Democratic socialism is a very popular form of government today, used in many countries across the world to some degree or another. It’s basically a form of government based loosely on the ideals of Karl Marx, that the government should ensure protections for it’s workers, and make sure that people are treated fairly, and equally. Unlike the U.S.S.R., western countries adopted this democratic form of socialism, where the people created socialist parties that used their position within government, and the threat of gaining more popularity, to make small government parties agree to concessions. In Canada this has been the function of the NDP, in the U.S. it has been the function of the socialist wing of the Democrat Party.
The idea of democratic socialism rises and falls in popularity with the economic stability of the country. When times are good, people are more inclined to vote in governments that will spend a little more, and tax a little more. When times are bad, people are more inclined to vote in governments that want to cut spending, and sometimes even taxes. This back and forth has been going on in the western world for almost 200 years. In that time, there has been a lot of good, measured legislation put in place to make sure that people are not taken advantage of. The only problem is, there has been a growing amount of legislation that is aimed purely to appease the socialists of the world, and is not actually beneficial in the long run. Also, when a more fiscally conservative government comes into power, it has become a poison pill to remove benefits for the people, so the march has always been further away from small government, and towards a purer form of Socialism.
What I am proposing is, that we are at a tipping point. The spending and regulation of the government, and the taxation of it’s people to achieve ends that the private sector is already accomplishing, has paralyzed lower income Canadians. They are now forced to rely on the government for grants and tax breaks to survive and become more prosperous. Much harder than their ancestors, who could expect to see their lot in life get better every passing year on average. This is because socialism, while it has good intensions, also has the downside that the more arms of the government you create, and the more complex the system becomes, the more expensive it becomes for the government and businesses to operate. This has created a paralysis in the economy, where some sectors and many large corporations who enjoy government handouts have succeeded immensely, others are failing, along with the workers in those industries. This is a natural occurrence, but one where the hardships are made worse by this paralysis. Many Canadians are on the brink of bankruptcy, and were even pre-COVID, because our government taxes us and the companies we work for to the limit.
Despite the realities of our personal and government debt concerns, there is still massive support for parties that have basically become socialist parties. Now, because our bloated government has put our people into this dire situation, many people think that the only real answer is for the government to spend more, and tax more. The government has presented itself as the solution to the problems it has created. Many people do not see this as a problem, because instead they view the problems as caused by outside influences: COVID, large corporations, personal greed, the wealthy. While these are valid influences, they are all inflamed by a government that needs to have it’s hand in every aspect of the economy, and your life. This involvement all cost money, and stifles upward mobility. The debt we are in costs us all money, and the inflation ruins the savings of the working poor and the elderly. This is where democratic socialism has lead us, and it’s time that we wake up to that fact, and start trimming the fat, before it’s too late.