Yes, there is a Difference Between a Democrat and a Socialist
by Benjamin Studebaker
In right-wing circles, this interview with DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz has been doing the rounds:
Interviewer Chris Matthews asks Schultz to explain the difference between a democrat and a socialist and Schultz fires blanks. This has many on the right crowing that there really is no difference, that Barack Obama was the socialist they thought he was all along. This isn’t true–most democrats are not socialists, and there are clear distinctions that political scientists routinely draw among these groups. Unfortunately, these distinctions are not widely understood by the general public because they are often complex and nuanced. So I’ve come up with a way to explain the differences that I hope will be helpful to both those on the left and those on the right.
Most ordinary Americans make a reductive distinction between “liberalism” and “conservatism” but don’t really go far beyond that. On the popular definition:
- A “conservative” is someone who wants to reduce the role of the government.
- A “liberal” is someone who wants to expand the role of the government.
On this understanding, a “socialist” is some kind of super liberal who really wants to expand the role of the government. These popular definitions are not very useful because they define “liberal” and “conservative” in terms of which direction they want to pull rather than where they want to things to end up. If you placed most American liberals in the Soviet Union, they would probably want to reduce the role of the Soviet government. Correspondingly, if you put most American conservatives in an anarcho-capitalist society, they would probably want to increase the role of the government. This is because liberalism and conservatism are not about dogmatically increasing or reducing the size of the government–they have a specific vision of what government should look like.
Once you recognize that these terms refer to destinations, it becomes possible to realize that there are a whole lot of different possible places one might choose to end up. Imagine that it’s 1845 and you’re on the Oregon Trail. Do you want to go to Oregon? California? Utah? Kansas? Would you rather stay home in Missouri? Do you want to go East to Pennsylvania or New York instead? If I ask you where you want to go, “West” and “East” would not give me enough information to really know what you wanted to do. In the same way “more government” and “less government” tell us very little about what a politician really believes.
I should also briefly point out that when we get away from economic issues, the directional definitions aren’t even true–many liberals want to reduce the role of government in regulating things like drugs, abortion, homosexuality, and so on, while many conservatives want to maintain or expand the government’s regulatory role in these areas. This is because politics doesn’t just take place on the traditional left/right economic axis. It’s very possible to want to radically expand the role of government in one area of life while radically reducing it in some other area. For these reasons, “liberals” and “conservatives” often strongly disagree with each other. Indeed, if the Democratic or Republican Party were to disappear tomorrow, the remaining party would certainly break up into two or more smaller parties with more distinctive political visions for what sort of government they’d like to have.
So what are some of the popular political destinations that people often choose? There are an immense number of possibilities, but here’s a flow chart that will sort you through some of the most popular answers to the economic questions in contemporary western societies:
One thing you’ll notice right away is that conservatives are liberals–neoliberals, that is. Historically, liberalism was the ideology of market capitalists. In the 1700’s and early 1800’s, its primary opponent in most western countries was not socialism but a mix of mercantilism, feudalism, slavery and the other historical values and practices of the old land-owning aristocrats who dominated agricultural economies. As socialism, communism, and fascism supplanted the aristocrats as liberalism’s chief rivals, liberalism splintered. Social liberals and liberal democrats advocated Keynesian economic policies to create a shared prosperity that would include the workers, so they would have little incentive to become anti-capitalist. These liberals dominated both the left and the right during the 30’s, 40’s, 50’s, 60’s, and 70’s. In the 1980’s the neoliberals revived some of the right wing positions held by the old classical liberals from the 1800’s and early 1900’s, and the libertarians revived the rest of the platform. Because the neoliberal and libertarian platforms have distinct features that we can identify with the way things were before the depression and World War II, we call these platforms “conservative”. Many ordinary people no longer recognize that these conservatives are still part of the same broad intellectual tradition as those we still call “liberal”–both contemporary liberals and conservatives are pro-market and pro-capitalism.
The Republican Party is primarily a neoliberal party with a libertarian wing. The Democratic Party is primarily a social liberal/liberal democratic party. There are some neoliberals who vote for democrats because they agree with democrats on social issues and/or foreign policy. Social democrats, democratic socialists, socialist anarchists, and communists also often support democrats because they recognize that they are closer to being democrats than they are republicans and there are not nearly enough of them in the US to make a difference as a third party.
Bernie Sanders is a democratic socialist, but only just barely. Most of the policies he emphasizes are policies that most Canadian or European social liberals and liberal democrats agree with, such as single payer healthcare, free university education, a tighter financial reforms. Democratic socialists are generally interested in nationalizing additional kinds of business, like banking, utilities, railroads, or airlines. Sanders might in principle agree with some nationalization of that kind, but he’s not campaigning on those issues. Most democrats do not campaign on a particularly robust social liberal/liberal democratic platform because the American voting population has a distinctly neoliberal bent. You’ll also recall that the Democratic Party has a significant number of neoliberal supporters who stick with the party for social or foreign policy reasons, and the democrats cannot push social liberalism/liberal democracy too far without potentially alienating these supporters.
