Politics 391DS - Pivotal Political Ideas: 'What Is Democratic Socialism?'

As interest and identification with Democratic Socialism grows in U.S. and across the globe, it remains unclear what the term refers to. Departing from versions that place the accent on socialism to address inequality through distributional reforms, this course investigates historical experiments in democratic socialism that normatively cast the economy and workplaces as sites of political decision-making. Doing so prioritizes the development of collective agency and has the consequence/potential of producing greater political and material equality among citizens. Evidence for this claim comes from three experiments: W.E.B. DuBois' account of Reconstruction-era practices, 19th century agrarian populists, and 20th century Black radicalism. What emerges from these three examples is the need for democratic socialism to address race- and gender-based oppression, particularly as those developed in the context of settler-colonial expansion, in addition to expanding political decision-making power and flattening economic hierarchies.

Prereq: 8 credits in Politics.