Democratic Socialism Contra Populism

• In Event: Foundations of Democratic Socialism

Abstract

With the resurgence of democratic socialism as part of the political discourse, some critical commentators have charged that it is merely the left-wing equivalent of the populism that is growing on the Right. There is some basis for this accusation as there are those on the Left who do advocate for a kind of left-wing populism. This paper, however, argues that populism is antithetical to the principles that undergird democratic socialism. From an historical standpoint, there is a long history of opposition to populist political ideas on the part of prominent democratic socialists. Secondly, I argue that populism is incompatible with democratic socialism in theory as populism violates the democratic features of democratic socialism. Finally, I argue that populism, in practice, actively subverts the vision for society put forward by democratic socialists. Thus, I argue against the commentators who rely on overly-simplified conception of democratic socialism to label it a manifestation of populism as well as those left-wing proponents of populism whose visions for society, in fact, rely on breaking away from democratic socialism’s core principles.

Author

• Gregory Zucker, Rutgers University, New Brunswick