DSA Socialism - Bad for America

The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), founded in 1982 as a merger of earlier socialist groups, has grown into the largest socialist organization in the United States, boasting over 90,000 members as of recent counts. While it operates within the Democratic Party and endorses candidates like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rashida Tlaib, the DSA's core ideology extends far beyond progressive reforms.

At its heart lies a commitment to democratic socialism, which explicitly calls for the collective ownership of the means of production—factories, farms, technology firms, and infrastructure—and the replacement of corporate executives with workers' committees. This vision is not a mere expansion of government welfare programs but a fundamental restructuring of economic power, placing the actual running of the economy in the hands of elected worker councils rather than private owners or CEOs.The DSA's platform, as outlined in its official documents and convention resolutions, rejects capitalism's private control over production.

In its 2021 national convention, the organization passed resolutions advocating for "worker self-management" and the "socialization of major industries." This means transitioning key sectors—energy, healthcare, housing, and finance—from profit-driven enterprises to entities governed by democratic committees composed of workers and community representatives.

For instance, the DSA's "Ecosocialist Green New Deal" proposal envisions nationalizing fossil fuel companies and placing them under "democratic public ownership," where workers' councils would decide production levels, investment priorities, and resource allocation. CEOs, seen as unaccountable agents of capital accumulation, would be eliminated in favor of these committees, which would operate without the hierarchical authority of shareholders or boards.

This is echoed in DSA chapters' local campaigns, such as those in New York pushing for public ownership of utilities, where elected worker-stakeholder boards would manage operations day-to-day.

Crucially, this agenda is not analogous to social safety nets like Social Security, unemployment insurance, or Medicare, which exist comfortably within capitalism. These programs, funded by payroll taxes on wages generated through private enterprise, act as stabilizers for the market system. They redistribute a portion of capitalist wealth to mitigate inequality and prevent social unrest, but they leave the means of production firmly in private hands.

Factories remain owned by corporations, farms by agribusiness, and tech giants by venture capitalists. The government does not dictate production quotas, pricing, or innovation pathways; it merely collects and reallocates funds. Social Security, for example, is a pay-as-you-go system sustained by the productivity of a capitalist economy—without private wealth creation, it collapses.

The DSA, however, seeks to dismantle this foundation. By transferring ownership to workers' committees, it aims to end profit as the organizing principle, replacing it with planned production for use, not exchange.This push extends to the elimination of private property in its productive forms, though the DSA often frames it in terms of "socializing" rather than outright abolition. Private property here refers not to personal belongings like homes or cars but to capital—the tools and resources used to generate wealth.

Under DSA-inspired models, drawn from historical precedents like Yugoslavia's worker self-management or modern proposals in Jacobin magazine (a publication closely aligned with DSA thinkers), committees would control land, machinery, and intellectual property.

Housing, for instance, features prominently: the DSA's national platform supports "social housing" where public entities or cooperatives own and allocate units, potentially dictating residency based on need as determined by committees, not market forces. This echoes Marxist critiques of private property as a barrier to equality, where government or collective bodies could reassign living spaces to prioritize workers or marginalized groups, effectively ending the individual's right to buy, sell, or inherit productive assets freely.

Evidence of this radical intent abounds in DSA literature and actions. The organization's "Democratic Socialist Labor Commission" promotes "workplace democracy" as a step toward full socialization, citing examples like the Mondragon cooperatives in Spain but scaling them to entire industries. In 2023, DSA-backed strikes and union drives emphasized not just better wages but "worker control" over company decisions.

Resolutions from the 2019 convention called for expropriating billionaire wealth and placing it under "democratic control," a euphemism for committee governance. Unlike social safety nets, which presuppose capitalism's continued wealth generation, DSA's vision requires uprooting it. Committees would run the economy holistically: setting wages collectively, directing investments toward social goals like decarbonization, and eliminating competition in favor of coordination.

Critics might conflate this with Scandinavian social democracy, but the DSA explicitly rejects such models as "class collaboration." Nordic countries maintain private ownership of production while taxing it heavily for welfare—capitalism with a strong safety net. The DSA, influenced by figures like Michael Harrington but radicalized in recent years, demands the opposite: the means of production out of private hands entirely.

This is not reform but revolution through democratic means, as articulated in their slogan "Abolish profit, police, and prisons."

In conclusion, the DSA's platform represents a direct assault on capitalist structures, advocating workers' committees to supplant CEOs and seize control of economic decision-making. This transcends social safety nets, which bolster capitalism, and ventures into abolishing private property's role in production, potentially allowing collective bodies to dictate resource use, including housing allocation.

While packaged in democratic rhetoric, it envisions an economy run not by markets or individuals but by committees answerable to the working class—a profound shift from the wealth-creating engine that funds today's safety nets.