Time to adopt democratic socialism

I first looked at democratic socialism seriously when I read US Sen. Bernie Sanders’ statement: “Health care is a human right, not a privilege.”

This is the belief that access to medical care should not depend on wealth and should be available to anyone who needs it. This sounded as a revolutionary idea that should have been realized long before Sen. Sanders started expressing it.

I started reading that this concept about health care as a human right was part of an ideology called Democratic Socialism. This is a political, economic and social ideology that combines democracy with the principles of social, economic and income equality. However, democratic socialism, unlike other forms of socialism, promotes democratic institutions, free elections, civil liberties and the rule of law while advocating for an economy that places the well-being of people above the pursuit of profit.

Democratic socialists believe that government has an essential role in providing quality public services accessible to all, protecting workers’ rights, eliminating poverty and ensuring that wealth is distributed more equitably throughout society. Rather than replacing democracy with a one-party system or centralized authoritarian rule, democratic socialism insists that social and economic reforms can and should be achieved through peaceful democratic processes and public participation.

This issue of democratic processes while maintaining an obligation of an equitable society is very critical today because the Philippines is looking for ways to address the economic downturn the country is now experiencing. There are again voices in society that claim unfairly that it is necessary for the country to sacrifice social services and workers’ welfare such as minimum wage increases in order to achieve economic growth.

The advocates of capitalism believe that economic growth must take precedence over a life of human dignity for every person in order to achieve economic growth.

However, democratic socialists argue that socialism does not necessarily require revolution for it to emerge. Karl Marx argued that capitalism inevitably created conflict between workers and business owners. Marx believed that socialism emerged only through revolution.

Democratic socialist thinkers propose a different path. The economic philosopher Eduard Bernstein argued that socialism could be achieved gradually through elections, democratic reforms and constitutional governments rather than violent revolution. His ideas laid the intellectual foundation for modern democratic socialism and influenced many political parties throughout Europe.

Democratic socialism differs from both capitalism and authoritarian socialism because it seeks a balance between economic freedom and social responsibility. It accepts the existence of private businesses and markets that believe that governments should regulate industries to advance the interest of workers, consumers and the environment.

Democratic socialists support universal health care, accessible education to all, affordable housing, labor rights, social welfare programs and progressive taxation. They believe that certain essential human services should be publicly funded and publicly managed because these services are fundamental to human dignity and should not depend solely on a person’s or family’s income. In this way, democratic socialism promotes the idea that democracy should extend beyond politics and influence economic institutions as well.

Many prominent political leaders around the world have supported democratic socialist ideas. In the United States, the best known democratic socialists are Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Just this year, democratic socialists have won major electoral victories in the United States. Zohran Mandani won as mayor of New York City, the largest American city. Abdul El-Sayed has just won the Democratic primary in the state of Michigan. Some other democratic socialists are planning to run for congressional seats in Colorado, New York and California. If these candidates win based on their platforms of democratic socialism, this ideology will definitely gain in popularity in other countries, including the Philippines.

Income inequality, health care accessibility, expensive education, housing affordability and stagnant wages have been major issues in the Philippines, United States and other countries during the last couple of decades. Until recently, many countries have turned to authoritarianism and populism as possible solutions to these critical issues.

However, the rise of populism and dictators promising to address income inequality has not succeeded. Therefore, it is understandable why the general population has begun to look for other solutions and democratic socialism has become the most attractive alternative to date.

In the Philippines, the Duterte regime ran and won basically on a platform of addressing economic inequality through a populist platform which pointed to the existence of an oligarchy as the root problem. At the end of Duterte’s presidency, income and economic inequality remained as serious a problem as before.

Democratic socialism, on the other hand, represents an effort to reconcile democracy, individual freedom with social justice and human rights. Rather than advocating authoritarian government control over all aspects of the economy, it seeks to reform democratic societies through peaceful means. It can be seen that in some countries that have adopted a comprehensive welfare system, they have been able to maintain democratic institutions.

Perhaps, another basic idea in the ideology of democratic socialism is that the economy should exist to serve the people, rather than the people serving the economy. It’s time for some political parties in the Philippines to adopt the ideology of democratic socialism in order to promote both prosperity and fairness for the Filipino people.

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