https://www.dsausa.org/strategy/toward_freedom/

Socialist Strategy Articles
Toward Freedom: Democratic Socialist Theory and Practice
December 21, 2012

[OCS: Socialism is a crucial waypoint on the path to communism, and communism is little more than advanced socialism.]

Marx often implied that under advanced socialism—communism—control of production by the “free association of producers” would end the need for politics.

[OCS: They need to re-brand socialism and communism to avoid association with communist regimes that murdered millions of individuals, enslaved millions more in misery, and has not worked anywhere it has been tried.

Hence, the shifting labels between socialism, communism, Marxism, liberalism, progressivism, democratic socialism, etc. They all describe the same thing-- authoritarian control by a self-selected group of elites.]

Why is it that in the 20th century there never emerged a conscious majority for socialism under liberal democracy? It is partially due to socialism’s identification with authoritarian Communism. Socialism is no longer a pure, innocent ideal. Its appeal has been tarnished by the authoritarian, statist regimes that have ruled in its name.

[OCS: The relationship between communism, trade unions, and the Democratic Party.]

In order to affect state power and to change the balance of forces in civil society, democratic socialists believe it is necessary to work both in electoral politics and in community and trade union organizing. In light of the peculiar structure of the American political system (the absence of proportional representation; the absence of coalition governments because of an executive rather than parliamentary system; open party membership and open primaries; single district, winner-take-all electoral districts), most progressive forces, when doing electoral work, pragmatically choose to work in the left wing of the Democratic Party. Hence, electoral class conflict runs through the Democratic Party, not around it.  A democratic community committed to the equal moral worth of each citizen will socially provide the cultural and economic necessities—food, housing, quality education, healthcare, childcare—for the development of human individuality.

[OCS: We will control everything.]

Democratic control of consumption should be as central to the socialist vision as democratic control over production, particularly given popular mistrust that socialism would be a bureaucratic nightmare which treated people as clients rather than citizens.

[OCS: We will decide your future democratically, by a politburo-type vote.]

But however we organize the division of labor—the structure of careers and life opportunities—it should be decided democratically and not by the accident of chance or of opportunities conferred or denied by one’s class position.

[OCS: Feel free to read the full document in its context. Don’t scare yourself.]