[US] Karlo Invernizzi Accetti: What Is American Democratic Socialism
I. Introduction A trend of resurgence in democratic socialism has recently emerged in the United States. Since Bernie Sanders first participated in the presidential primary campaign in 2016, among candidates who explicitly identify as "democratic socialists," several have been elected as members of the Senate and the House of Representatives—the highest legislative bodies in the U.S.—while hundreds of others have won seats in local legislative and executive offices through elections. The organization known as the "Democratic Socialists of America" (DSA) has also continued to grow and expand, with its membership increasing from fewer than 5,000 in 2015 to over 95,000 in 2021; today, it has established branches in every state and most major cities across America. More importantly, proposals previously considered radical, such as Medicare for All, free higher education, and the Green New Deal, have entered the mainstream of public debate and received support from prominent figures within the Democratic Party.
To be sure, however, this political momentum has slowed to some extent since 2020. Sanders’ defeat in the 2020 presidential primary was followed by the coming to power of a staunchly centrist administration. On one hand, this administration has attempted to co-opt some of the most popular ideas from the democratic socialist movement, but on the other, it has diluted its radical propositions, causing the movement to lose part of its impetus. The membership of the DSA has decreased slightly since peaking in 2021; its most prominent political figures—from Sanders himself to Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York City, and other members of the so-called "Squad" of democratic socialists in the U.S. Congress—now receive relatively lower exposure in mainstream media.
Even so, as a small but influential faction within the Democratic Party, democratic socialism remains a political force that cannot be ignored in the United States. The results of the 2022 midterm elections confirmed this: although they did not dominate many headlines, every member of the democratic socialist "Squad" in Congress was re-elected by an absolute majority in their districts, and several new democratic socialist candidates were elected, further strengthening the "Squad’s" power. Therefore, now may be an opportune time to examine and evaluate the nature and ideology of American democratic socialism from the perspectives of both its strengths and weaknesses.
II. Socialism: Economic Rights, Worker Control, and Central Planning The first constitutive concept of contemporary American democratic socialist political ideology is the concept of socialism itself. When asked to explain the meaning of "socialism," participants in the movement often unexpectedly refer to a catchphrase that has become a staple of contemporary American political discourse—"putting people over profits." This was, for instance, one of the slogans of Sanders’ two presidential campaigns in 2016 and 2020. In a tweet formally endorsing Sanders' 2020 campaign, the DSA explicitly referenced this: "DSA is proud to endorse Senator Sanders for President. We are organizing a mass movement to take on the billionaires and achieve a society that puts people over profits." Subsequently, Paul S. Adler elaborated on this same trope in his book The 99% Economy: How Democratic Socialism Can Overcome the Crises of Capitalism:
Capitalism is a system of production for profit, not for people or the planet... if we are to overcome the crises produced by this system and create an economy for the 99%, we need to change the way corporations and governments make decisions about investment, products, and labor. These decisions need to be guided by the needs of people and the planet, rather than merely considering profit margins.
However, beyond such catchphrases, there is little consensus regarding the actual meaning of the idea of "putting people over profits." In two major campaign speeches delivered to expound his vision of democratic socialism—at Georgetown University in 2015 and George Washington University in 2019—Sanders emphasized the concept of "economic rights" as a means of guaranteeing all American citizens a "life of dignity." He stated: "Today, our Bill of Rights guarantees the American people many important constitutionally protected political rights... Now, we must take the next step and guarantee every man, woman, and child in our country basic economic rights—the right to quality health care, the right to the education we need to succeed in society, the right to a good job that pays a living wage, the right to affordable housing, the right to a secure retirement, and the right to a clean environment... This is what I mean by democratic socialism."
The concept of "economic rights"—which essentially boils down to the idea that the government should legally guarantee the provision of certain basic goods and services, whether provided directly by the state or through the purchase of services from private contractors—has also been identified by other contemporary American democratic socialists as the essential core of socialism. Darrick Hamilton, an economist at Ohio State University, wrote: "In a social democratic or democratic socialist America, public policy should enable everyone to live a life of dignity and should protect vulnerable populations from enslavement by greedy private employers who, intent on creating profit, relentlessly exploit humanity and the planet." To this, he added: "What we need is an economic rights mechanism in the spirit of Franklin Roosevelt’s Economic Bill of Rights."
