What’s meant by democratic socialism? To use a comparative analogy, we might ask, what is meant by protestant Christianity? Most people understand that protestant Christianity includes many varied denominations with somewhat different interpretations of scripture and notions of what it means to be a believer and act as a Christians toward our fellow man. There are a number of non-protestant Christian denominations as well with their own differences. Still, the general stated guiding principle is love — that we are our brother’s keeper.

These sects manifest their beliefs, in practice, in widely disparate ways, ranging from the Christianity-professed groups like the Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacist groups to that of the Christianity of, say, Martin Luther King Jr. Then there’s everything in between. The point here being, it’s not what they say, it’s how self-professed Christians behave — what they do that is the measure by which we recognize and judge them as true Christians. We would definitely not reduce the meaning of Christianity, in general, to the belief and practices of any one Christian sect or tendency, because by doing so we could easily misrecognize its true nature entirely and condemn the whole idea, and with it its positive message and force.

So too it is with socialism — democratic socialism being one of its variations — emphasis on democratic. Here too, we have many differences of belief and expression and notions of how best to accomplish the goals and aspirations of socialism. Fundamentally, it’s thought that economic systems are tools man can use to manage resources for the mutual benefit of all. Here again, the general guiding principle is the common welfare and provision of basic human needs — an economy that exists for the people. It’s an ideal not unlike the general principle in Christianity; but, like in Christianity, it can be perverted. The gambit can run from the old Soviet and Chinese socialist paths (quite different in their relation to capitalism), to the variety of socialist governments and administrations in many European countries, to the racist Nazi fascism of Hitler’s Germany which called itself national socialism (about as socialist as the KKK is Christian.) The United States too, has had a history of various socialistic populist movements (Minnesota once had a socialist governor), as well as the experimental Christian socialist communities of the 19th century. Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal initiated popular socialistic policies that persist today like Social Security. Again, the point here being it would be wrong to associate any one of these so-called socialist movements with some monolithic notion of socialism in the same way that no one Christian sect can represent Christianity. It’s how these guiding principles are adhered to that counts. The attempt to better realize them is always ongoing. To be continued in my next letter.

 

Mike Kelly

Albert Lea