A people's assembly in Sarajevo. Demotix/Aurore Belot. All rights reserved.
In a recent article for the Washington Post Sheri Berman worries whether democratic socialists, who are now advancing on the left, believe in democracy. Looking back into twentieth century history, she reminds us that the difference between democratic socialists and social democrats lay in the fact that the former were unwilling to compromise over entering governmental coalitions with bourgeois parties – in that way inadvertently helping along the advent of fascist regimes.
However interesting in terms of a lesson in history, the problem we are facing today is completely different. It is the mainstream left, the Social Democrats, who have for decades now been sacrificing democracy at the altar of the unassailable forces of the global market. In contrast to this, from the democratic socialist perspective today, democratization is the political project of the left. Rebuilding the left and reversing the democratic erosion which we are currently witnessing across Europe and the US are one and the same project.
