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SOCIALISM 101

What the heck is socialism anyway?

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Doesn’t socialism mean that the government will own and run everything?

Discussion 
Democratic socialists do not want to create an all-powerful government bureaucracy. But we do not want big corporate bureaucracies to control our society either. Rather, we believe that social and eco
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Jan 10, 2019
kansas-city-dsa

Aren’t you a party that’s in competition with the Democratic Party for votes and support?

Discussion 
No, we are not a separate party. Like our friends and allies in the feminist, labor, civil rights, religious, and community organizing movements, many of us have been active in the Democratic Party. W
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Jan 12, 2019
kansas-city-dsa

Private corporations seem to be a permanent fixture in the US, so why work towards socialism?

Discussion 
In the short term we can’t eliminate private corporations, but we can bring them under greater democratic control. The government could use regulations and tax incentives to encourage companies to act
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Jan 10, 2019
kansas-city-dsa

Why are there no models of democratic socialism?

Discussion 
Although no country has fully instituted democratic socialism, the socialist parties and labor movements of other countries have won many victories for their people. We can learn from the comprehensi
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Jan 10, 2019
kansas-city-dsa

What is democratic socialism?

Discussion 
Democratic socialists believe that both the economy and society should be run democratically – to meet public needs, not to make profits for a few. To achieve a more just society, many structures of o
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Jan 12, 2019
kansas-city-dsa

Hasn’t socialism been discredited by the collapse of Communism in the USSR and Eastern Europe?

Discussion 
Socialists have been among the harshest critics of authoritarian Communist states. Just because their bureaucratic elites called them “socialist” did not make it so; they also called their regimes “de
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Jan 10, 2019
kansas-city-dsa

Won’t socialism be impractical because people will lose their incentive to work?

Discussion 
We don’t agree with the capitalist assumption that starvation or greed are the only reasons people work. People enjoy their work if it is meaningful and enhances their lives. They work out of a sense
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Jan 10, 2019
kansas-city-dsa

But hasn’t the European Social Democratic experiment failed?

Discussion 
Many northern European countries enjoy tremendous prosperity and relative economic equality thanks to the policies pursued by social democratic parties. These nations used their relative wealth to ins
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Jan 10, 2019
Kansas City Democratic Socialists of America
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