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You’re really putting DSA on there? The only organization that has done anything remotely resembling progressive in the entire capitalist cesspool? The only legitimate critique of DSA is that they’re irrelevant, and this is currently being overturned. Go find some better news sources.
That is so extremely far from being the only legitimate critique of the DSA and democratic socialism in general
What are the legitimate critiques?
The DSA is a very mixed bag that varies widely from one chapter to the next, so I’m going to take pains to stress that they’re not all like what I’m about to say. But the organization as a whole, and certainly the ideology as a whole, is contradictory and fatally flawed in it’s entire conception. Here are the reasons why, in descending order of importance:
1-Demsocs are not antiimperialist, and do not understand what imperialism actually is
Democratic socialists, by and large, share the liberal understanding of imperialism: that it’s when one country attacks another. The more advanced version of this analysis is “when a geographically larger country attacks a geographically smaller country.” In either case, this is part of the rich tradition of casual vibes based non-analysis that most of us in the English-speaking world have been raised into. By this definition the allied invasion of Normandy was imperialism. In reality, just as with all fascist rhetoric, the recent proliferation of the term imperialism to describe basically any war is more projection from the world’s most prolific invaders, the US and it’s vassals. This projection isn’t coming from social democrats, it’s coming from a bunch of slimy lanyard-wearing think tank creatures whose salary comes from the CIA’s propaganda slush fund. But the social democrats very often believe and amplify it, because they lack the historical framework to critique it and have unexamined chauvinism that makes them disinterested in looking too hard anyway
-Democratic Socialism has never worked
No working class has ever taken control of the means of production in a society by asking nicely, petitioning, voting, arguing or praying. No ruling class has ever been convinced to peacefully transfer ownership of their society. Not much else to say on the, just a point to the scoreboard. The climate apocalypse is here, and humanity is out of time to fuck around hoping for a miracle. We need something that has already proven itself able to radically transform a society for the better in a short time, and we already have something for that.
-Demsocs are operating off a flase premise and their objective is doomed from the start
This is the last of what I consider the big three dralbreakers. Not that the rest aren’t, but any one of these first three problems is disqualifying on its own. Anyway: The Democratic socialist’s political program is built on the horribly, horribly wrong presumption that you can beat capital at it’s own game, without breaking any of it’s rules, and at no point will they just drop the facade and fucking kill you. History has shown this to be wrong over and over: Vincent Bevins wrote a book called The Jakarta Method, which covers the genocide the US backed in Indonesia in order to stomp out a rising communist party. In my opinion, the most sobering passage is this one:
Playing nice with rich monsters won’t save us. They will try to exterminate us the moment our movement shows any potential of winning, whether by following the rules or not. They don’t care. You and I are insects to them, and they will try to crush us, and if we’re serious about liberating humanity from this horror then we have to be prepared for that. Demsocs do not want to face this fact.
-Demsocs do not grasp that capitalism, imperialism and fascism are the same thing and are thus incapable of solving the problem
They do not understand that imperialism is capitalism grown rampant, they don’t understand that fascism is a starving imperialism eating itself. They don’t understand that class war is the oldest war whose roots reach the deepest through history, and nazism is just it’s blooming flower. They think they can reform away the all-corroding hunger of capitalism, as if it’s some quirk of the system and not it’s DNA. If you don’t rip it up by the roots, abolish the private ownership of production, it will eventually outgrow every safeguard, every time. It’s The Thing, and it will take whatever form it needs to, say whatever, kill whoever, do absolutely anything to continue liquidating and assimilating. It certainly isn’t going to slow down for a petition and a polite request.
It’s too dangerous to live. But the Socdems think they can tame it. They are wrong, and because they are wrong their plan is doomed
-Demsocs participate in capitalist wars of aggression and the plundering of resources from the global south
I’m running out of steam at this point but yeah, when you try to change the dropping-phosporous-on-people’s-houses system from within, it is you who will inevitably be changed into a phosphorous dropper. Also they benefit in a tertiary way from the spoils of imperialism, so they are disinclined to break from it.
