The label smacks of an oxymoron. Essential to socialism is collective ownership of the means of production. Democratic socialists will presumably want to distinguish socialism from statism, which may be defined as state control of the economy, where the state control is not in turn democratically controlled. Historically, however, the tendency is for supposedly collective, democratic control to transmogrify into control by an elite group of central planners who, exulting in their power, will use all the means at their disposal to hold on to it and expand it -- and 'the people' be damned.
The tendency, then, is for socialism to terminate in statism and totalitarianism. Power to the people? Hardly. 'The people' end up among the socially planned and not among the social planners. Either that or they end up in a gulag.
Addendum 8/31. London Ed comments:
Good post, and the seed of an answer to the ‘No true Marxist’ argument. As you say, collective ownership of the means of production is essential to socialism, not just a mere accident.
The next step in the proof would be to show that it is essential, not just accidental, to collective ownership that supposedly collective, democratic control will inevitably transmogrify into ‘control by an elite group of central planners who, exulting in their power, will use all the means at their disposal to hold on to it and expand it’. Hence, the bad history of Marxism is not a mere accident, despite what its supporters claim.
This would be the next step in the proof if a proof in the strict sense could be had. Here socialists enjoy some 'wiggle room.' A strict proof is not available. My first point above is non-negotiable since it is merely a consequence of the definition of 'socialism.' But how do we prove that collective ownership necessarily and inevitably issues in statism and totalitarianism? Of course, repeated failure is a good inductive argument for an ideal's being unrealizable. But induction is not demonstration. Without a demonstration, we cannot deny the socialist his 'wiggle room.'
The Chesterton Move
The true-believing socialist will most likely make what I will call the 'Chesterton move.' G. K. C. famously asserted, or at least implied, that Christianity hasn't failed; it's never been tried. "The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried. (G. K. Chesterton, What’s Wrong with the World (1910), ch. 1.5)
The idea here is that Christianity is a realizable ideal, but that we simply haven't realized it. Now if an ideal is realizable, then its never having been realized is no apodictic proof of its not being a genuine ideal, one that we ought to try to realize. Our democratic socialist can say something similar. Insufficient attempts have been made properly to implement the socialist ideal; the fact that it has never been achieved is no knock-down argument against the ideal. We have to organize and make a concerted effort and suppress the evil capitalist greed-heads who stand in our way.
The Chesterton Move and the 'No True Marxist' Fallacy
Now if our democratic socialist has available to him the Chesterton Move, then he is in a position to deny that 'No True Marxist' is a fallacy. He can say that true Marxism, or rather true socialism, will not lead to totalitarian tyranny. If it does, then it was not true socialism!
A Deeper Issue
Can we know from experience the natures of things and thus what is possible and impossible? Can we know a posteriori that socialism without totalitarian tyranny is impossible?
The conservative will presumably answer this question in the affirmative, but he won't be able to prove that he is right. Or so say I.
The Aporetics of the Situation
1) An ideal that has never been realized, despite repeated attempts to realize it, cannot be realized.
2) An ideal that cannot be realized is no (genuine) ideal at all
3) Democratic socialism is a genuine ideal.
The above is known in the trade as an antilogism or an inconsistent triad. The limbs of the triad are individually plausible but collectively inconsistent.
If you are not willing to accept that the triad is a genuine aporia or insolubilium, then you must reject/modify one of the constituent propositions. I don't believe that (2), an analog of the 'Ought implies Can' principle, can be reasonably rejected. So we either reject (1) or (3). I reject (3). The democratic socialist would have to reject (1).
Can I refute him? No. Can he refute me? No. And yet we must act. So I battle socialism and stand with Donald Trump:
America will never be a socialist country!
Watch the video and check out the expression on Bernie Sanders' face. And how about the tribal females all in white?
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