American Socialist Voter

Many of the differences between ideologues is in the meanings of their words used, semantics is the field of this discovery. Here on this page we will list the term and each type of ideological definiteness.

To learn more read up on semantics first.

Being reviewed for posting, please check back later.

Has three beliefs:

1. That a society should strive to maintain the different cultures that reside within it.
2. That each culture within a society should be respected by others.
3. That individuals within a society have the right to participate in all aspects of that society without having to give up their cultural identity.

A political system of rule by the majority. Democracy is a much-abused term however, with even the most stunted, abstract and limited forms of suffrage going by the name of democracy.

“... in capitalist society we have a democracy that is curtailed, wretched, false, a democracy only for the rich, for the minority. The dictatorship of the proletariat, the period of transition to communism, will for the first time create democracy for the people, for the majority, along with the necessary suppression of the exploiters, of the minority. Communism alone is capable of providing really complete democracy, and the more complete it is, the sooner it will become unnecessary and wither away of its own accord. ...”

“Democracy for an insignificant minority, democracy for the rich – that is the democracy of capitalist society. If we look more closely into the machinery of capitalist democracy, we see everywhere, in the “petty” – supposedly petty – details of the suffrage (residential qualifications, exclusion of women, etc.), in the technique of the representative institutions, in the actual obstacles to the right of assembly (public buildings are not for “paupers"!), in the purely capitalist organization of the daily press, etc., etc., – we see restriction after restriction upon democracy. These restrictions, exceptions, exclusions, obstacles for the poor seem slight, especially in the eyes of one who has never known want himself and has never been in close contact with the oppressed classes in their mass life (and nine out of 10, if not 99 out of 100, bourgeois publicists and politicians come under this category); but in their sum total these restrictions exclude and squeeze out the poor from politics, from active participation in democracy.” [Lenin, State and Revolution, Chapter 5]

Communism means, in the first place, a step far above the limited democracy found under capitalism, by the most thoroughgoing proletarian democracy; and after that, the withering away of democracy as the majority less and less finds it necessary to overrule the will of any minority, because the majority is neither threatened nor damaged by the minority; in other words, without classes, conflict will be on a personal level not on a social level.

In order to understand the breadth and strength of proletarian democracy, the working class must first recognize the limitations of bourgeois democracy:

“While the merely repressive organs of the old governmental power were to be amputated, its legitimate functions were to be wrested from an authority usurping pre-eminence over society itself, and restored to the responsible agents of society. Instead of deciding once in three or six years which member of the ruling class was to misrepresent the people in Parliament, universal suffrage was to serve the people,...” [Civil War in France, Chapter 5]

Generally speaking, bourgeois democracy develops in proportion to the growing maturity and strength of the working class:

“In capitalist society, providing it develops under the most favorable conditions, we have a more or less complete democracy in the democratic republic. But this democracy is always hemmed in by the narrow limits set by capitalist exploitation, and consequently always remains, in effect, a democracy for the minority, only for the propertied classes, only for the rich. Freedom in capitalist society always remains about the same as it was in the ancient Greek republics: freedom for the slave-owners. Owing to the conditions of capitalist exploitation, the modern wage slaves are so crushed by want and poverty that “they cannot be bothered with democracy”, “cannot be bothered with politics”; in the ordinary, peaceful course of events, the majority of the population is debarred from participation in public and political life.” [State and Revolution, Chapter 5]

It may appear that universal suffrage provides the opportunity for the working class to elect socialists to government and overthrow capitalism peacefully and constitutionally. The capitalist state would never allow this. The repressive nature of bourgeois democracy becomes clear however, only when the working class has outgrown bourgeois society and is ready to go beyond it:

“Universal suffrage is thus the gauge of the maturity of the working class. It cannot and never will be anything more in the modern state; but that is enough. On the day when the thermometer of universal suffrage shows boiling-point among the workers, they as well as the capitalists will know where they stand. [Origin of the Family, Chapter 9]

“... the first step in the revolution by the working class is to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class to win the battle of democracy.

“The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degree, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralize all instruments of production in the hands of the state, i.e., of the proletariat organized as the ruling class; and to increase the total productive forces as rapidly as possible.” [Communist Manifesto, Chapter 2]

Marx and Engels’ worked out how the working class could transcend bourgeois democracy by observing the action of the Parisian workers in the Paris Commune of 1871:

“The Commune was formed of the municipal councilors, chosen by universal suffrage in the various wards of the town, responsible and revocable at short terms. The majority of its members were naturally workers, or acknowledged representatives of the working class. The Commune was to be a working, not a parliamentary body, executive and legislative at the same time.” [Civil War in France, Chapter 5]

That is to say, proletarian democracy was not just representative democracy, but participatory democracy. Class society is founded upon the division of labor between mental and manual labor. Corresponding to this, the form of democracy which best suits the maintenance of class society is the separation of executive and legislative powers: i.e., one class of people decide what should be done, while another class of people do it. In order to transcend class society, the working class must introduce a mode of life in which everywhere the people doing something decide amongst themselves, by consensus what and how it should be done. Workers get little opportunity to learn about running the country or even their own workplace, because that work is done by politicians, capitalists and managers. Even politicians are kept in the dark and manipulated by the unelected people that run the businesses and government departments. Real power is in the board rooms and elite clubs for the rich. All positions of authority in Socialist society must be elected solely by workers and subject to recall at any time.