Interestingly, both Sanders and Hamilton frame their advocacy for economic rights as the realization of the vision for an "Economic Bill of Rights" first proposed by FDR in his 1944 State of the Union address. As Gary Dorrien has noted, this can be understood as a way to "Americanize" democratic socialism by demonstrating its ability to be "expressed in the language of individual liberalism." However, the most prominent historical precedent for this particular vision of democratic socialism began with the universal welfare systems established in Northern Europe after World War II. This explains why Sanders repeatedly cites Denmark and Sweden as examples in his public speeches. He often asks: "If those countries have achieved this vision, why can’t we achieve it in the United States, the wealthiest nation on earth?" This mode of definition ultimately blurs the distinction between American-style democratic socialism and European-style social democracy.
It is for this reason that the relevant controversy has not yet settled. While most contemporary American democratic socialists agree that a European-style welfare state would bring significant improvements to the current American social safety net, many insist that this still falls short of the requirements of socialism. Chris Maisano points out that the United States has already implemented several government programs aimed at guaranteeing a basic standard of living (including providing basic healthcare and education for the least affluent); however, it would be absurd to call it a socialist country because of this. He writes: "We always need to ask the following key questions regarding the actions of the state: does the state strengthen or weaken the power of those who own capital? Does it intensify our subjection to market laws, or does it provide us with more freedom to escape their demands?"
Bhaskar Sunkara further develops this line of critique in his Socialist Manifesto. His central argument is that because European-style social democracy does not abolish private ownership of the means of production, it remains dependent on a class committed to the pursuit of profit rather than the interests of all people. The bourgeoisie utilizes its social power to undermine any progressive gains achieved through the "de-commodification" of specific economic sectors, and may even cause them to regress; this is exactly what Sunkara claims has happened in Europe since the "profit rate crisis" of the mid-1970s. Based on this, Sunkara insists that democratic socialism requires more than just a social democratic welfare state; it requires the abolition of private ownership of the means of production by transferring them to "the workers themselves."
The aforementioned view is elaborated in his Socialist Manifesto through a historical hypothesis about a future society. According to his hypothesis, following a Sanders victory, the United States would transition toward democratic socialism, which would first establish a European-style welfare state in America. In this context, Sunkara writes: "For ideological reasons, legislation will stipulate that workers should control their companies, and they should no longer receive wages but instead become true stakeholders in the companies... Now, you and your colleagues will collectively control your company... Workers in every sector will elect representatives to serve on proportionally constituted workers' councils."
Several other contemporary American democratic socialists also conceive of democratic socialism as a further evolution of European-style social democracy. However, it should be noted that few contemporary American democratic socialists envision total nationalization and a centrally planned economy as the realization of the socialist ideal. The DSA is particularly firm on this point. In a 2018 article titled "What is Democratic Socialism?" published on its website, the organization pointed out: "Democratic socialists do not want to create an omnipotent government bureaucracy... We believe that social and economic decisions should be made by those most affected by them." Similarly, Sunkara cautiously notes that under his envisioned model of worker ownership of the means of production, "the two key markets under capitalism—the traditional labor market and the capital market—are abolished," but "markets for goods and services still exist because there are too many problems regarding information asymmetry and incentive incompatibility to allow for their elimination."
However, it would be a mistake to infer from this that this "dual-track" economic model is without controversy within the contemporary American democratic socialist movement. Fierce debate remains regarding the compatibility of socialism with (at least some) markets. For example, Adler argues that this economic model does not truly abolish the logic of production "for profit." Therefore, he advocates that democratic socialists must strive to "replace market competition with democratic management of the entire economy." He writes: "We can no longer leave the direction of economic development to the vagaries of market processes, nor can we rely on democratic institutions like the Federal Reserve to regulate this process... We need to manage our economy to achieve our common goals: the well-being of the people and the sustainability of the planet."
