CDZ Difference between Democratic Socialism and Communism

[CrusaderFrank]

Recently, another thread I started got sidetracked over an argument as to whether Democratic Socialism and Communism amounted to the same thing. So, thought I'd make this thread to discuss the difference, in case anyone is still interested. The following is an excerpt from an article at time.com:

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How is democratic socialism different from socialism and communism in the former Soviet Union and other countries abroad?
The simple answer is that democratic socialists believe in a democracy, while communist forms of government are not democracies.

“Democratic socialists believe in elections, the First Amendment — [they] want ordinary people to have more power in a more democratic system,” Kazin says. “In communist countries, the state controls everything and a small group of people control the state, a tyrannical system.”

Confusion is understandable, however, because the USSR did stand for Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. But for context, here’s how Kazin explains when the distinction started to be made between socialism and communism: “All communists call themselves socialists because they want it on the way to pure communism.” But, he explains, the Bolshevik revolution in Russia in 1917 caused a split between those who identified primarily as communist and those who identified as socialist. In 1919, the Bolsheviks formed the Comintern (Communist International), an international organization of communist parties and groups. Those who wanted to follow in Russia’s footsteps joined, essentially declaring themselves communist, while others decided to stick with socialism.
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Source:

What to Know About the History of Democratic Socialism in America

And how it differs from socialism and communism in other places around the world

time.com

LOL!

Cheatimng in the tens of millions column and "democracy" are mutually exclusive

 

[daveman]

You were complaining that "There will be wealthy Democrat oligarchs, and everyone else will be dependent on government."...

I was showing you that GOP policies was pushing America closer to that except:
"There will be wealthy Republican oligarchs, and everyone else will die"...

GOP present policies is about doing what lobbyists want and putting power and money in their elites hands... Think about it, who cam up with and promoted trickle down economics...

Democrats who are far from perfect at least want to work against income inequality, want a larger middle class with affordable Healthcare, Education,....

So you say you want something but vote against your own wishes...

Why do you support income inequality and then complain about elites?

Why do you support income equality and vote for people who only give it lip service? You're being manipulated by people who want you to believe they care about you while they take your money to line their and their friends' pockets.

 

[Dogmaphobe]

How odd that anybody would whine about "income inequality" while supporting the recent scheme by the Democrat party to shut down small business in order to orchestrate the most massive transfer of wealth from the middle class to the technocrat elites this country has ever seen.

 

[Pellinore]

I've had to explain this so many times over the years I have it pretty down pat. I will start by saying what several of you have already noticed, that history and political science have a lot of terms that are very close to each other, but mean very different things, so brace yourselves because it can seem pretty nitpicky, but they're important distinctions. Also forgive me if I state the obvious or overexplain, but in my experience it's better to cover too much.

Let's start with capitalism and socialism, which are economic systems. The difference between them is who owns the industry (that is, the means of production of goods of services). In capitalism, industries are privately owned; Bob's Restaurant is owned by Bob, who decides what to sell and sets the prices, and the people who eat are the people who can afford it. In socialism, industries are publicly owned; The Popular Restaurant is owned by the people, and the government decides what to sell and sets the prices, and the food is (at least theoretically) given to whoever shows a need for it. There is nothing inherently good or bad, or right or wrong, about either of these: they are simply systems, and can each be used or misused.

These two terms can be applied to an entire nation, but they can also be applied to specific industries. For example, the United States has a capitalist system, meaning it leans towards its industries being privately owned. However, it does have industries that are run by socialist ideals, such as fire fighting; the people each pay taxes to the government, who allocates a part of it to the fire fighting industry, and their service (fire protection) is provided to the person who needs it (whose house is on fire). Fire fighting used to be run on capitalist principles back in the day, but the US purposefully reformed it to be an industry owned by the people, with the government operating it for the benefit of all, which is the definition of socialism, even though the US has a capitalistic system.

However, the US is still capitalistic. A good way to tell is by looking at a bellwether industry such as health care. In the US, it is mostly privately owned and run, but in nations such as Denmark, it is part of the government. That points pretty clearly as to which nation prefers which system.

So that's the economy, but how do they fit in with the types of government? The US and Denmark are both democracies, because in both nations the power to make change lies with their people. Denmark is a democracy that prefers socialism, so we call their system 'democratic socialism'; their health care (etc.) is controlled by their government, and the Danish people choose the government, so the system works for them. The US is a democracy that prefers capitalism, so most American industries are privately controlled, based on the tenets of the open market, and so on. Democrat socialists in America such as AOC and Bernie Sanders want to move the nation toward being mostly-socialist, which you can see in the fact that one of their highest priorities is single-payer health care, with the single payer being, you guessed it, the government.

But democratic socialism isn't the only way to use socialism. Back in the 1830s, Marx and Engels came up with a way to sell it in a system of autocracy, which is when the power to make change lies in the hands of a single dictator. They called this system Communism because its utopian idea was that the whole world would eventually be one big commune with no need for leaders, government, or even money, and making the economy run by socialism is one stage on the way toward that goal. The fatal flaw, of course, and the reason that Communism will never work as designed, is that in practice it requires a dictator to impose its system on society, and dictators are not known for giving up power once they have it (a fact which only took the world about a century to figure out).

Communism is therefore an autocratic government that uses socialism for its economy. A democratic government that uses socialism for its economy is called democratic socialism. They both use the same tool, a tool which is opposite of the American favorite, but they are fundamentally different in their structure.

This is the skeleton of the system, but there are a ton of other aspects that can get very confusing and smokescreen-y. There are definitions behind the terms 'left-wing' and 'right-wing,' 'liberal' and 'conservative,' 'progressive,' 'classical liberalism,' and many more, and of course specific parties whose makeups regularly shuffle. There is fascism, which is an autocratic system that uses aspects of both socialism and capitalism but opposes them both, and also Fascism (capital 'F'), which is a specific party. There are the Nazis (German-flavored fascism), who decided to market themselves as 'National Socialists' even though they do not follow socialism at all, and Neo-Nazis, and Anti-fascists, and lots of modern countries that may or may not be any of those. There is also 'social democracy,' which is a completely different subject than 'democratic socialism,' and there is corporate regulation and civil services, which a lot of people paint as socialism, but which really isn't.

It can all get very murky, but I hope I've described the basics of socialism, capitalism, democratic socialism, and Communism, at least.