What is democratic socialism, and why is it harmful to the real movement? It may seem helpful to try to affect capitalism to obtain real world gains, but in actuality, these small gains set the working class back further in the long run. Democratic Socialism, while well intentioned by the base, is collaborationist at the top, and won’t obtain socialism through its attempts.
Why is it so bad though? Marx lays out many of his issues of the German Social Democrats in his Critique of the Gotha Programme. For context, The Gotha Programme was the defining doctrinal work that the Social Democrats of the German Empire followed, with contributions from Ferdinand Lassalle. To Marx, The Social Democrats were chasing an unattainable dream, a peaceful and easy transition into socialism from Capitalism. While many of Marx’s raised issues in the critique are centered around the wording of the Gotha Programme, these corrections are vital to understand the issues with Democratic socialism.
While many of the issues raised are about wording, democratic socialism itself is built on trying to modify and fit Socialism into Capitalism. This simply can’t be done, as Capital is always working against working class movements. Classes are inherently antagonistic, as they have competing goals. Democratic socialism refuses to reconcile this contradiction. Instead, it ignores it in favor of class collaborationism.
Class Collaborationism, or the collaboration between the working class and the bourgeoisie, can take many forms. The two most common, however, are Democratic Socialism and Fascism. Both systems, while radically different, attempt to form a new society out of Capitalism through the usage of Capitalism instead of the abolishment of it. In fact, the collaborative effort between the two different ideologies is well documented. While the Social Democrats of the German Empire were staunchly anti-fascist after the fact, Friedrich Ebert, the first Democratic Socialist president of Germany, used the freikorps, proto-fascist militias, to take down the Spartakist League during their revolt.
Another crisis of Democratic Socialism, emblematic of Ebert’s action against the real movement, is the constant concessions to capital to obtain any change. To participate in an election and obtain any semblance of capital’s support, certain goals of communism must be abandoned, else it would be contradictory for capital to support democratic socialists. The fact that there are billionaires willing to work with Democratic socialists should be seen as suspect, not as something to be aspired to. If they support democratic socialism, then they’re benefiting from it in some way, and in this case, its stability.
Democratic Socialism sacrifices revolution for reform, which enables the bourgeoisie to influence the process. This influence will always be used against the reform process, as said process is meant to strip the bourgeoisie of their private property and capital. Logically, there is no reason for the bourgeoisie to support a movement that is so radically against it without first ensuring their survival. Lets, for example, look at Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, who’s expected to fall in line with the rest of the democratic party so as to not cause a disruption from the left. She does this gladly, and receives legitimizing bourgeois support due to it.
So what is there to be done? Well, first, class collaborationism in all forms must be replaced by class solidarity on the working class’s part, and class traitorism on the bourgeois class’s part. Class traitorism, in this case, would mean a defection of a member of the bourgeoisie from the greater group in support of the working class. This, paired with a wide class movement amongst the working class, would be revolutionary.