The failure of pundits to discern between democratic socialism and Nordic social democracy is not for a lack of transparency on the part of DSA. While their political candidates tend to resort to platitudes, DSA isn’t hiding the ball. In an article published in Jacobin, the socialist magazine’s editor and DSA’s Vice-Chair laid out a case for why Scandinavian social democracy is not what they have in mind, arguing a need for “a militant labor movement…to not merely tame but overcome capitalism.” Further dispelling the “it’s just free healthcare” myth, prominent democratic socialist Megan Day was even more explicit: “here’s the truth: democratic socialists want to end capitalism. And we want to do that by pursuing a reform agenda today in an effort to revive a politics focused on class hierarchy and inequality in the United States.”
If this sounds extreme, it’s not because it upsets our American “right-of-center” political sensibilities. When I presented a team of Norwegian economists with a summary written by Vox of DSA’s economic ideas, eleven out of the 12 indicated the views would fall on the “far-left/fringe” end of Norway’s political spectrum. Meanwhile, in neighboring Denmark, DSA’s commitment to ending the free enterprise system is a near mirror image of the platform of the Enhedslisten, the one-time communist Red-Green Alliance party that has averaged less than 4 percent of the vote in elections since 1990.
Americans are likelier to find quotidian examples of democratic socialism directly to our south. In Venezuela, the late Hugo Chavez both identified as a democratic socialist and governed like one. Unlike in Scandinavia, where state-owned enterprises are largely independent, profit-pursuing ventures and property rights are sacrosanct, Chavez confiscated private assets, and not only nationalized major industries, he ran them, too. For example, when the workers of oil giant PDVSA refused to embrace his policies, he fired and replaced them with unqualified cronies (including a cousin) in a move that accelerated the oil-dependent nation’s demise.
https://quillette.com/2018/08/06/democratic-socialism-is-a-scam/
If this sounds extreme, it’s not because it upsets our American “right-of-center” political sensibilities. When I presented a team of Norwegian economists with a summary written by Vox of DSA’s economic ideas, eleven out of the 12 indicated the views would fall on the “far-left/fringe” end of Norway’s political spectrum. Meanwhile, in neighboring Denmark, DSA’s commitment to ending the free enterprise system is a near mirror image of the platform of the Enhedslisten, the one-time communist Red-Green Alliance party that has averaged less than 4 percent of the vote in elections since 1990.
Americans are likelier to find quotidian examples of democratic socialism directly to our south. In Venezuela, the late Hugo Chavez both identified as a democratic socialist and governed like one. Unlike in Scandinavia, where state-owned enterprises are largely independent, profit-pursuing ventures and property rights are sacrosanct, Chavez confiscated private assets, and not only nationalized major industries, he ran them, too. For example, when the workers of oil giant PDVSA refused to embrace his policies, he fired and replaced them with unqualified cronies (including a cousin) in a move that accelerated the oil-dependent nation’s demise.
https://quillette.com/2018/08/06/democratic-socialism-is-a-scam/
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