The Youth Lead the Way
Luke Pickrell gives three cheers to the Young Democratic Socialists of America (YDSA)
Nearly three years ago, DSA published its first Political Platform. Membership isn’t contingent on agreement with the Platform (many members probably don’t know it exists), but in theory, you can point someone its way when asked what DSA stands for. The document is too long, sometimes contradictory, and reflects the organization’s eclectic and unfocused nature. Those looking for a clear political strategy will be disappointed.
Still, the Platform is notable for discussing the nature of the U.S. political system, particularly the Constitution (so notable that Aziz Rana references it twice). Statements about the need for democracy, if centered, would form a coherent political strategy. For example, the Platform says:
“Democracy is necessary to win a socialist society. Socialism is the complete realization of democracy.”
“The American political system was not made to serve the working class. Undemocratic institutions like the Senate and the Electoral College combine with the force of money in politics to make it impossible for the will of the majority to be expressed.”
“The nation that holds itself out as the world’s premier democracy is no democracy at all.” (Two sentences prior, we were told there is, in fact, a “little” democracy).
“[We demand a] new political order through a second constitutional convention to write the founding documents of a new socialist democracy.”
“Abolish the Senate and the Electoral College.” (Four sections later, we are told to pass HR 1, the For the People Act, presumably in the Senate).
If “democracy is necessary to win a socialist society” and the U.S. is “no democracy at all” because of institutions like the Senate and the Electoral College, then, presumably, our strategy should be winning a democratic constitution. However, this is a contested point. Many in DSA imagine a future revolution being waged in the name of socialism; democracy and a new constitution will result from the socialist revolution. That’s backward. We need a democratic revolution to have the possibility of achieving socialism. To paraphrase the Communist Manifesto, democracy is the political playing field on which the class struggle can finally play out in favor of the working class. Or, to quote Kautsky, “The only form of the state in which Socialism can be realized is that of a republic, and a thoroughly democratic republic at that.”
But don’t just take Marx or Kautsky’s word for it; this is all in the first paragraph of the DSA’s Platform: “Democracy is necessary to win a socialist society.” But I digress. Words, as we know, only go so far.
Last year, the Young Democratic Socialists of America (YDSA) passed the resolution Winning the Battle For Democracy. Like the DSA Platform, the resolution is, of course, a set of words. But these words come together to form a much clearer whole. The resolution also details practical action. I quote large sections:
“The United States is run by and for the capitalist class, and this class rule takes the specific form of the liberal-constitutional regime outlined in the Constitution…”
“This Constitution was imposed undemocratically by an alliance of slaveowners and capitalists in order to secure their property against popular democracy, and yet the working-class majority who would not even have been eligible to vote on it at the time of its ratification have been forced to live under its provisions ever since…”
“The process the Constitution provides for its own amendment is intentionally difficult, stultifying, and anti-majoritarian…”
“YDSA reaffirms its platform plank that ‘socialism means the democratization of all of society by raising the demand for a new and radically democratic constitution, drafted by an assembly of the people elected by direct, universal and equal suffrage for all adult residents with proportional representation of political parties, and rooted not in the legitimacy of dead generations of slaveowners and capitalists, but that of a majority consensus of the working masses.”
“YDSA urges DSA as a whole to take up a stance of opposition to the Constitution, openly indicting it as anti-democratic and oppressive, encouraging all DSA members in office to do the same, taking concrete actions to advance the struggle for a democratic republic such as agitating against undemocratic Judicial Review, fighting for proportional representation, delegitimizing the anti-democratic U.S. Senate, and advancing the long-term demand for a new democratic Constitution. As the youth of the democratic socialist movement, we declare that to be a socialist is to fight for an expansive working-class democracy in which the state and society are democratically managed by the majority. In the U.S. this means demanding a new Constitution.”
The resolution isn’t perfect. The phrase “socialism means the democratization of all of society” leads us into murky water by making it sound like a socialist and democratic revolution will happen simultaneously (which may be what YDSA believes will happen). A new constitution, the thinking goes, would contain socialist and democratic planks. Socialism would be realized at the moment of ratification; we’d get everything we wanted in one fell swoop.
The issue here isn’t so much what may or may not happen but how our vision of the future shapes the content of our political agitation. If we think the coming revolution must be socialist and democratic and embodied in a constitution that grants democratic (state) and socialist (economic) positions, then today, we should talk about socialism just as much as we talk about democracy in the hopes of building what we want: a movement that knows itself as democratic and socialist, and proceeds to draft and ratify a constitution that enshrines a socialist economy.
I don’t share that vision of the future. A mass movement is more likely to be built in the U.S. under the banner of democracy. Socialist economic changes might emerge from a democratic state. And there will surely be socialist groups inside the larger democratic movement who argue their positions about what should be done when we have a constituent assembly, which is different than a constitutional convention (another problem with the DSA Platform is that a constitutional convention under Article V isn’t feasible; the YDSA resolution accounts for this challenge). But I don’t think the constituent assembly (let alone the mass movement needed to get us to that point) will be convened in the name of socialism. Hence, this blog’s raison d'être: we must discuss the Constitution and develop strategies for winning a democracy without getting sidetracked by discussions of what we’d like to do with that democracy.
Still, YDSA’s resolution points toward a clearer political strategy than anything DSA has put forward. We want to win a democratic constitution “drafted by an assembly of the people elected by direct, universal and equal suffrage for all adult residents with proportional representation of political parties.” What should we do right now? “Take up a stance of opposition to the Constitution, openly indicting it as antidemocratic and oppressive, encouraging all DSA members in office to do the same, taking concrete actions to advance the struggle for a democratic republic such as agitating against undemocratic Judicial Review, fighting for proportional representation, delegitimizing the anti-democratic U.S. Senate, and advancing the long-term demand for a new democratic Constitution” (emphasis mine). That’s all pretty straightforward if you ask me. It's not easy, but it's straightforward.
So, three cheers for YDSA. These folks are making waves.