Democratic socialism
Not to be confused with Social democracy.
Democratic socialism is a political ideology advocating a democratic political system alongside a socialist economic system, involving a combination of political democracy (usually multi-party representative democracy) with social ownership of the means of production. Although sometimes used synonymously with "socialism", the adjective "democratic" is sometimes added to distinguish itself from other models of socialism which democratic socialists perceive to be undemocratic.[1]
Democratic socialism is usually distinguished from both the Soviet model of a centralized economy and social democracy.[2] A distinction is also made between democratic socialism and social democracy in that the former is committed to systemic transformation of the economy while the latter is not.[3] However, "democratic socialism" is sometimes improperly used as a synonym for social democracy, where "social democracy" usually refers to support for political democracy, regulation of the capitalist economy, and a welfare state.[4]
Democratic socialism rejects the social democratic view of reform through state intervention within capitalism, seeing capitalism as inherently incompatible with the democratic values of freedom, equality, and solidarity. Democratic socialists believe that the economic contradictions inherent to capitalism can only be solved by transitioning from capitalism to socialism, by superseding private property with some form of social ownership, with any attempt to address the economic contradictions of capitalism through reforms only being likely to generate more problems elsewhere in the capitalist economy