Here’s another way to visualize these concepts–here I’ve placed a number of American politicians, past and present, in the groups. Ignore the vertical positioning (this was merely to give me enough room to fit people’s names on the chart):
You can see how things have changed in recent decades–in the 60’s and 70’s, the two parties were much closer together, representing different strands within social liberalism/liberal democracy. On economic issues, the difference between FDR and Nixon is smaller than the difference between Nixon and Clinton, Reagan, or Bush. Under Reagan, the Republican Party began to become distinctively neoliberal, and since Reagan it has moved steadily further away from where it was under Nixon. The voting public has moved in a neoliberal direction as well, and this has dragged the democrats from the border between liberal democracy and democratic socialist to the border between liberal democracy and neoliberalism. Carter is distinctively closer to neoliberalism than FDR, and Obama and Clinton occupy spaces that would have been comfortably held by mainstream republicans in 1980. Sanders would have been an ordinary left-leaning democrat in the 1960’s, but today he’s considered outside the mainstream. In the meantime, libertarians like Ron and Rand Paul, who were once considered to be living in looney toon land, are increasingly becoming part of the mainstream Republican Party. How does this distribution compare to a European country’s? Let’s take a look at Britain
Britain has seen something similar happen, as its Conservative Party has steadily grown more neoliberal. Like Reagan, Thatcher is often thought of as a quintessential neoliberal figure, but this is really only due to the fact that mainstream US and UK politics had a more social liberal/liberal democratic bent prior to 1980. Today’s republicans and conservatives pull considerably further right, and formerly madcap figures like Paul and Farage are increasingly accepted into the mainstream. The British Labour Party has responded very differently from the Democratic Party. Some of its members, like former Prime Minister Tony Blair, have increasingly pulled toward neoliberalism to try to capture the voters who have been lost to the Conservatives and UKIP. Others have continued to demand that Labour continue to stay true to its socialist roots, like current Labour leadership contender Jeremy Corbyn (who genuinely and explicitly would like to nationalize some industries, likely starting wit the railroads). As Labour has dragged itself toward neoliberalism, many voters who would have been able to support Labour in the 1970’s have now defected to the Green Party or the Scottish National Party. In the US, the two party system would prevent these defections, but the UK’s increasingly multiparty system combined with Labour’s more distinctly socialist membership is causing Labour to buckle under the strain of having to satisfy too many people who want too many distinctly different things. In its efforts to satisfy all members, Labour has come to stand for nothing in particular, and this has contributed to its defeats in the two most recent elections.
Democrats are managing their tension better, but they definitely feel it–for that reason, Schultz has to walk a tight rope between alienating the genuine socialists who do vote for democrats and alienating the neoliberals who vote for democrats on social or foreign policy grounds. In this particular case, she just could not find a way to answer the question that would pull this off.
To close, I’ll give you a couple countries, current or historical, which fit pretty closely to these different economic conceptions of the state:
Libertarianism: The United States before FDR (1932)
Neoliberalism: The United States after 1980, Britain under the dry Conservatives (1979-1997, 2010-?)
Social Liberalism/Liberal Democracy: The United States between FDR and Carter (1932-1980), Britain under New Labour (1997-2010), Britain under the wet Conservatives (1935-1945, 1951-1964, 1970-1974)
Social Democracy/Democratic Socialism: Britain under Old Labour (1945-1951, 1964-1970, 1974-1979), Contemporary Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark
Socialist Anarchism: The Paris Commune, Spanish Revolution of 1936
Communism: The Soviet Union, Maoist China
Benjamin Studebaker 
Interesting take on the party differences.
Strange to see an MSNBC left leaning host like Chris Matthews attacking Dems over the idea of being associated with socialism. No wonder the DNC Chair was a bit thrown by that line questioning.
It shows just how successful the right has been in demonizing the word “socialism” to make candidates run from it. The fact is Americans love socialism to a certain degree and thrive under it. All politicians/pundits who speak out against the “evils” of socialism quickly backtrack when asked if they would do away with Social Security, Food Stamps, Unemployment Insurance, Medicare, and similar well liked social service programs. This means both Republicans and Democrats embrace socialism- the difference is just a matter of extent.
“In its efforts to satisfy all members, Labour has come to stand for nothing in particular, and this has contributed to its defeats in the two most recent elections.”
This is true and a general problem for Progressives- Occupy Wall Street was also a clear example of this. Everyone fighting to have a prominent voice results in a convoluted message, and looks weak against defined Conservative talking points.
You may wish to rethink part of your flowchart of party beliefs, as it appears you have full Socialism tied to Communism, which isn’t the case. The trademark or Communism is there are no private owned businesses, whereas that isn’t the case with Socialism, which doesn’t prohibit private enterprise.
Matthews voted for Bush in 2000 and is not as left-wing as many people think he is, despite his MSNBC affiliation.