From the preceding discussion, it is clear that a consensus on the understanding of socialism has far from been reached within the contemporary American democratic socialist movement. But this is exactly what I have been trying to say: there does not exist a single definition of socialism agreed upon by all participants in the democratic socialist movement. On the contrary, what holds this movement together is precisely the ongoing debate over the connotation of this concept. The scope of what they consider socialism to involve ranges roughly from European-style social democracy to worker ownership of the means of production with partial or total central planning.
III. Democracy: Is the Democratic Party Necessary? The second constitutive concept of contemporary American democratic socialist political ideology is democracy.
All contemporary American democratic socialists agree that democratic socialism can be understood as the "universalization" and "radicalization" of the democratic ideal. For example, Joseph Schwartz argues: "Socialists reject the idea that capitalist democracy is fully democratic... The socialist and anti-colonial movements of the 20th century proved that if unequal economic power can be converted into political power, and if workers are subjected to the domination of capital, then the revolutionary democratic goals of equality, liberty, and fraternity cannot be realized."
Disagreements regarding democracy begin with how to put the ideal of radical democracy into practice—more specifically, how to handle what Micah Uetricht describes as the "classic dilemma" that American radicals have debated for decades: whether they should "fight within a hopelessly compromised Democratic Party to have the greatest possible impact on the world," or "abandon the Democratic Party and support the creation of an alternative party, but at the risk of complete political isolation."
Given the undeniable success of Bernie Sanders’ efforts during his two primary campaigns in promoting the cause of democratic socialism and revitalizing the movement as a whole, a significant portion of contemporary American democratic socialists has recently leaned toward adopting a more conciliatory coalition strategy. To this end, Meisano writes: "Until the catalytic effect of the Sanders campaigns became apparent, I was more inclined to oppose the tactic of using the Democratic Party ballot line. But political developments over the past few years have effectively settled the question of how to treat the Democratic Party (for me, at least)... whether we like it or not, as long as major primary campaigns continue to exist and exert influence, working-class organizers will continue to utilize them." Commenting on the recent evolution of the political strategy of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), Dorian offers a similar perspective:
For a long time, the DSA maintained that its primary mission was to promote social movements and provide socialist education to the masses, while electoral activity was important to some but not to others, making it a mere third-tier priority. After the Sanders campaigns transformed the DSA, this previous claim seems to have become obsolete. The organization has since trended toward the view that participating in elections is essential, but that within the "duopoly" [5] of the American two-party system, running independently is a recipe for political suicide.
Nevertheless, a range of different strategies remains regarding cooperation with—or at least working within—the Democratic Party. For instance, Sunkara emphasizes the need to continue "rank-and-file mobilization" to ensure that progressive candidates elected as Democrats do not deviate from their ideological convictions once in office. Jared Abbott and Dustin Guastella advocate a more radical approach, proposing the cultivation of "party surrogates" within the Democratic Party who clearly support socialist candidates in primaries and compel these candidates to remain loyal to the socialist line. A more radical strategy is known as the "dirty break" [6] with the Democratic Party; it essentially refers to democratic socialists building autonomous organizational capacity within the Democratic caucus, with the ultimate goal of fully breaking away to create an independent American workers' party once conditions are ripe to defeat the Democrats electorally.
To be sure, some American democratic socialists still believe the aforementioned approaches are not radical enough. In the article "Taking the Dirty Break Seriously," Joe Evica and Andrew Sernatinger write: "There is still a gap in the ‘dirty break’ strategy: we must do something in the interim between running our own candidates on the Democratic ballot line and establishing a new party." This "missing link" is what critics of the "dirty break" strategy often refer to as "base building"—that is, a "long-term effort to build a durable reserve of support within a specific segment of the working class."
