679. What Is Democratic Socialism? And Is It Really Different From Socialism?

Hello, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of The Way the World Works. So today I want to go back to the isms that we talk about sometimes.

These important belief systems like republicanism, democratism, socialism, capitalism, see the isms at the end, communism, Marxism, so all these, you know, political belief systems. A lot of times they're political, but sometimes they're just ideological. And when I say ideological, the first half of that word is idea.

Think about that. So these ideas that people believe in. So let's talk about one today that I think is unfortunately always relevant, but is coming to the news again because there is a mayoral candidate in New York City who has proudly proclaimed that he is a democratic socialist.

And we've heard this word before, right? Bernie Sanders. He's probably one of the most famous democratic socialists. I roll my eyes.

I'll get to why I'm rolling my eyes in a minute. And then you have AOC, Alexandria. I can't even say her name.

Cortez, we call her AOC. AOC is her nickname, so we'll do that. But she is a congresswoman.

And now there is this new guy on the scene, Zoran Mamdani, who is also a democratic socialist. And so let's get into that, into what this word means and why it is kind of silly. So what is socialism? We know what socialism is.

We're pretty familiar with that, right? It is this belief that that the there's the upper class in the haves and the have nots. And for too long, these rich people, these people who own property, these capitalists have oppressed the proletariat, the working class, and that we need somebody to make things even. And what that usually ends up being is, again, how you end up having a rule.

There's always a ruling class. There ends up being a ruling class who, you know, doles out fairness, if you if you will, to to the people. And, you know, nobody owns any property.

It's just the the socialist leaders who are the government who owns the property. And if you're lucky, they'll let you have a good job, but they might get to decide what that job is. So socialism is not great.

But, you know, it's it's funny to me because Karl Marx framed it as kind of this dictatorship of the proletariat, meaning this like. Dictatorship of the proletariat, meaning that the working class should be ruling over everybody and they should be the people who have the concentrated power. And again, it's so funny to me because all these systems are built to say like, oh, we're going to give the people control.

But when all is said and done, it is not the people who have control. It is some form of power grabbers who end up with all the control. So it's kind of funny.

So socialism is this word where, let's be honest, only a select few have the power and nobody has property. And so, you know, as we know, property is the foundation for a lot of our liberties. And so when you don't have that, you're kind of out of luck.

So socialism gets a bad rep. We all know that. Right.

And over the years, there have been so many examples of what happens when it goes wrong, that it has kind of a soured name. Right. It doesn't it doesn't really sit well with a lot of people, myself included.

So what happens if something isn't working, if a term isn't working? Let's talk about it like it's a market product, which is funny because the market and socialism, not compatible things, they don't like it. But if we're let's say you have a I'm trying to think of a brand of something. Let's say you have a soda brand.

OK, even though so it is not the best healthy ways for you. But let's say you have a soda brand and it's not selling very well. And it's kind of an old, outdated logo.

And there's no good commercials and just business is kind of slow. Or maybe a bad thing. Maybe like something happens where there's like a a bad batch and there's like a bad taste or something.

I know something bad happens or something happens where your product isn't doing as well. So what do you do? You rebrand it, right? Maybe you change the formula a little bit and like change the flavor. Maybe you introduce new flavors.

Maybe you redesign the soda can. Like you do these things to make it look better. But if you don't actually change the product, let's say that you kept the formula of the soda, like the recipe, the same, and it still tastes just as bad as it did before.

But you slap a new logo on it that's pretty. Is it going to change the taste? Absolutely not. People might buy it at first because they think, oh, well, look at this new label.

It must taste completely different now, right? They might buy it and then they're going to taste it. And they're going to say, wait a second, I was just ripped off because this is the exact same thing I had before. You're selling me a bad product with a prettier label.

Well, that is what happens when you put the word democratic in front of the word socialism. It turns it into something that sounds a little bit better, but it's not great. But that's exactly what happened.

So these early like later figures, people like Bernie Sanders and in those era, they rebranded socialism as democratic socialism. Like, hey, it's socialism, but it's democratic, right? So it's good because democracy is great. And we all have democracy.

Yeah, but it doesn't make it any different. Democratic socialism is just socialism light. So it's it's like Diet Coke, right? But it's it's diet socialism.

It's but really, it's not even because they all end in the same place. They all end with the individualist losing rights and people being less free. But this is appeal to so many people.

And it's so funny to me because, again, people like Bernie Sanders will talk a big game and they'll say that they're for the people. But then, you know, Bernie Sanders is also like a millionaire who has a lot of property. So it's funny because all the socialist democratic socialist leaders are always very hypocritical.

Like they actually do in practice is very hypocritical. I will give this for AOC. She seems to be slightly more like she lives slightly more modestly than the people like Bernie Sanders.

But she's still I think there was one time somebody tried to see how much her outfit costs that she wore to a political event or a debate or something, and it was like more money than I like clothes. And it was more money than I can ever even imagine spending on clothes. So they're all kind of hypocrites, right? They want to be leaders and men of the people.

