage companies to act in the public interest and outlaw destructive activities such as exporting jobs to low-wage countries and polluting our environment.
Arguably, after the Obama administration, the democratic socialists could say “mission accomplished.” And yet they apparently don’t think it’s enough.
As to whether democratic socialism’s wealth redistribution undermines some people’s willingness to work, they respond.
We don’t agree with the capitalist assumption that starvation or greed are the only reasons people work. People enjoy their work if it is meaningful and enhances their lives.
I don’t know any “capitalist” who thinks the only reasons people work are greed or starvation. The group goes on to say that unappealing jobs should be spread around among as many people as possible, “rather than distributed on the basis of class, race, ethnicity, or gender, as they are under capitalism.” But, of course, no job is distributed that way in the U.S.
Finally, the group asks if democratic socialists are in competition with the Democratic Party.
No … many of us have been active in the Democratic Party. We work with those movements [feminist, labor, etc.] to strengthen the party’s left wing,
In short, Bernie Sanders is very much in tune with his party’s left wing, which happens to be where all of the party energy is right now. Claiming to be a democratic socialist may hurt him in the general election, but it seems to be helping him with his party.