The rough overview above should suffice to illustrate that what kind of strategic relationship to maintain with the Democratic Party remains a fiercely debated issue among contemporary American democratic socialists. This is precisely the point I wish to make: while there is broad consensus within the American socialist movement that the commitment to achieving democracy itself is beyond debate, there remains a major divergence on how to reconcile socialism with democracy in practice, due to the fact that the American socialist movement still only enjoys minority electoral support and given the realities of the American two-party system. In this sense, I believe that within the ideological framework of contemporary American democratic socialism, the debate over the concept of democracy is only partially resolved; however, this very debate allows the movement to unite a large number of people who hold socialist positions which, while relatively broad, remain within the boundaries of socialism.
IV. Class: From Primacy to Intersectionality and Beyond
The third constitutive concept of contemporary American democratic socialist ideology is the concept of class. Compared to empirical reality or the subjects of revolutionary change who receive particular emphasis, class is treated in a more fundamental sense as an epistemological framework for social analysis. This means that most contemporary American democratic socialists accept a basic premise: contemporary American society is split into two opposing classes, capitalists and workers, and the conflict between them affects every aspect of society and its political sphere (though it may not be the sole determinant). It follows that to understand contemporary American society and politics, one must study the relationship between these two classes. This is entirely distinct from the liberal view, which holds that society is composed of numerous independent individuals with specific interests, leading to the conclusion that the ultimate goal must be to reconcile or at least balance the relations between them. For example, a recent issue of Jacobin noted:
The greatest trick the ruling class ever pulled was convincing the world that rulers do not exist... Corporations are not merely one of many "interest groups" constantly making demands of those who hold state power. In reality, their political influence is greater than the political influence of all other "interest groups" combined... [Therefore], the ultimate goal for socialists must be to change the class that rules, not just the party in power.
Once we examine the way the concept of class is defined more closely, divergences begin to emerge. In many popular accounts—such as the Occupy Wall Street slogan "We are the 99%," or Sanders’ systematic attacks on "millionaires and billionaires"—class seems to be defined by income or wealth. This implies that some form of income or wealth redistribution would be sufficient to fundamentally transform America's class structure. Proponents of a more orthodox Marxism within American democratic socialism argue that class is best defined according to one's role in the production process. Accordingly, changing America’s class structure requires changing the nature of the property relations that govern this process. For example, Neal Meyer suggests:
Today’s United States is characterized not by freedom and abundance, but by exploitation and oppression. A tiny number of powerful families live off profits derived from depressing the wages of the vast majority of society (the working class), overworking them, and swindling them... Democratic socialists want to end this. This requires abolishing the root of capitalist exploitation, which is the private ownership of the means of production.
However, there exists another, perhaps deeper, controversy regarding the importance and role of class, involving the relationship between class and other types of social division and oppression (most prominently race and gender). On this point, the orthodox Marxist position holds that class division is the "most fundamental" feature determining all other characteristics of a given society and should therefore take precedence over all others. Another view holds that racial and gender oppression are irreducible to class oppression.
Sunkara, in his Socialist Manifesto, elaborates on the position known as "class-priority." He writes: "Since the widespread failure of class-based movements in the 1970s and 80s, various narrower identity-based struggles aimed at addressing injustice have filled the void. These movements have achieved some major results in the cultural and protest spheres, improving the lives of millions. But many of the advances made have primarily succeeded in diversifying our elite classes rather than improving the lives of the most oppressed... Without class politics as a cornerstone, identity politics has become an inclusive neoliberal agenda in which individual problems may be solved, but structural inequality cannot."
In contrast, the position that various struggles are "intersectional" is most forcefully articulated in some of the official literature released by the DSA. The organization has recently been a staunch supporter of the view that different struggles against oppression are "interconnected." For example, the 2016 programmatic document titled The Resistance Rising states: "While the DSA believes that economic exploitation runs through all other forms of oppression, we do not believe that race, gender, and other forms of oppression can be reduced to economic exploitation... The only democratic socialist strategy capable of effectively resisting capitalism is to unite anti-racist movements, feminist movements, LGBTQ movements, labor movements, anti-ableist movements, anti-ageism movements, and others."
