Dem Soc: Political Democracy in a Socialist Market Economy - Essay Sample

Introduction

Democratic socialism can be described as the political supporting that is supporting political democracy within a socially economy with the emphasis of workplace democracy, worker's self-management, and economic democracy within a socialist market economy. Some of the democratic socialists state that capitalism is fundamentally mismatched with the values of solidarity, equality, and freedom, where these ideals are only achieved through the realization of a socialist society. Democratic socialism only supports revolutionary and reformist politics as an avenue of establishing socialism and not what most democratic socialist proposes are gradual transition socialism. First of all, it would be too risky to try an experiment and just try democratic socialism, which is also a big obstacle that American people will hesitate just to try democratic socialism because it may not work here.

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However, one of the obstacles besides risk would be increased tax rates if the country transfer to democratic socialism. This is because, during the democratic socialism, according to other countries that are sharing similar elements of socialism, the higher tax rate is assumable. Like Sweden's mixed economy, personal taxes are almost 50 percent. That is what presumably can happen in case if the United States tries democratic socialism. It does not always mean that if democratic socialism works somewhere, it also will be better in the United States. Because when the country is trying to equally distribute goods and services, and it has the number one immigration rate, then the government will have to get money from other sources. Therefore, American people are used to a free society with tremendous diversity, which is a massive obstacle in this case.

Even Laissez-faire economics is difficult to apply to today's capitalistic society because, according to the class lectures about economic theories, it is difficult to answer the basic economic questions. What, how, and to whom" therefore, Democratic Socialism would be a huge obstacle for people who do not want to share their part of income to pay something to others, which means higher tax rate. For example, in the case of the Health care system in the United States, which is not perfect compared to neighboring countries Canada, we can see that it is not quite possible to change things without obstacles. Canada swings to a more democratic socialism type of health care, which makes the system a single-payer system, which means that the government controls mostly healthcare.

However, Canadians are complaining that waiting time to see a doctor or to make surgery is so long. The point here is that Canada has way less population than the United States. So, if Canadians have the problem of waiting too long to get proper healthcare, how are is the United States going to do it with a population of more than300 million people? That is why forging the type of economic system would be a considerable challenge for the United States, which is not a homogenous country.

Democratic socialism also might cut out some other essential benefits that the US has for society-restricting immigration, for example, which is also an obstacle that I will explain as number two obstacle. Because as stated earlier, you cannot have correctly distributed goods and services unless there is diversity in society. Meaning that since we have an ideological dispute in our country, it will be a considerable obstacle to transform into democratic socialism. This will be a significant cultural and also societal obstacle If the US transforms for social democracy for five years. Because culturally, society is used to live in a capitalist society where the government has less power to intervene with business.

The second obstacle is the diversity of the United States. Because of a lot of different cultures are mixed, the ideology also differs from each other. It would be risky because we are not sure if social democracy will not transfer to Soviet-type of socialism or fascism (Class Notes). In other words, the name and title do not always represent the idea behind the name. For example, the Democratic Republic of North Korea, to me, is quite the opposite of its title. In the United States case, it can become questionable because the country is already a socialist country at some point. Meaning that we already have Medicare that helps people who cannot afford the insurance if it is the only concern to be a social-democratic country; we can only change broken healthcare.

To write a new law that says that everyone must obey means too much to me, and it is a kind of dictatorial approach. Because, when democratic socialism will take over, it does not mean that we will get better social conditions in other social aspects, no one can guarantee that. In other words, there is no prediction that we will not develop other types of cultural or social issues other than medical, for example, in issues of liberty of the individual. Furthermore, it is too risky to try an experiment, and that is also a big obstacle that the government and people will hesitate to try democratic socialism. However, fixing Medicare or healthcare is more practical than changing the constitution because It does not require any cultural change in society.

The third obstacle would be more government and regulations during democratic socialism, which at some point can be considered as an obstacle because you must change the philosophy of the free market. This is not quite a negative side of the change because many things are done unfairly, but it can be done in the capitalistic system as well. For example, if we trust and share Adam Smith's type of capitalism, which is laissez-faire, we can satisfy more than enough social and cultural issues without any sabbaticals.

Because I believe that, according to James Madison, we have a republic to balance any misconduct that the citizen of the United States will experience besides the economic side. Therefore, Democratic Socialism kind of kills the idea of republicanism because If we chose Democratic Socialism, we might have more democracy in it than republicanism. Therefore, I think that philosophically this will be a considerable challenge in the United States society if the county does the experiment and forges a specific type of economy in the United States. Pure democracy is always dangerous because it distributes faction groups, and this faction groups could lead to totalitarianism or even to fascism.

We do not have a specific type of economy mentioned in the constitution for a reason. Furthermore, this reason is that we do not know how we will change in the future, and change the law frequently is not a good thing. Another reason is that we do not make laws that put the government above the people; that is not what we admire in the United States. In addition to this, this country is based on emigration, and there is no place for homogeneity; therefore, a specific type of economy stamped in the constitution would be unwise decision and mistake. If we want to make a better country, we should start making better individuals, which can be done under the capitalistic system, too, instead of ruin the constitution and changing a law. I do not bereave that pushing people for something will have positive effects on society.

If we make the law and, in this case, the law that changes the economic system permanently in the constitution, we must make sure that it is evident and close to every group of people in this country. In other words, it must be understandable for everyone equally. Which unfortunately is impossible in the United States because, as I stated above, we are the number one country in terms of emigration, and that is one of the beauties of this country. If we switch to Democratic Socialism, the country must destroy that beauty, which is a considerable obstacle.