The strand of socialism committed to achieving social ownership and economic democracy through democratic, constitutional, and gradual means rather than revolutionary rupture. Its modern form was articulated by Eduard Bernstein's revisionism at the close of the 19th century and carried into mass politics by figures such as Eugene Debs and the reformist parties of the Second International; in the 20th century it developed sophisticated models of market socialism and worker self-management (Oskar Lange, John Roemer, Jaroslav Vanek, David Schweickart, Branko Horvat). Democratic socialism rejects both the laissez-faire market and the one-party revolutionary state, holding that socialism without democracy is a contradiction in terms. It remains one of the principal traditions of the contemporary left, shading into social democracy on one side and Marxism on the other.
Democratic Socialism
The socialist tradition that seeks to transform capitalism into a democratically-controlled economy through constitutional and electoral means, rejecting both the laissez-faire market and the one-party revolutionary state.
Eugene V. Debs
1855–1926
Eugene V. Debs was America's great democratic socialist — a labor leader whose moralistic, homegrown socialism, rooted in Christianity and the Declaration rather than Marx, won nearly a million votes from a prison cell
ThinkerBranko Horvat
Branko Horvat was a Yugoslav market socialist who sought to give worker self-management rigorous theoretical grounding, arguing that a market economy could be organized around labor rather than capital
ThinkerJaroslav Vanek
Jaroslav Vanek was a Czech-born theorist of economic democracy whose rigorous case for worker self-management positioned labor-run firms as an alternative to both capitalism and state socialism
ThinkerJohn Roemer
John Roemer is an analytical Marxist economist who designed feasible models of market socialism and recast equality as equal opportunity rather than equal outcome
ThinkerOskar Lange
Oskar Lange was a Polish market socialist whose trial-and-error model of planning answered liberal critics by arguing that a socialist economy could allocate resources rationally
ThinkerDavid Schweickart
David Schweickart is an American market socialist philosopher who reimagined socialism as democratic worker self-management, arguing a market economy without capitalism is both feasible and just
ThinkerEduard Bernstein
1850–1932
Eduard Bernstein was the revisionist founder of democratic socialism, arguing that Marx's predictions had failed the evidence — and that this was good news for socialists, not bad