"National economic planning would be opened up to popular input. At the enterprise or business-firm level, workers would take over management of day-to-day operations. This is all foreign to liberalism but not to social democracies around the world (though the extent of worker management in social democratic countries is still rather limited).

When Sanders broke the national political ice on the word “socialism” in 2016, I recall sappy messages to the effect that “socialism is nice; even your public library is socialist.” But that’s wrong — socialism is so much more than that.

Here I want to describe some economic policy projects that might define a distinctively socialist (or social democratic) approach to policy in the United States today, one that pushes beyond the frontiers of liberalism. These are differences in kind, not of degree. For the principal US social democratic projects, I suggest the following breakdown:

- Labor power
- Industrial policy
- Social insurance
- Social ownership
- Anti-federalism

There are traces of all of these in the history of liberal social policy, but I want to highlight the categorical distinctions between liberal and socialist approaches to each element. Such distinctions can give rise to political themes and to explicit campaigns.

(Socialists also crucially differ from liberals in our commitment to internationalism and our opposition to the United States’ militaristic imperialism. But I focus here on the distinctive elements of socialists’ domestic policy agenda.)"

https://jacobin.com/2026/03/socialism-liberalism-economic-policy-agenda/

#Socialism #USA #EconomicPolicy #PoliticalEconomy #EconomicDemocracy

The renewal and realization of democracy, or indeed its democratization, has many names. In 2026, we would like to organize the BG’s annual text series under the title #DeepDemocracy https://berlinergazette.de/deep-democracy-bg-annual-text-series-2026-call-for-papers/

#truedemocracy #directdemocracy #radicaldemocracy #councildemocracy #economicdemocracy #grassrootsdemocracy #democracy #Demokratie #polycrisis

Words shape reality. In the US/UK, 'Fiduciary Duty' almost exclusively forces directors to serve the shareholder. In the European Social Economy, the legal concept of 'Intérêt Collectif' frees them to serve the community. ⚖️

The Social Economy Glossary maps these 'untranslatables' so we can stop importing extractive logic into democratic economic spaces. 📖

https://rootandbranch.online/library/social-economy-glossary/

#SocialEconomy #EconomicDemocracy #TheCommons #Law

“The real task before us is not to defend socialism as a slogan, but to insist on democracy as a principle—economic as well as political.

A society where people control the institutions that shape their lives is neither a dream nor a danger. It is the minimal requirement for freedom.”

#Politics #USPolitics #Democracy #EconomicDemocracy #DemocracticSocialism #PeoplePower #FilmsForAction

https://www.filmsforaction.org/articles/the-86-house-democrats-who-condemned-socialism-werent-defending-democracy-they-were-defending-concentrated-private-power/