I do think it’s important to point out that many socialist theorists see socialism as a comprehensive alternative to the system of private ownership, though there are many more democratic socialists and social democrats who still wish to preserve a space for the market. Most SA’s and communists would reject your claim that they are “not socialist”–they would instead accuse dem socs and soc dems of being “not truly socialist” because they still believe in a role for markets. So for me to exclude them from my discussion of socialism would be for me to privilege the view of the dem socs and soc dems, and I’m trying to be fair and balanced toward all people who claim the socialist label, even those who are quite far outside the mainstream.
Ben
‘Labour in the 1970’s have now defected to the Green Party or the Scottish Nationalist Party.”
There is no such thing as the Scottish Nationalist Party. It is the SNP or Scottish NATIONAL Party. Important you get this right rather than pick up on rightwing UK misrepresentation that often appears in what passes for third rate journalism today in the rag tops
My apologies for the mistake–I’ll correct it straight away. I have seen it written as “Scottish National Party” in the past but tend to misremember it as “nationalist” because of the independence movement.
This is an interesting analysis. I recently read Wendy Brown’s new book “Undoing the Demos,” and she makes a solid argument for viewing neoliberalism beyond its definition as a set of economic policy preferences/prescriptions. Rather neoliberalism, in her analysis, is a “governing rationality” in which the the logic of the market has been extended to all aspects of life even those previously reserved for democratic political actors. In fact she uses Obama’s 2013 State of the Union speech to make the point that all political projects, even “progressive” ones have become subsumed by the necessity for economic growth, including equality, liberty, constitutionalism etc. I think viewed in this light, the separation between Dems and Repubs might be narrower.
I also think it is worth viewing the role of finance and the financialization of virtually every aspect of our economy. In so far as financialization has aided and abetted the neoliberal project and that the Democratic party elite is dominated by Wall Street, the distinction of neoliberalism as coming from the Right becomes more blurry. So I would argue that you shouldn’t put neoliberalism on the spectrum with discrete boundaries, rather it would lay over the left-right spectrum more like an amorphous blob.
Also with regards to that interview with the DNC chair, I think it is pretty telling of the Democrats strategy, and the “uses” of Sanders. Him speaking (and running as a Dem) at the convention lends legitimacy to a party that is still entirely dominated by corporate elites. I think this is how the party is handling what would have otherwise been a crisis if Sanders had run as an independent. They’ll parade Sanders around as a “new” voice for progressives, Hillary will say basically the same thing as Sanders in a more realistic manner, and at the end of the day we can subsume all of Sander’s energized base into the structures of the party thereby neutralizing any actual direct challenge of the party elites.
I think it’s definitely arguable that modern dems are weak neoliberals rather than weak social liberals. The repubs have continued moving right, dragging the dems further and further away from where they were. Agreed that the party will probably use and abuse the Sanders people in the way you describe.
I don’t agree with putting social security and medicare in the same context as food stamps and welfare. Working people are forced to pay into these yet much of it is given to people who are lazy and never worked. Where I come from we call this stealing. I notice more and more people trying to put forth the idea that a mandatory tax on workers only is called an entitlement later. How dare us live so long! I personally think only those who pay INCOME tax should be allowed to vote. Remember “he’s our uncle, not our dad.
You’re ire is misplaced. I was reading today in Private Eye (UK satirical and investigative magazine) about a very wealthy person who acquired UK state assets for 2% of their true value. A nice little £118m profit ensued. This is the real story. Wealth is being transferred from tax payers to the super rich, many of whom choose to pay little or no tax. You can blame political stupidity/corruption, but the beneficiaries themselves are still thieves. And these thieves make welfare cheats look like angels. And they never, ever get punished. Isn’t that the real story?
Thanks Ben, fascinating stuff. To British eyes it jars to see Nixon positioned to the left of Obama and Clinton. I’m not doubting you, but I’m intrigued in what way was he was closer to Social Democracy that modern Democrats?
As far as economics goes, Nixon was bigger on government regulation than any of the presidents that followed. He created the EPA and supported the Clean Air Act and OSHA, which regulates workplace safety. He was also a huge proponent of Keynesian economics. He even used wage and price controls.
If we’re talking civil rights or foreign policy, then Nixon is right wing. But on economic policy, he’s further left than Carter (a big deregulator), let alone Clinton or Obama.
Nixon was also in favor of universal health care.
In your graphs that the Democrat party in the US is the party aligning closest to Communism.
And three is closer to 10 than two is. So what?
Bernie Sanders is a definitely socialist that is a hypocrite. He has bought 3 houses with the money of the people. He always cite a bunch of European countries, such as Sweden, Norway and Germany as successful socialist countries. However, his socialist policy is just composed of meaningless words and he seems like he doesn’t even comprehend how his policy is able to work. He is an absolutely hypocrite that is as greedy as hell.
He’s a rich person who supports raising his own taxes for the good of society–the fact that he’s rich makes his arguments stronger, because he himself will have to pay more if his policies are enacted. Socialists don’t believe in giving all their stuff to charity–they think charity is inadequate and want the state to manage social problems through policymaking.