What The Democratic Socialists Get Wrong

The term “democratic socialist” is thrown around very loosely these days, so for our simple purposes, we shall define it as those who claim that the best or most feasible path to socialism is that of democratic reform, and not revolutionary action which seeks to overthrow bourgeois society. The democratic socialists make many claims as to why their methods are preferable to revolution, examples being that “revolution simply isn’t feasible,” or that “revolution is unnecessarily violent.” These claims, while false, are not what we are here to discuss. What we are here to discuss is the methods of democratic socialism, i.e. the methods that democratic socialists believe will lead to socialism, and to prove that not only are they anti-marxist and counter-revolutionary, as is obvious to any thinking socialist, but that also, they do nothing but reinforce capitalism, and that they are absolutely impractical and inapplicable to any truly socialist program.

We must first ask the obvious, but extremely important question; by what means exactly do the democrats (as we will from here on out be calling them) plan to bring about socialism? What electoral reforms could possibly achieve this task? To this, a democrat could reply in many ways. Here are the most common proposals;

1. Either that extreme taxes are levied against inheritance, or that it is abolished entirely.

This proposal falls flat for multiple reasons. First, if inheritance is merely heavily taxed, this does not at all abolish the problem of inheritance, does it? A very rich man, say, for example, a multi-billionaire, could simply give a large sum of inheritance to one of his heirs, and bear the brunt of taxation, or give it to him via a proxy? Or he could simply invest money in his heir indirectly by purchasing stocks in their business, or make a very large donation? And even if it is argued that these too could be regulated via laws, it still does not solve the problem, that this proposition has nothing to do whatsoever with establishing socialism, and that it is merely a minor reform of the capitalist apparatus that would very likely fail miserably. 

It must be pointed out that any similar attempts to limit the power of “the rich,” will meet the same fate as this, for under capitalism, more so than under any other system of production, no laws are static, and the shape the law takes constantly changes. “Constant revolutionizing of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainty and agitation distinguish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones. All fixed, fast frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions are swept away, all new formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify (italics are our own)” (The Communist Manifesto, 7). This applies even more in our time than it did to Marx and Engels’ time.

2. Passing laws that favor “worker based” business models in which firms and companies are operated democratically and wages are fairer

This, quite possibly, is the greatest blunder made by the democrats; they equate worker ownership over the means of production in a society which is based upon the production and exchange of commodities with socialism, when in reality, this is not the case. Though this system maintains parts of capitalism (the most crucial parts at that), the democrats claim that this is a step in the right direction, without realizing that it is the exact opposite! Not only is this not socialism, nor will it lead to socialism, but it also reinforces the structure of capitalism while changing it slightly in order to make it still tolerable! And not only that, but in such a society, capitalist accumulation would still exist, seeing that competition among firms would still exist, and thus class, no matter how “democratic” it may seem, would still also exist! So, we see that this is merely another way of securing the existence of capitalism. Marxism, on the other hand, “...is the dialectical negation of capitalist liberalism. It doesn’t wish to keep part of capitalism in order to improve it here and there, but to crush it with the class institutions it has produced at the local, and especially centralized, level,” (Bordiga, Fundamentals for a Revolutionary Communism).

This idea, which originates with Proudhon, “...doesn’t involve the complete overthrow of capitalist relations of production; it is competition oriented, localized and co-operativist, and is trapped within a bourgeois vision of business enterprise and market..” (Fundamentals For a Revolutionary Communism).

Thus, the worker, as a human being, is still wholly dependent on the fluctuations of the market, the production and exchange of commodities, and the phantom of money, and, as such, is incapable of truly realizing himself, and, not only that, is alienated from direct contact with the greatest treasure of all, other people. By the power of money, he is reduced to nothing, and rather than him controlling it, it controls him; “Man becomes ever poorer as man; his need for money becomes ever greater if he wants to overpower hostile being; and the power of his money declines exactly in inverse proportion to the increase in the volume of production; that is, his neediness grows as the power of money increases,” (Marx, Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts, 116).

There are, of course, many more things that the democratic socialists get wrong, many of which will likely be addressed in future articles. These are, however, the two most common points, and the two greatest errors which they make, and I felt it necessary to address them as soon as possible.