Democratic Socialism
Democratic socialism aims at an economy run largely in common, through public, cooperative or worker ownership, and insists on reaching it by democratic means. It treats political democracy and economic democracy as two halves of the same project.
- Major industries and essential services should be socially owned rather than run for private profit.
- Change must come through elections, civil liberties and pluralism, never through one-party rule.
- Democracy should extend into the workplace, with workers sharing in decisions.
The label distinguished socialists who rejected Leninist revolution from the Communist movement after 1917. British Labour's 1918 constitution, with its commitment to common ownership, is an early landmark, and figures such as R. H. Tawney, Aneurin Bevan and Michael Harrington developed the idea. Since the 2010s it has also been used by left-wing movements in the United States and Europe.
Opponents doubt that large-scale public ownership can be combined with economic efficiency and political freedom. Social democrats consider its ownership goals unnecessary, while revolutionary socialists consider its faith in elections naive.
Countries and historical regimes whose 12-axis profile is closer to Democratic Socialism than to any other ideology in the test.
Countries today
- South Africa90%
- Mexico86%
- Uruguay85%
Historical regimes
Democratic Socialism is also the second-closest ideology for: Spain, Slovenia, Portugal.
Method: each ideology is placed at a typical position on the 12 axes, scored from 0 to 100 toward the first pole. Ranks compare it with the other 45 ideologies; matches are 100 minus the average distance across all axes. The positions are our own calibration, not taken from any third-party source.