What is the difference between a socialist, a democratic socialist and a social democrat?

Question

What are the primary differences between socialism, democratic socialism and social democracy? Are they simply three branches of a the same ideology? Primarily in theory, but if you can give any examples of how they have been implemented in practice that would be helpful

Answer 1

The mere definition of socialism is a very contentious subject, both among leftists and especially among the general population of the United States. I will do my best to explain my own understanding of these subjects, provide examples, and dispel mainstream misconceptions about them.

In my experience, the vast majority of people I've talked to (in the US) have wildly different conceptions of socialism than anyone who actually considers themselves a socialist. The mainstream conception of socialism generally seems to be: "Socialism is when the government does stuff. The more stuff it does, the more socialist it is." I have literally never met a leftist who actually believes that, though. You can trace that misconception back to Stalin, and I've never met a leftist who agrees with him either.

To clear some things up, I'm going to give you the definitions of socialism and communism that modern leftists widely agree upon.

Communism is a stateless, classless society. It is purely theoretical and has never actually been achieved, despite states having been controlled by Communist Parties. At this point, communism itself is basically just a set of principles to guide the construction of a post-capitalist world; it doesn't outline any specific economic structure to replace capitalism. It certainly doesn't entail government control of anything, let alone a state at all.

Socialism, on the other hand, is more specific and concrete. Socialism means worker control and ownership of the means of production--the means of production being everything necessary to produce more things, e.g. machines, factories, land, tools, raw materials, and so on. The socialist concept of worker-controlled means of production arose in direct opposition to capitalism, wherein the means of production are privately controlled by capitalists. It is essential to understand that, historically, socialism has been capitalism's shadow; wherever there has been capitalism, there has been socialist opposition to capitalism and its injustices.

Basically, socialists think it's unjust that capitalists can get rich just by owning means of production, telling workers what to do, and not even really working themselves. Socialists emphasize that labor is what increases the value of commodities; for example, a wooden chair is worth more than the loose pile of wood that someone used to make it. Given that workers are the ones who actually increase the value of goods, socialists believe all that added value should go to the people who created it, and not to their boss as profit. That's the idea behind worker ownership of the means of production.

As for the control aspect of the means of production, that means workers get to decide how things are run in their workplace, not some far-removed higher-up. Have you ever had to work in an inefficient, inconvenient, or overly-complicated way just because some higher-up said you had to? Has a manager ever scheduled you to work at a time you'd already told them you couldn't? Has your boss ever threatened to fire you for not coming to work even though you had a contagious illness? Socialism seeks to address all these dilemmas by letting workers figure out amongst themselves what work needs to be done and how to distribute it fairly, safely, and efficiently. Oh, and I'd like to add that markets are not incompatible with socialism; market socialism is a thing... but I digress.

That was a lot, but I promise the next definitions are much simpler. Democratic socialism is pretty much just socialism, only slightly rebranded to dispel the popular misconception that socialism equals authoritarianism. As you can hopefully tell from my description above, workplace democracy is central to socialism. Also, libertarian socialism, otherwise known as anarchism, is a strain of socialism that emphasizes its opposition to unjust hierarchies, and by extension the unjust hierarchy of the capitalist class system. I'll save the dispelling of myths about anarchism for another day, though.

Finally, social democracy is probably the closest thing to what most Americans think socialism is. Social democracy under capitalism does not seek to abolish capitalism, but rather to maximize the general well-being of the people living under it by way of existing government institutions. Examples of social democratic policy include regulation of capitalism's excesses, protection of workers' rights, and programs to facilitate access to basic things people need to live comfortably such as healthcare.

Answer 2

These are not just three branches of the same ideology. These three points of view do not really address government systems; that is, all of these points of view are consistent with democracy. Instead of viewing these three points of view as different in terms of POLITICAL views, it may be easier to understand the differences between them in terms of their varying views on what a nation's ECONOMY should look like and how much government control should be exerted over the economy.

So, it may be easiest to see the differences between them in terms of the way each of them views capitalism. A socialist would, of the three, most strongly object to capitalism and would want the government to have more, perhaps complete, control over the economy. A democratic socialist would prefer to see more socialist policies, and would ultimately want to see an economy that is more socialist than capitalist. A social democrat, on the other hand, would believe in free market policies and would not want to see capitalism undermined by socialist policies. Though, to all three, SOME degree of socialist policy would be acceptable. For instance, the government controls some areas that could be left to private ownership, but our society deems the services so necessary that we have come to accept, even expect, that the government will provide them (for instance, public libraries, fire departments, police services, public schools); even a social democrat would desire at least some degree socialist policy. On the other end of the spectrum, even socialists want a little bit of capitalism; socialism is distinct from communism, and most socialists would not want all private enterprise to become government-owned and would not want the economy to be state-controlled as it is under communism.