Jacobin, in collaboration with Verso Books, published a collection of essays titled The ABCs of Socialism, further elaborating on the "interconnection" between multiple independent struggles against oppression, proving that this view is gaining broader acceptance throughout the American democratic socialist movement. For example, in a chapter dedicated to the issue of race, Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor writes: "The struggle against racism is intertwined with the struggle for economic equality, but racism is not merely manifested in economic issues. The anti-racist struggle is also a response to the social crises experienced by Black communities, including struggles against racial profiling, police violence, and inequality in housing, healthcare, and education." Similarly, Nicole Aschoff, in her essay discussing feminism, argues that the goals of radical feminism and socialism are the same: to strive for justice and equality for all, not just for equal opportunity for women, or merely for women’s right to equal participation within an unjust system.
Despite the increasing attention paid to the view that multiple independent anti-oppression struggles are "interconnected," it should also be noted that contemporary American democratic socialists do not stop at merely challenging the "class-priority" paradigm. In the rhetoric of some supporters of the movement, we can see a complete reversal of the priority of class and other so-called "identity politics" issues. For example, Sean McElwee, co-founder of the think tank Data for Progress, urged democratic socialists to "forget Trump voters," on the grounds that "I can much more easily move someone who is closely attuned to patriarchy... and help them understand how patriarchy and capitalism collude, than I can take someone who is angry because General Motors took their job and make them understand socialism."
From this, it can be seen that although the concept of class is nominally at the center of democratic socialist ideology, there are significant differences in the roles and importance assigned to class by contemporary American democratic socialists. Another area of intense debate involves the relationship between class politics and environmentalism. As Matt Huber noted in a recent article, these two have long been seen as contradictory. For example, the self-described "degrowth" communist Bue Rübner talks about the "collusion between labor and fossil capital," arguing that the working class participates in an "imperial mode of living" and must undergo a "substantial transformation" to "eliminate fossil capital." Similarly, for degrowth scholar Jason Hickel and his collaborators, the real class struggle does not occur between workers and capitalists, but between different regions—namely, the North and the South. They argue that the "imperial appropriation" of resources by wealthy countries "far exceeds equal and ecologically sustainable levels," and that "the working class is complicit in their behavior."
Recently, an influential view has emerged suggesting that the political tasks of socialism and environmentalism are complementary. For example, Naomi Klein argues that while "socialism is not necessarily ecological... a new kind of democratic eco-socialism seems to be the best attempt humanity can make for collective survival, a democratic eco-socialism that humbly learns from indigenous people such teachings as being responsible to future generations and the interconnectedness of all life." Building on this, Klein presents the case for supporting a "Green New Deal."
Most of our training prevents us from conducting a systematic and historical analysis of capitalism, instead partitioning nearly all the crises generated by our system—from economic inequality to violence against women, white supremacy, and ecological collapse—into heavily fortified silos. However, now that the Green New Deal has been introduced, all of us who support it have a responsibility to help illustrate how these multiple crises are inextricably linked, and that they can only be overcome through a holistic transformation of society and the economy.
Although this call for a Green New Deal has resonated widely throughout the contemporary American democratic socialist movement, it should also be noted that this approach has its detractors. In the book Socialism... Seriously, Sunkara [7] points out: "The Green New Deal was proposed from the standpoint of think tanks and was quickly denounced by the AFL-CIO Energy Committee, which accused the Green New Deal of threatening 'immediate harm to millions of our members and their families.'"
Much like the prioritization between class, race, and gender, the relationship between class politics and environmentalism has proven to be highly contentious within the contemporary American democratic socialist movement. While it is generally agreed that the concept of class provides a fundamental framework for social analysis, there remain vast differences of opinion regarding what class itself should mean and its relationship to other forms of oppression and political struggle. For this reason, I argue that the debates among contemporary American democratic socialists regarding the constitutive concept of class are also best understood as being only partially resolved.