The separation of executive and legislative powers in bourgeois, parliamentary democracy means that even if workers’ representatives gain a majority in parliament, they find that in reality they control nothing.

“The highest form of the state, the democratic republic, which in our modern social conditions becomes more and more an unavoidable necessity and is the form of state in which alone the last decisive battle between proletariat and bourgeoisie can be fought out – the democratic republic no longer officially recognizes differences of property. Wealth here employs its power indirectly, but all the more surely. It does this in two ways: by plain corruption of officials, of which America is the classic example, and by an alliance between the government and the stock exchange, which is effected all the more easily the higher the state debt mounts and the more the joint-stock companies concentrate in their hands not only transport but also production itself, and themselves have their own center in the stock exchange.” [Origin of the Family, Chapter 9]

Furthermore, the state – the police-military organization built by the bourgeoisie for the sole purpose of protecting private property – is not elected, and cannot be legislated into something else:

“Democracy means equality. The great significance of the proletariat’s struggle for equality and of equality as a slogan will be clear if we correctly interpret it as meaning the abolition of classes. But democracy means only formal equality. And as soon as equality is achieved for all members of society in relation to ownership of the means of production, that is, equality of labor and wages, humanity will inevitably be confronted with the question of advancing farther, from formal equality to actual equality, i.e., to the operation of the rule “from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs”. ...

“Democracy is a form of the state, it represents, on the one hand, the organised, systematic use of force against persons; but, on the other hand, it signifies the formal recognition of equality of citizens, the equal right of all to determine the structure of, and to administer, the state. This, in turn, results in the fact that, at a certain stage in the development of democracy, it first welds together the class that wages a revolutionary struggle against capitalism – the proletariat, and enables it to crush, smash to atoms, wipe off the face of the earth the bourgeois, even the republican-bourgeois, state machine, the standing army, the police and the bureaucracy and to substitute for them a more democratic state machine, but a state machine nevertheless, in the shape of armed workers who proceed to form a militia involving the entire population.” [State and Revolution, Chapter 5]

Thus bourgeois democracy, which supports the interests of capitalists above all else, is a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. Democracy and freedom goes only so far; and as soon as the majority people decide that majority rule should apply – not only in the parliament, but also in the workplace, the factories and offices, in the army, in the schools and universities – then suddenly the capitalist state machine will without fail raise its head and say “Enough is enough!” and restore by whatever it takes the rule of the minority of wealthy capitalists over the majority of workers. Having “won the battle of democracy”, the workers must now make a revolution. The dictatorship of the working class majority replaces the dictatorship of the minority of big capitalists. The unelected police-military hierarchy of violence is dismantled to make way for genuine, unqualified, proletarian democracy.

Contrariwise, socialism, in which majority rule applies everywhere, can only be a dictatorship of the proletariat which suppresses the right of the minority of capitalists to exploit workers. The dictatorship of the proletariat simply means the most thoroughgoing democracy, where money and privilege are no longer able to lay down the law to the working class majority, and free associations of people work out their lives in collaboration.

Often used by many groups staking a claim to being both democratic and socialist. How true is this claim? Some of these groups practice more of an "elite form" known as Marxist-Leninism where a choice is made by a limited group that has the ability to travel to meetings and become the representatives in word or title without any direct contact with those persons they claim to represent. On the other hand there is one group which has a direct democracy with full representation to its membership.

For now, democratic socialism, the left wing of socialism being more conservative in nature but not policy lacks a coherent and coagulated body. It is most due to making more demands and lacking any real plan to use in a follow through if elected making any actual future reality nonexistent, but in places like Europe give way to social democracy its softer left cousin.

Example from Socialist Party of the United States of America: Wednesday, 15 July 2009

Here we have one of the few democratic socialist organizations that openly list its' National Committee. Notice that not a one is linked to their direct email excluding potential members for open contact and missing from their names are titles of the people they represent. If we look further into their National Action Committee we see Greg Pason's name listed having several seats of power. In other democratic and social organizations this is viewed as being a conflict of interest or one person holding undemocratic powers. 

