Cynthia Nixon, the “Sex and the City” actress running for governor of New York in the Democratic primary, has declared that she’s a democratic socialist. She has thus shown she has no clue what democratic socialism is.
It isn’t, as she seems to think, just the cuddly end of liberal progressivism. It actually means the murderous end of the authoritarian spectrum — it’s Lenin, Trotsky, and Stalin.
Sure, the meaning of phrases can change over time — as John Schnatter of Papa John’s just found out, the N-word does not mean today what Mark Twain meant when Huckleberry Finn used it. Changing meanings is fine. But to a European, people calling themselves democratic socialists is shocking while we’re still less than 30 years removed from when that abhorrence ruled half the continent.
[Also read: Cynthia Nixon: ICE is a ‘terrorist organization’ that should be abolished]
What Nixon, the Democratic Socialists of America group, and the Bernie Bros mean is that they are social democrats. We’re all living in a rich society, and rich people can be gouged a bit more to pay for redistribution, for valuable and valid public services to make life better — not just for the poor but all. I disagree with the idea, because it’s not the best way of promoting human flourishing. Social democracy done well and properly (not something I’d trust American progressives to manage) does produce perfectly livable countries. They’re not to my taste, and perhaps not to yours. They’re poorer than they need to be, but they’re not bad places: Sweden, Denmark, and so on.
Democratic socialism is a very different beast. Firstly, it insists upon the socialism part — the overthrow, often by violent means, of capitalism. The democracy part tends to mean one man, one vote, once. After that victory of the proletariat, the vanguard, the self-appointed commissars, get to do the voting in committee meetings, and everyone else has to do what they say. It all too often then descending from free childcare to free euthanasia in dank basements. And as I’ve said above, we’re less than three decades from this system being a major ruling force here in Europe. We tend to have a rather strong revulsion for the system, however much many of us do like social democracy.
I might just be complaining about minor language, issues except that there’s a greater importance to this. Clearly the DSA, Nixon, and others are attempting to create a new vision of the good society. That’s fine. But as people do that we’d all very much prefer that people take a look at how other similar attempts have fared. Which systems others have adopted have worked, which haven’t, where the pitfalls of the revolution (however peaceful or democratic) are hidden. And if people are so unaware of all of that as to co-opt the name “democratic socialist,” then they’ve not been paying much attention to that outside world nor history, have they?
Yes, I know they’re really not planning to rule as Lenin and Stalin did, as Trotsky would have (Kshama Sawant I’m less sure of). But that they take their name from that ruling method shows they’ve not really been thinking about matters, doesn’t it? Which isn’t good news for those of us who might be ruled by them, that evidence of their not having thought about this very much.
Tim Worstall (@worstall) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. He is a senior fellow at the Adam Smith Institute. You can read all his pieces at The Continental Telegraph.