V. Revolution: From Utopianism to the Ballot Box, Supremacism, and Non-Reformist Reforms
The fourth constitutive concept of the political ideology of contemporary American democratic socialism is revolution. Compared to the other three concepts we have discussed thus far, the meaning assigned to this concept perhaps possesses even greater uncertainty, despite its enduring symbolic significance. When using this concept, contemporary American democratic socialists usually begin by clarifying what they do not mean by revolution. That is to say, calling for a revolution does not necessarily mean wanting to seize state power through violence and then transforming the social order from the top down. A necessary corollary of American democratic socialism’s principled embrace of democracy is a commitment to using the law and the principle of majority rule to achieve its political ends. In this sense, revolution is not considered incompatible with reformism. To this end, Meisano [8] wrote in a recent article:
Political currents originating from Leninist and Trotskyist traditions have exhausted themselves. They cannot escape their own weakening marginality because their strategic orientation is fundamentally incompatible with the political and social conditions of developed capitalist welfare states and bourgeois democracy... At this point it should be clear that for American socialism, the only viable strategic political orientation is what Ralph Miliband called left-reformism.
In addition to this reconciliation of revolution and reformism, most contemporary American democratic socialists, when using the concept of revolution, seem essentially to point toward a social and political order fundamentally different from the current (capitalist) order. This undeniable utopian dimension is recognized by many of the movement’s most prominent proponents. For example, Adler [9] begins the book The 99% Economy: How Democratic Socialism Can Overcome the Crises of Capitalism by stating: "The idea of democratic socialism has an inevitable utopian quality, but this should not prevent us from moving forward. One of our challenges is to have the courage to believe that a better world is possible... Therefore, the blueprint for democratic socialism I offer is a utopia in the positive sense proposed by Oscar Wilde: 'A map of the world that does not include Utopia is not worth even glancing at, for it leaves out the one country at which Humanity is always landing. And when Humanity lands there, it looks out, and, seeing a better country, sets sail. Progress is the realization of Utopias.'"
While these calls to utopia may be moving, they mask significant disagreements over the best means to realize that utopia. For Sanders, the "political revolution" ultimately boils down to winning elections and implementing his policy agenda. He writes in Our Revolution: A Future to Believe In: "Most Americans believe it is imperative that we raise the minimum wage to a living wage, that we guarantee equal pay for women, and that we join the rest of the world in guaranteeing paid family and sick leave... But this is not just Bernie Sanders speaking; this is what the American people want, as shown by poll after poll... This momentum must continue and grow. This is your country. Please help us take it back. Please join the political revolution."
Sunkara and several other contributors to Jacobin magazine have attempted to give this policy-driven concept of revolution more leverage by following André Gorz's concept of "non-reformist reforms." Sunkara’s own definition of "non-reformist reforms" is that such reforms "will not only benefit workers in the short term but can also empower them to win the battles resulting from the implementation of those reforms." Mark Engler and Paul Engler hold an even more radical view. They argue: "The way requirements are met is as important as the requirements themselves. For example, a $1 per hour raise won through a fierce strike is very different from a raise arbitrarily announced by an employer or government official."
The Englers' view leans toward a completely different concept of revolution—not as a set of policy goals to be achieved, but as a process of empowering the working class. This concept of revolution is also reflected in much of the literature of contemporary American democratic socialism. For example, the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) insisted in the programmatic document The Resistance Rising: "The role our organization plays in launching progressive social movements is vital to our work; whatever gains we make as an organization from this work, the work itself is an end... Through coalition work and community organizing, we learn valuable organizational skills and discover numerous ways to improve our work." In sharp contrast to Sanders' policy-driven concept of revolution, the "revolution" described here is defined primarily in terms of self-transformation and community building.
Another important disagreement relates to the envisioned timing of the revolution. The assumption that revolution is not contradictory to reformism itself implies an endorsement of gradualism. However, debates remain possible regarding the time required to reach the ultimate ideal goal. Sunkara insists that "we must move quickly from social democracy to democratic socialism," on the grounds that "social democratic compromises are inherently unstable, and therefore, in the face of this instability, we need to propose a path forward rather than backward." Many other programmatic documents of contemporary American democratic socialism express a more deep-seated belief that achieving the movement's revolutionary goals will necessarily take a long time. This is manifested in their repeated distinction between short-term and long-term goals. For example, a 2018 DSA document titled What is Democratic Socialism? stated: "In the short term, we cannot eliminate private enterprise, but we can bring it under more democratic control." It subsequently added: "While the long-term goal of socialism is to eliminate all but the most enjoyable labor, we recognize that tedious work will persist for a long time."