But in reality, they are just a ruling class like anybody else. So when I think I want to talk about how people twist words now. So, you know, I said that slapping Democratic in front of socialism is just it's it's smoke and mirrors, as they say.

It's kind of like the word. Have you ever heard anybody call themselves a benevolent dictator? You know, benevolent gives this. They're they're kind of like a pure.

They're a good hearted. They're they're they're all around benevolent. But a dictator is the opposite of that.

So then you put these two words together that don't really go together. And then it's like, oh, but it's good now. It's good.

It's a dictatorship. We have the word benevolent. So it must be great.

And this is silly. And you and I are hearing this and we're thinking like not going to fall for it. But so many people do.

And it was funny because I remember getting into arguments with Democratic socialists in college, and I would try to say like, OK, but there's all these historical examples of socialism not working, of failing. And, you know, they would say things like, well, that's because it was regular socialism. It wasn't Democratic socialism.

And this one's different. But at the end of the day, socialism doesn't work unless you force people to do things. And if you're forcing people to do things, that is not the will of the people, as they say.

Right. That's the will of a few people who want to take what is not theirs. One way people will always try to hijack the narrative or what's going on in current events is they do try to to tweak words.

They try to change things and make them seem better than they are or not as scary as they are. Or they'll take words that don't belong to them. Right.

We talked about liberalism a handful of episodes ago where liberalism used to actually mean what is now classical liberalism, what is now like free markets and and, you know, individualism. That's what liberalism used to mean. And then the more of the, you know, left of the political aisle, they hijacked the word and now it means something different.

And people don't really know what these words mean. And words are very important, but you have to abide by their meaning. And so it's really tricky.

It's a good marketing ploy, but it's very tricky when you have politicians who do this and try to make something sound much better than it is. But democratic socialism, to me, is is always going to be a threat. And the problem with this candidate in Mamdani in in New York is that he's very cool.

He was actually he was a rapper for a little bit, I guess. If that's I don't know if that's cool or not. I'm clearly not very cool because I don't know what's cool.

But, you know, he's very handsome. He's got a very pretty wife. But he's again, this man of the of the people.

But apparently his parents are very rich. He spent more money on his wedding than I'll ever see in my life. And so it's it's always it's the same pattern.

It's very silly to me. But his ideas are very dangerous because ideas can be very dangerous, especially when you have so many people signing on to be a part of this and not really understanding what it means. And it's because I think for two reasons, I think young people are always going to be kind of drawn.

And when I say I don't say all young people, right there, there you can't overgeneralize. So it's there's always going to be some that don't. But young people in general, generally speaking, they like things that are exciting, that are a little fringe, right? A little like off the beaten path, a little rebellious.

OK, and I was the same way in college. But for me, that rebellion came when I found people like Ron Paul. And I thought, oh, the biggest form of rebellion is being self-reliant.

The biggest form of rebellion is living so free in a world where the government takes our rights that I'm almost untouchable, right? That I that I am living in a world where if the government were to go away tomorrow, I'm self-reliant enough to take care of myself, to live so free that that's, you know, that's my form of rebellion. And other people, as far as, you know, those who get caught up or get very attracted to democratic socialism for them. The rebellion is, well, why do some people have more than others? Why are there billionaires in the world while there's poor people? I don't think this is fair.

Billionaires should give us some of their money. And let me tell you, democratic socialism is a lot easier to abide by than things like individualism, where you actually have to put forth work and you have to be self-reliant and you have to utilize the market and you have to sell your ideas to people, democratic socialism. They just want to take right.

They just want to take your money and take your property. But that's great for them, because then they get some of the things that you worked hard for. So it's it's it's intellectually lazy, if you ask me.

But it appears appeals to people because one, I mean, free stuff, we're not doing anything. That's an easy. I mean, if if we didn't know any better, right, we would think like, yeah, who wouldn't want to do that? I love free.

I love free stuff. But as the famous quote goes, there's no such thing as a free lunch. And what that means is there's no such thing as anything being truly free in this world.

There are always costs, right? Even if we don't see them, we have the whole broken window fallacy and things that are unseen and seen. We can go over that in another episode. But so democratic socialism is is again in the headlines because of Mamdani.

And I think it's I think it's a little scary. I think it's business as usual. So I do think it's it's nothing new.

I think we're kind of used to this. But in the election and coming up in November, we're going to find out. If it's an idea that's still selling, and I hope it's not, but there are so many people at his rallies and he seems to be leading in the polls, which makes me a little nervous.

And there's some policies in particular that make me nervous. But I'm going to save that for another episode because I want to tie it into some other title twin stuff. So I will wrap this up here.

But I want you guys, I want to encourage you as a family to take a look at words, at terms, maybe these isms and think, especially when it's like a word you already know, like again, socialism. But somebody smacks another word in front of it. What were they doing? Why did they want to do that? What how does this change the meaning? Does it actually change the meaning? Take a look at that and really be critical thinkers about it.

So I will leave it there. As always, don't forget to like and subscribe to the podcast. And until next time, I will talk to you later.