Wasn’t it the left that gave the campaign promises though?
In some cases, yes.
A number were in previously red districts. Those voters don’t want to move left, it was more a matter of the democratic candidate trying to prevent BUT PELOSI! from being used against them.
note: I have no hard data to back up my assertion :)
The largest parties in Norway, Denmark and Sweden all describe themselves as social democrats, not democratic socialists.
In my opinion democratic socialists are dangerous idiots, with no idea of how to preserve the dynamism of a capitalist economy in their collectivist model. The Scandinavian model - of relatively free markets alongside an activist state - is an excellent argument that the central thesis of democratic socialism is flawed.
(I’m not sure I’d describe Sanders or AOC as democratic socialists, although I can see the label is useful to them in differentiating themselves from other US democrats.)
Collectivist model? Are you just trolling here, or do you mean to be taken seriously?
“As socialists, democratic socialists believe that the systemic issues of capitalism can only be solved by replacing the capitalist system with a socialist system—i.e. by replacing private ownership with social ownership of the means of production.”
I think that’s a collectivist model. They reject the top-down structure of communist economics, advocating instead for a more bottom-up worker-lead system of determining the allocation of resources.
I’m not aware of this ever being tried seriously in a medium-scale or larger industrial economy. My expectation is that it could keep things running somewhat, but would severely retard innovation - they people setting the direction of organisations are precisely those people with the least interest in significant change.
Hey, you just described the US political system! At least with respect to campaign finance and other electoral process reforms.
Who are you quoting here?
Oh, it seems you’re quoting Wikipedia rather than any actual Democratic Socialists.
According to the DSA website:
Social ownership could take many forms, such as worker-owned cooperatives or publicly owned enterprises managed by workers and consumer representatives.
Presumably, consumer representatives would provide the impetus for change.
I’ve always understood American Democratic socialism is what they call European social democracy. At least if you look at the actual policy it seems to be.
Not really. From https://www.dsausa.org/about-us/what-is-democratic-socialism/
(my bold)
Today, corporate executives who answer only to themselves and a few wealthy stockholders make basic economic decisions affecting millions of people. Resources are used to make money for capitalists rather than to meet human needs. We believe that the workers and consumers who are affected by economic institutions should own and control them.
That doesn’t sound like capitalism with a strong safety net.
(edited to fix messed up quotes)
It might come mostly from Bernie Sanders who called himself a Democratic socialist, but policy-wise he seems to be a social Democrat. That’s the only actual politician I followed who use that label.
That’s the theory. I don’t think it would work. Also, how are the “consumer representatives” chosen?
Don’t get me wrong, I would love to see a framework to enable more worker-owned cooperatives within the free market framework. They are hamstrung by an inability to raise capital, which is a shame because it can be an excellent ownership model.
This is a good takedown of democratic socialism. Obviously it has its biases, but I think it’s genuinely hard to come up with good answers to the dilemmas posed: The Mirage of Democratic Socialism — Institute of Economic Affairs
Ultimately I think it’s pretty irrelevant whether AOC and Sanders call themselves democratic socialists or not - the US has gone so far into laissez-faire crazyland that a democratic socialist reformer is going to be effectively indistinguishable from a social democrat.
In which case, you don’t actually think they’re dangerous madmen after all?
Innovation has little to do with management except in early startups where one of the founders has innovated the business or the tech. In my experience of large and small tech firms, innovation comes from technologists, not managers. Of course there should be an R&D budget to sustain these people, but this is a well-understood aspect of enterprise financing and doesn’t require anyone clever, daring, or decisive in the top-floor corner office. Moreover innovation is associated more with industry type than with economic system. Google necessarily is more innovative than Kraft.
That said, some kind of Stalinist system where everyone hates the state, their bosses, and themselves too, will naturally result in little innovation because no one cares and no one is rewarded for caring. But this kind of system is of course neither socialist nor communist, but is merely an autocratic (or oligarchic when the tyrant dies) dictatorship.
What are the other examples of “real” communism where they created tons of innovation?
Cuba? Venezuela?
I mean, hell, the Soviets at least did in fact do some non trivial development of science and technology through direct government funded efforts (primarily for military applications), but the overall amount of technological and scientific innovation produced by then was trivial compared to the US, which innovated not only through government action, but also through the private sector.
Although i guess Denisovich fashioning a bit of broken saw into a cobbler’s knife after he smuggled it back into his gulag camp was pretty innovative.
In terms of who actually does the innovating in our society, sure, at large companies the management isn’t directly doing the technology development… But those who do are generally being compensated based on the quality of their work. Innovators get rewarded. The capitalist economy results in the labor of innovators being valuable.
Why isn’t there tons of innovation in capitalist countries like Brazil?
I’m shocked it took this long for BUT WHAT ABOUT STALINIST RUSSIA and/or VENEZUELA LOL to show up here.