There are no Orders of Succession within their constitution for which co-chair or vice-chair who assumes command in the case of a failure or resignation or worse.    

Socialist Party USA National Committee
Elected on October 10, 2009

Notice the lack of direct email contact for the majority persons listed?-

Sally Joyner  representive of ?  
 Kristin Schall  representive of ?  
Stephanie Cholensky  representive of ? 
Susan Dorazio   representive of ? 
Sarah McLean  representive of ?  
Steve Tash representive of ?  

Before SP-USA convention 2009 - The question given was, "any idea when the pre-convention bulletin will be posted? The website says after Aug 25, really want to get to discussing specifics with the members of my local."  The reply came (Friday, 11 September 2009) from Marc Luzietti nom de guerre chegitz guevara, "Delegates and alternates will be receiving it in the mail first. Then everyone else. I'm not sure it should be posted on the web where people outside the party could look at it." This emphasizes the lack of public viewing towards a trusted option as a third party giving still minority status behind the Libertarian Party.

While this is the best example of being "open" [term used loosely] in a socialist organization it is still extremely limited and closed off to any public trust. Most leftist organizations lack any open contact or full public trust. It is up to the membership to address these issues among the many if they are to grow or have any real impact outside of the two party system.

Keep in mind that this group does list their NC and NAC, but many do not. Take care to ask for details before joining any group to make sure they are suited for you and your needs and wants. 

A phrase wrote and authored by Karl Marx without a defining theme. Many authoritarian communistic societies that have failed or reformed under modern pressure to a more social democratic like stance use this phrase to hold power over their people. Several leaders and others have tried to define i.e. Karl Kautsky and actively use i.e. V.I. Lenin this loose concept, but to date it remains a ghost of history long past. It can mean many things from anarchy, revolutionary dictatorship, warlordism, tribalism, and so on where many inhuman crimes against dignity have happened.

Origin: German, 1845, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in their book The German Ideology, also noted in several other books of many different socialistic ideologies. The general concept is not of any single class, but that of fractions of class never really fitting one into any other.

• raggedy proletariat
• refuse of all classes
• swindlers
• confidence tricksters
• brothel-keepers
• rag-and-bone merchants
• beggars
• flotsam of society

Being reviewed for posting, please check back later.

Origin of word:

• Perspective
  • Social democrats:
  • Democratic socialists:
  • Christian socialists:

Origins:

1959, China, during the Anti-Rightist Campaign leading into the Cultural Revolution, but before the Great Leap Forward and the purge of Peng Dehuai. Mao had continuing doubts about the socialist goal. By 1960 the word "rightist" had become a pejorative hate label for the enemy within, "revisionism" and revisionist." Maoism pulls more from Chinese culture than Marxism which is why it is often never seen hyphenated like Marxism-Leninism.

The name "revisionist" was used for those who did not dazzle Mao when his form of socialism failed in transference of blame. As a cult of personality his every word was taken in the literal sense to create Mao's vision of socialism from Chinese culture,  history, literature as he knew and understood it. Mao - later - would define revisionist as "zombies."

The word itself during the 1960s was no more than comparable to its counter part from Stalinist socialism's "social-fascist hyenas" to describe social democrats.

An example here of early infighting was Mao's propaganda against Liu Shaoqi being called a "bourgeois" who had "sneaked into the party" which is a common echo for many decades to come and socialism's later purges, factional infighting, and lack of growth with party movements around the world to action.

Mao Zedong's later outlook of the road to socialism then communism would later be recorded not as one of sincerity or class, or even ideological purity, but something stronger, loyalty. He had to have total control.

Also see Revisionism  (Marxism)  

Origins:

1896-1898 Eduard Bernstein, Problems of Socialism.

Bernstein wrote for a slow progressive change after the many bloody revolts costing human lives throughout the years after 1848. And after the failure of Karl Marx to form any unity within the First International he intentionally broke with for egoism.

1900 Rosa Luxemburg, Social Reform or Revolution.

Luxemburg wrote for hard pressures on massive changes. She was in the thick of European change during an epoch of strongmen, monarchy, military might, and local wars while striving for gender equality as well. The contrast between her and Bernstein is stark. Each wrote from their own perspective.

It is important to note here that both were Socialists in the European theater. This was a time when socialism meant both democratic socialism and social democracy and the two terms were used interchangeably. The differences between the English/German "democratic socialism" or the inverted romance languages e.g. French, Spanish, Italian, Romanian, formed "social democracy."

Sometimes used as revolutionary socialism, communist (democratic centralism) tendencies that advocate the need for fundamental social change through revolution, as a strategy to achieve a socialistic society. The term is used by far left socialists and communists in contrast to social democracy which they've termed "reformism."

