Key Concepts for a Democratic Future

Democratic socialism is a socialism that has positive distributive effects for the majority of the people and is governed directly by the majority of the people. It is a socialism that is based on a large degree of communal and collective property, on a state-dominated economy, and accountability chains that make the separation of the state apparatus from the majority of the people impossible. 

Democracy, from its first literary appearance in the 6th century BC to the end of the 19th century referred to a political system where sovereign decisions at the Assembly and in courts are collectively taken by the ordinary people, that is citizens who do not belong to the wealthy and more educated parts of society. In a democracy, as CLR James used to say, “every cook can govern”. Since then, the concept has been devoid of its original and bi-millennial meaning. What is now called (liberal or representative) democracy is the comfortable mask of an oligarchic system where the masses are allowed some rights, including the possibility to contribute to the formation of a government through periodic elections, but have no institutionalized political powers, i.e. no right to govern. Given the importance and necessity of achieving genuine rather than mere formal equality in the political and economic spheres, some authors like the Marxist Hungarian philosopher István Mészáros have been exploring paths towards “substantive democracy”, a concept close to “democratic socialism”.