‘Democratic’ Socialism Is STILL Socialism

In my first post on Socialism, “What Is Socialism,” I noted that there are those who will claim that ‘democratic’ Socialism is different from the Socialism I was describing.  These people would argue that, under ‘democratic’ Socialism, the People vote on their leaders and, therefore, ‘democratic’ Socialism does not represent the certain tyranny to which I claimed all Socialism eventually leads.  Well, as much as these people would like to think otherwise, they are wrong!  Yes, I mean that the people who claim ‘democratic’ Socialism is immune from tyranny are factually wrong, and, rather than apologize for stating the obvious, or arguing over whether or not a fact is a fact, I will just prove why my statement is correct.

First, there is nothing inherently virtuous or moral in the opinion of the masses.  In fact, when it comes to matters of making the morally correct choice, popular opinion is nearly always wrong.  One need go no farther than to look at our own history.  If one thinks that the majority is always morally correct, then one cannot object to our history with racism, discrimination based on sex, child labor abuses or a whole host of things that we now consider to be wrong.  In fact, if the majority opinion is the determine factor of what is and is not moral, then there can be no such thing as morality at all. This is because the majority opinion can and does change with time — sometimes in days, or even hours.   This is why the Founders referred to majority rule as ‘The Tyranny of the Masses.’  And that means, even if the masses elect their leaders, you still have tyranny under Socialism, you’ve just let the masses pick their tyrant.

This leads us to the next reason that ‘democratic’ Socialism is just as tyrannical as any other flavor of Socialism.  In order to exist, Socialism must stand alone.  It cannot and will not tolerate opposition of any kind and in any form.  This is why Socialist government inevitably turn into one-Party governments.  Once this happens, you can vote for whomever you wish, but you will still be voting for someone the Party chose to be the next dictator.  Just ask anyone who has lived under a Socialist tyranny.  The Party may give you a hundred names.  It doesn’t matter.  Whichever one is elected will do whatever the Party tells them to do, which will be the exact same thing each of the other ninety-nine candidates would have done.  Either way, under ‘democratic’ Socialism, you are getting a dictator.

Finally, this brings us to Woodrow Wilson.  If you have not already done so, you should read some of his better known essays on The Presidency and proper Administration of government.*  If you’ll bother to put in the time, you’ll find that Wilson lamented the fact that Americans would not accept Communism by its proper name but, under a different name, they would swallow every part of it.  Wilson called this new name, ‘Progressivism.’  Wilson also dreamed of the day when the nation would be ‘scientifically administrated’ by elite groups of people who would be trained at elite colleges.  These ‘bureaucrats’ would be appointed to their positions for life, and would be beyond the control of the People.  But there would still be an election of the nations leader.  This person, according to Wilson, would be a charismatic individual who was capable of ‘discerning the will of the people.’  Wilson actually called him a ‘dictator,’ and he would be elected to enact this ‘discerned will of the People’ however he saw fit by directing the bureaucrats to do whatever this dictator had determined the People wanted them to do.  I am not exaggerating: this is exactly what Wilson envisioned and, if you will look closely, you will see that it has come to life — only, today, we call it ‘The Deep State.’  Either way, Wilson envisioned American Socialism, and was honest enough to call it by its name: dictatorship.  But here is the real kicker:

Wilson’s vision was ‘democratic’ Socialism!

And this is why there is no difference between Socialism and ‘democratic’ Socialism: because the very people who thought up and described both versions of this ideology said they are the same thing.  No amount of objecting will ever change this.  It is a fact, and it will always be a fact, and those who argue otherwise are just wrong!  Period!

 

ADDITIONAL READING:

POINTS TO PONDER: The ‘Conspiracy’ We Know as the ‘Progressive’ Movement

 

* NOTE: normally, I would link you to Wilson’s essays.  However, the web site I used to use for this is no longer reliable.  They have removed the more informative of Wilson’s essays and made the rest of their site all but useless by overly complicating the way you have to navigate the site.  So, until I can either find a new site — or better still — archive the reference material here on TRTC, I am going to post links to some of my older post which contain citations of relative sections of Wilson’s work to show support for my argument.