The above is sufficient to show that, despite frequent recourse to the concept of revolution, the meanings contemporary American democratic socialists ascribe to revolution are varied. The common thread seems to be adherence to incremental reformism and the goal of a fundamentally different (i.e., non-capitalist) social order as its utopian aim. Beyond this, they remain clearly divided on whether revolution is realized through the implementation of a comprehensive set of major policy reforms or through a more decentralized process of community organizing and consciousness-raising; and whether revolution should occur over a few years or several generations. In this sense, like the concepts of socialism, democracy, and class, the debates concerning the concept of revolution within the framework of contemporary American democratic socialist political ideology have not been fully settled.
VI. Conclusion
This article has examined the meanings that contemporary American democratic socialists assign to the four basic concepts of socialism, democracy, class, and revolution. The preceding discussion has shown that while there is consensus on each concept at a broad level, significant disagreements emerge once these concepts are interpreted more specifically. Therefore, rather than these concepts determining the direction of political development, they merely mark the boundaries for a series of ongoing, interconnected political debates. I argue that to be a democratic socialist in America today is to participate in these debates, but neither at the individual level nor at the level of the socialist movement as a whole is it necessary to assume that these controversies will be resolved once and for all.
Finally, it may be worth briefly considering how the analysis in this article helps us understand the current status and future prospects of American democratic socialists as a political force. Adam Przeworski, in his seminal research on the electoral fate of West European social democratic parties, pointed out that this political group has historically been trapped by its internal tensions. Because their core constituency is the industrial working class, which struggle to represent an absolute majority of the electorate, these parties have frequently sought to attract voters outside the working class in order to gain political power. However, this also forced them to dilute the substantive content of their ideological thought, resulting not only in a weakening of their ultimate political goals but also eventually harming their core constituency.
This long-standing dilemma has recently been further complicated by two new factors. First, the overall size and cohesion of the industrial working class is declining, forcing social democratic parties and movements to rely on and unite an increasingly heterogeneous and unorganized social electorate. Second, the end of the Cold War expanded the channels for attaining political power, and these parties and movements, in response to numerous internal differences and contradictions, were forced to propose various specific political platforms and policy solutions, with which at least some of their internally heterogeneous electorate were bound to be dissatisfied.
Due to these deep-seated pressures, we can say that the contemporary American democratic socialist movement is effectively shifting these internal tensions into its political ideology. This may help explain the strengths and weaknesses of the contemporary American democratic socialist movement. The populist element in its political ideology is one of the main reasons it has been able to appeal beyond the traditionally small American working-class electorate. However, the ambiguity of position that comes with populism also makes it difficult for the movement to coalesce into a genuine force; it remains instead a loose coalition of different political actors who, guided by similar ideological conceptions, pursue their own distinct political goals.
Of course, to some extent, these internal tensions are something that all political forces competing for power in an electoral system must face. However, as Przeworski noted, this pressure is particularly urgent for those parties aiming to reconcile socialism and democracy, as this requires at least the ambition to fundamentally "change the world." Przeworski also suggested that only through arduous organizational work is it possible to truly overcome these tensions—organizational work aimed at articulating and reconciling conflicting interests to form a more stable and cohesive political constituency within society, and not just at the level of ideological discourse.
Whether contemporary American democratic socialists have the capacity and perseverance to complete this arduous work remains to be seen. But we can already draw a preliminary conclusion from the analysis in this article: "left-wing populism" can only become truly popular by shedding its current populist elements (paradoxical as that may seem).
(Author: Carlo Invernizzi Accetti, Professor, Department of Political Science, City University of New York; Translator: Niu Zhengke, Assistant Researcher, Institute of Marxism Studies, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences) Online Editor: Tong Xin Source: Marxism & Reality, Issue 1, 2024.