Perspective: Five myths about socialism
By Sheri Berman Sheri Berman Bio Sheri Berman, a professor of political science at Barnard College, is the author of “Democracy and Dictatorship in Europe: From the Ancien Régime to the Present Day.” March 1 at 10:05 AM Socialism in the United States is prominent in a way it hasn’t been in decades. High-profile left-leaning politicians like Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep.
Other socialists, however, did not accept the violent, undemocratic nature of that course, although they agreed that capitalism was unjust and unstable. The left’s role, in the view of these “democratic socialists” — the Czech-Austrian theorist Karl Kautsky, for instance — was to remind citizens of capitalism’s defects and rally popular support for an alternative economic system that would end private ownership and assert popular control over the means of production.
Communists reject democracy, of course, but other socialists have strongly supported it. In many parts of the world, including Europe, they were the most consistent advocates of democratization. Eduard Bernstein, for example, one of the fathers of social democracy, described democracy as “both a means and an end. It is a weapon in the struggle for socialism and it is the form in which socialism will be realized.
But on this question, too, the traditions vary. Communists, when in power, have done away with markets and private property. Democratic socialists say that in principle they hope capitalism will disappear over the long run, but in the meantime they advocate piecemeal changes in the ownership and control of economic resources — bank nationalization, for instance. And social democrats have focused on redistributing the fruits of markets and private enterprise rather than abolishing them.
Moreover, the parts of the world considered to be the most “social democratic,” like the Scandinavian countries, are successful by almost any measure: Growth is strong, unemployment is low, their economies are consistently ranked as highly competitive, and the quality of life is extremely high.
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