-Demsocs are usually nationalists in their thinking, which (especially in times of stress) often leads them to becoming something closer to national socialists.
-Demsocs still have not questioned the fundamental liberal premises about society they were taught as children,
As a result, they often unquestioningly accept the most outlandish fascist propaganda about designated enemy countries just because it fits with everything else the corporate fascist media of their country has told them since birth. They have not yet fully dug down to question the deeper levels of indoctrination, and when they do they tend to become communists. Until then, they throw their support behind whoever the capitalist class frames in the media as “freedom fighters”, whether it’s the future Taliban, the Khmer Rouge, or puppet governments from South Vietnam to Ukraine. The press simply tells a carefully manicured narrative using the language of rebellion, and liberals plus most Demsocs fall for it almost every time, because 1: Demsocs (…) do not understand what imperialism actually is.
Overall, democratic socialism does not make sense in a vacuum: nobody interested in liberating the human race from capitalism would ever invent an ideology like this from scratch. But it starts to make sense when you see the purpose it serves: coming to terms with our position is scary, and many people want to hang on to the hope that some kind of never before seen peaceful socialist transition is possible in the world capital of fascism and slavery. it is an attempt to reconcile the irreconcilable contradiction between democracy and private property without harming either. It’s trying to solve a revolutionary situation without a revolution. It’s showing up to class war without a gun. It’s the bargaining stage of a process in which acceptance means becoming a communist.
DSA is late stage capitalism relief, not true leftism. they exist solely to keep pressure off an actual communist revolution
DSA has everyone from social democrats to maoists in it, it is the biggest reformist socialist org and biggest revolutionary socialist org in the country, if you’re on the outside looking in though, the most visible stuff is the electoral work, which is dominated by the reformists.
Right, if DSA wasn’t so counterrevolutionary we’d all be storming the Capitol right now. I’m dying to see the results of “true leftism.”
Elections are useful when used as an agitational tool to activate more of the population. The problem is when electoralism is the end goal.
It is ok for us to push for reforms on the way to revolution. To cohere a larger movement we need to not only prove ourselves as socialists who can improve your life materially, but also we need to uplift those who are worst off so they are able to join our movement in the first place.
I believe in using everything at our disposal to do the necessary organizing, agitating, and educating on the path to fomenting revolutionary sentiment, but will fight subordinating the movement to milquetoast reformists who’s end goal is nicer capitalism, not the wholesale dissolution of it the world over.
Our movement is still frustratingly in its infancy. The material conditions for revolution are building but are still not here. We need to keep agitating this line - people are waking up. They hear what we have to say and they agree. Organizing works but it takes time and a strategy of patience. If we do not meet people where they are at and engage in the structures they trust, even when we do not, we are simply ceding ground to those who would poison them against us.
We aren’t gonna vote our way out of facism but we sure as hell can use those votes to agitate for why voting will never be enough.
Edit: one other thing to add here is we should not be striving to build a movement predicated around voting. Voting is the least impactful way to be involved in politics. What we should be building is a movement of average people, the workers who make this country run, who have an active say and care about how the country operates top to bottom. We want people to care about how things work and get done. We want them get involved in areas they care about and making their voices heard with suggestions and concerns. We want a truly involved population of people engaging in democracy - not just by voting but by having a hand on the wheel that steers not only their country but by extension their lives. We are building a movement not of better voters but of leaders who can champion the world we all deserve.
democracy as a whole is merely a farce to make worker class feel like they are doing something
The oligarchic pseudo democracy we have does yes. The whole system is captured and only gives the illusion of choice.
True democracy has people working collectively to make decisions with robust systems of accountability to those who are elected to carry out those decisions. Democracy is truly having your hand on the wheel of your destiny by having a real voice in the world you live in.