To date this has been a romanticize version of revolt of the current system. This has been as far as the term has gone lacking actual or realistic plans for the events to follow should such a revolution take place within the USA.

Undefined term but used often under another conceptualization of "queer studies." Within the greater socialist movement this idea is believed to be a natural leap from the former battles over gender equality.

A type of socialism often associated with more right leaning policies. A wording by far left elements as a pejorative form of hate to mean fascist i.e., "Yes she [Rosa Luxemburg] would have, if she was able to see how the social democracy stabbed her in the back; and knew the extent to which mass media plays in the modern revolution." Darius Engel. "socialist front cover." Email with author. Friday, 7 August 2009. And "I use the term, "communist," sometimes interchangeably with the word, "socialist."  The word, "socialist," however, and the word, "social-democrat," were both made vile and ugly at the time of World War One when all the diverse parties calling themselves "Social Democratic" and their parliamentary deputies in major countries of England, Germany, France, voted for war funding to conduct the inter-imperialist World War.  That's a key reason why after that, revolutionary socialists changed their name to communists and started using the word, communist.  Then, later on, Stalinism dragged the word, communism, through the mud and the muck of Stalinism's mass murders and mass purges.  But all the militant revolutionary socialist opponents of Stalin and Stalinism nevertheless still used the phrase, "communist," but made sure people knew damned well it meant real communists, not the fraudulent (i.e., Stalinist) kind.  I'm in that tradition." Allan Greene. "Unity Now." E-mail to the author. Tuesday, 4 August 2009.

A type of well liked European governance with a progressive and effective stance closer to center psychology of human needs and dignity that pulls away from totalitarian regimes of communistic past. 

Under construction

Defined

1 : any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods
2 a : a system of society or group living in which there is no private property b : a system or condition of society in which the means of production are owned and controlled by the state
3 : a stage of society in Marxist theory transitional between capitalism and communism and distinguished by unequal distribution of goods and pay according to work done.

"socialism." Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. 2009.

Merriam-Webster Online. 7 August 2009
<http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/socialism>

Redefined for Clarity

1 : any various economic and political theories for collective or governmental ownership of major industries that promote a civil society and its betterment for all where democracy controls in the work place. Goods are distributed based on ... Fact is many socialist and communist websites have not laid out any plan in detail.

2 : Most who know socialism already realize that even under capitalism the state owns all the property. All any citizen has to do is not pay their taxes and discover the IRS will soon place a tax lean on the property before taking the home and its belongs away to sell on the court house steps. Socialism means more taxes, yet provides at length for better care and full employment to achieve its goals. 

3 : Marxist theory is a critical scientific analysis of socialism from other socialists or like writers. Marx rewrote or argued their works and began a new theory called communism, the next stage after socialism. Marx, pushing this point broke apart the First International citing that it was not radical enough. This paved the way for a break between socialists and communist on many levels and has confused the right capitalist wing in the USA who tend to lump them all into one "red" pile.

Economic view towards planning

Abstract thought of socialism as business:

Joseph Alois Schumpeter asked himself two questions in chapter 16 his book Capitalism, Socialism, Democracy, "Can socialism work? Can it take a democratic form?" He answered "Yes" in both cases. The answer is explained by John Kilcullen at Macquarie University who writes on his website, "Part 3 is entitled 'Can Socialism Work?'. The most important section is chapter 16, 'The socialist blueprint'. This answers the economists' objection that central planning cannot set rational priorities among the competing possible uses of the factors of production. Schumpeter shows that Socialism could adopt the market as the planning mechanism. Suppose the publicly-owned means of production are managed by managers who are instructed to aim at making a profit for their enterprise (the profit would of course belong not to them or to private owners or shareholders, but to the community); then the central board managing the allocation of productive factors will auction them off to factories etc. according to what they bid, factories etc. will produce what consumers will buy, consumer income will be wages from employment, employees will seek good wages, firms will offer wages according to prospective profitability, and so on as in the capitalist economy. What this argument shows is that from an economist's viewpoint there is nothing to choose between private enterprise and socialism: a market economy can exist whether the means of production are privately or socially owned. So socialism is as workable economically as capitalism."

1 a : direction or approach toward a place, object, effect, or limit b : a proneness to a particular kind of thought or action.
2 a : the purposeful trend of something written or said : aim b : deliberate but indirect advocacy.

"tendency." Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. 2009.

Merriam-Webster Online. 29 August 2009
<http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/tendency>

Origins: A French term made popular as the Civil Rights marches and protest took to the south beginning around 1950's.

Literal translation: city dweller/cosmopolitan (high) elite business person.  

Meaning reference during its early usage: upper-class White Anglo Saxon Protestant of the U.S. socio-cultural elite.