New in PJ Media:
When many Democrats on Friday voted in favor of a resolution condemning socialism, New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani was on his way to what turned out to be a surprisingly cordial meeting with President Donald Trump. Asked about the resolution, Mamdani responded: “I have to be honest with you, I focus very little on resolutions, frankly. I think the focus is on the work at hand. I can tell you I am someone who is a democratic socialist. I’ve been very open about that. I know there might be differences about ideology, but the place of agreement is the work that needs to be done to make New York City affordable. That’s what I look forward to.”
Mamdani has indeed been open about being a democratic socialist, and has even affirmed the label in the context of denying that he is a communist. When he won the Democrat primary in late June, President Donald Trump, less friendly than he was during their Friday meeting, called Mamdani “a 100% Communist Lunatic.” Asked if he really was a communist, Mamdani responded emphatically: “No, I am not. I call myself a democratic socialist, in many ways, inspired by the words of [Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.] from decades ago, who said, ‘Call it democracy or call it democratic socialism: There has to be a better distribution of wealth for all of God’s children in this country.’”
Mamdani’s answer, which he has repeated on other occasions as well, actually raised more questions than it answered. The democratic socialist wunderkind invoked Martin Luther King in speaking of the alleged need for a “better distribution of wealth,” but did not explain why the best distribution of wealth isn’t the simple process of someone working, getting fairly compensated for his or her labor, and being able to dispose of that compensation as he or she sees fit. Why must there be government-mandated “distribution” of wealth at all? To talk as if such government action is necessary is to talk like a communist, the very thing Mamdani has repeatedly denied being.
In fact, the program of the Democratic Socialists of America, to which Mamdani belongs, sounds very much like communism. The Democratic Socialists of America denounce capitalism as a “system designed by the owning class to exploit the rest of us for their own profit” and proclaim: “We want a democracy that creates space for us all to flourish not just survive and answers the fundamental questions of our lives with the input of all. We want to collectively own the key economic drivers that dominate our lives, such as energy production and transportation. We want the multiracial working class united in solidarity instead of divided by fear.”
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࿗Infidel࿘ says
It’s interesting to note that no communist party, to date, has called any country that it ran/runs, that. You had
⮞ Soviet Union – the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
⮞ China – People’s Republic of China
⮞ East Germany – German Democratic Republic
⮞ North Korea – People’s Democratic Republic of Korea
⮞ South Yemn – People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen
Interestingly, Vietnam, when it was North Vietnam, was called the “Democratic Republic of Vietnam”, but after the conquest of South Vietnam, it renamed itself to the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. Interestingly, even after the Đổi Mới economic reforms of 1986 which made Vietnam both a free market as well as a freer country than before, they kept that name
Given the above legacy, it’s not surprising that rarely will one hear anyone admit that s/he is a communist: they’ll use euphemisms like “Progressive”, “Socialist”, “Democratic”, “People’s”,… In fact, like in the Vietnam example, if someone actually calls oneself a “Socialist”, I’d believe that that person is really a Centrist sort of person
Taffy says
Strictly speaking, communism is an economic system and socialism is a political system.
Communism is to socialism as capitalism is to democracy.
࿗Infidel࿘ says
I think you got it the other way around. Socialism is an economic system, Communism is political, where government owns all means of production. In Socialism, government just fills in the gaps that are not satisfactorily addressed by the private sector. Such as the NHS in Britain. In fact, most Leftist parties in Europe during the Cold War were Socialist parties. Today, they are just short of Communist
Communism is where you have the Communist Party centralizing power, having a Politburo, whose head is the head of the party. Socialism, by contrast, has no such structure
Huh?!? says
Socialism is Communism wrapped up in a pretty package with a nice ribbon. The term Democratic is the ribbon.
Wellington says
Ayn Rand on this distinction: “There is no difference between communism and socialism, except in the means of achieving the same ultimate end: communism proposes to enslave men by force. socialism by vote. It is merely the difference between murder and suicide.”
James Lincoln says
Simply stating that one is a “democratic socialist” rather than a communist does NOT – in and of itself – mean that one is NOT a communist.
Walter Sieruk says
Someone ,had once said that “A Socialist is a Communist without a gun,” So that possibly might be the difference ?
In addition, about the meeting between President Trump and Zohran Mamdani that went so well
This is ,somewhat , of a strange thing to occur. Marxist Mamdani enters the White House and has a friendly meeting with the Capitalist President Trump. Sure ,that event isn’t impossible , but it is rather odd., indeed very odd.
OLD GUY says
In America if you work hard and smart you can gain a comfortable life, in a Socialist/Communist country you can work hard and smart and the government gets a comfortable lifestyle.
Winston 101 says
Ah yes, MLK, a very brave, committed and determined, man.
Unfortunately, he was so economically ignorant he didn’t understand that
Wealth is NOT distributed. It is earned.
If you happened to inherit wealth
you have to work to maintain it. If you don’t, it disappears.
Mamdani will, no doubt, not be using MLK’s quote about
black crime being way out of proportion to the black’s percentage
of the population.