What kind of socialist are you?

Explaining my "democratic socialism"

My column for The Free Press, “My Family Was Hunted by Nazis. But I Was Fired After ‘Defending Hitler.’,” has received a positive response. I am grateful, and a warm hello to my new subscribers. If you saw my Twitter thread unfolding at the time, you probably noticed I was responding to numerous attackers.

I believe in civil discourse and good-faith dialogue. I believe in listening hard to even my most unfair critics to see if there’s any point to what they’re saying. So when my column came out yesterday, I noticed most critics pointed out that I call myself a democratic socialist. Some hoped that being fired from The Seattle Times editorial board after a Twitter mob called me a Nazi would inspire me to abandon the Left.

Others suspected “democratic socialist” is the motte in a motte-and-bailey argument, a sneaky way to slip my hidden socialist agenda in through the back door.

There are socialists who pretend to be less radical in order to spread their doctrine. White supremacists do this too—they’re called ghost skins and I’ve done investigative work studying them. But I am not a “socialist ghost skin.”

“Democratic socialism” has multiple definitions, and some refer to ideologies that I reject. “Democratic” can mean things like workers’ self-management, but usually it means democratic government, and that’s what I mean by it. “Socialism” also has various meanings, and some democratic socialists are anti-capitalists. Not me.

Before my role at The Seattle Times, I spent four years as an editor at the financial news outlet Brightwire. Our readers were investment bankers, hedge fund managers and day traders. It was hard to see the potential investment angle a reader might take from any given piece, so to improve my editing I took online courses in financial markets and a real estate licensing course. I am also a former Forbes contributor, where my beat was manufacturing. Point being, I believe in market solutions.

I use the term “democratic socialist” to describe a more mainstream philosophy. Even the center-right Iranian-Swedish scientist Nima Sanandaji has argued that Western nations with hybrid economies—France, Sweden and the United Kingdom—are “democratic socialist.” What matters, as the American economist Robert Heilbroner once wrote, is not the size of the public sector but it’s purpose:

Sweden has a large and generous public sector. Its purpose, however, is to provide the amenities needed in a capitalist economy, not those of a socialist society.

They are imperfect, but I admire much about the systems operating in Japan, Denmark, Sweden, Switzerland, New Zealand and Australia. I understand that in the United States, using the term “socialist” in any way gets weird fast. (This is also true of “liberal,” which back in Europe is a term that conservatives embrace.)

To put it another way, I am a democratic socialist in the tradition of Christopher Hitchens, Martin Luther King Jr., John Stuart Mill and George Orwell. Yes, George Orwell, the author of Nineteen Eighty-Four and the greatest voice of anti-communist rhetoric in the history of literature, was a democratic socialist.

Politically, I admire some of the policies of democratic socialists such as the late Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, the late South African President Nelson Mandela and former Western State of Nigeria Premier Obafemi Awolowo.

I do not support the politics of democratic socialists such as former Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez or Seattle City Council member Kshama Sawant.

In discussing political extremism, it’s important not to have extremist views of political movements. Not all things dubbed “socialism” are socialist in the same sense and we need to think critically about political labels. I hope that clears things up.