The American Overclass Gives Birth to American Democratic Socialism

Original article here

The Democratic Socialists of America have released a manifesto. It reeks of deeply dysfunctional infantilism.

Within the scope of that program, Abdul El-Sayed just won—narrowly (but a win is a win)—the right to run for the U.S. Senate as a DSA fellow traveler. And Donavan McKinney unseated incumbent Rep. Shri Thanedar in Michigan’s 13th District (Detroit), winning 51.9 percent–48.1 percent in a solidly blue seat.

Though excessively proud of being on the Left, American Democratic Socialists are actually quite stupid given the historical paucity of benevolent leftist achievements since the political philosophy was proposed by French misanthrope Rousseau.

Also, the DSA cadres have kept out of sight and mind V. I. Lenin’s tedious treatise: Left Wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder.

Just what did Lenin consider “infantile” about left-wing communists? Dogmatic idealism leading to rejection of compromise.

American democratic socialists are dogmatic, but their infantilism arises from a different psycho-social fixation: they seek lifelong dependency on others and reject the maturity of adulthood. As children, they came out of Erik Erikson’s first stage of individual maturation unable to trust themselves. Erikson proposed that such individuals live with a “powerful combination of a sense of having been deprived, of having been divided, and of having been abandoned.” In the second stage, the infantile orientation gravitates towards shame and doubt rather than personal autonomy.

The new manifesto is infantile when it proclaims, “It’s been said that it’s easier to imagine the end of the world than it is to imagine the end of capitalism. But just because it isn’t easy to imagine now doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to make it happen.”

Toddlers demand lots of foolish things and make a fuss when Mommy and Daddy don’t forthwith deliver the “goods.”

Once infantilism sets in, the afflicted personality will first decline to take the initiative and then will avoid industry to feel hopelessly entangled in a sense of inadequacy and inferiority. Infantilism then becomes thoroughly settled within the self-system as the absence of a confident identity and, in its place, a frustrated acceptance of role confusion and a committed looking to others for direction in how best to live.

To better understand the consequences of such infantile dependency, we need to recall the realities of twentieth-century national socialisms.

A case can be made that the Democratic Socialists of America are proto-fascists in their desire to manage the totality of our society. Their “tear the system down” rhetoric and protests bring to mind Mussolini’s Blackshirts and Hitler’s Brownshirts—dedicated, single-minded, arrogant extremists—feeling self-righteous and justified in their incivility in word and disobedience in action.

Out of mind for the Left since Stalin turned Fascist national socialism into a “right-wing” mental disorder is that both Mussolini and Hitler branded themselves and their movements as “socialist.” Mussolini devised “Fascism” as an evolution coming out of very left-wing syndicalism. Hitler’s Nazi Party was the Party of “German Workers.”

The commonality among these three “socialist” movements is elite, white-collar bureaucratic management of society for the benefit of “workers.”

Mussolini’s followers bragged that under him the “trains ran on time!” Mussolini’s signature economic model was “corporatism.” The idea was to organize economic sectors into a series of “corporations”—one per industry—each containing representatives of employers, workers, and the Fascist Party. The corporations would manage productive decision-making for the sector. These collectives set wages, prices, and production quotas, replacing class conflict with elite Party-mediated cooperation.

Mechanisms imposing management on the economy included banning independent unions and the right to strike; corporatist bodies to manage labor-employer relations under state oversight; price and production controls in various sectors; state ownership via IRI in banking, steel, shipping, and telecommunications; licensing, quotas, and protectionist tariffs; and close personal and financial ties between industrialists and the party, blurring public/private lines.

Under Hitler (as in China today) “capitalists” running productive companies were put under Party direction and discipline. Under him, owners retained legal title while officials dictated what to produce, how much, at what price, and for whose benefit.

The 1933 Law for the Organic Construction of the German Economy organized businesses into compulsory cartels and “Reich Estates” (Reichsstände) for industry, banking, and trade. Membership was mandatory, and these bodies set prices, production quotas, and market access, effectively controlling firms from above without seizing their assets.

A Four-Year Plan starting in 1936 and administered by Hermann Göring directed the economy away from free markets toward rearmament and national autarky. It dictated what raw materials companies could access, prioritized military production, and imposed price and wage controls.

The Reich Ministry of Economics centralized bureaucratic oversight, determined investment, output targets, and resource allocation across major sectors.

Sounds like Mamdani’s dream of bringing Heaven to Earth for residents of New York City, gifting them with the warmth of collectivism. But with collectivism comes subordination of the individual to the managers. The managers pay the piper, so they have the right to call the tunes.

Politically, the Manifesto calls for a dictatorship of the “majority”—who are the right-minded overlords:

Abolish the Electoral College. Replace the President and Supreme Court with an executive and judiciary chosen by and subordinate to Congress.

Replace the two-party system with a multi-party democracy. Expand the House of Representatives, implement proportional representation and ranked choice voting in all elections, and abolish the Senate.

To associate such corporatist management regimes with today’s Democratic Socialists of America, we can note the role of infantilism—those under management are treated as children—everyone needs to be told what to do, and no one outside the Party and its fellow travelers has adult autonomy or personal agency.

Infantilism can accompany learned helplessness—the dialectic of dependency: I am dependent; therefore, I accept my helplessness. I am helpless; therefore, I search for others who will take care of me. Provide me with a safe space. Just be myself without responsibilities, risk-taking, or grown-up, reality-relevant decisions to make.

DSA devotees demand the right to tell Americans where to live, what to eat, how to care for themselves physically and spiritually, what to believe, and where to work. Following their orders, the government and its sympathizers in education and the media will provide housing, food, jobs, education, and social media.

Here is that promise from the new manifesto of the Democratic Socialists of America:

It might not feel as badly needed as it does now. You enjoy your work; it’s interesting to you, and you’re well trained for it. You work as much as you are able and no more than needed, and you would control your own labor and see it going to good use. It’s not just a job to pay the bills.

Speaking of bills: you don’t really have them anymore.

You have no debt. You don’t need health insurance. You don’t pay a mortgage or have a landlord, because comfortable housing is a human right. Your retirement is publicly funded. Food, education, energy, medicine, and transportation aren’t for-profit businesses; they are common goods and utilities.

OK, enough about bills. What do you do on your day off? Maybe in the morning, you walk your kids to school, run errands, or go to a doctor’s appointment. In the afternoon, you might play a sport, practice a new skill, read, plan a trip. In the evening, you could meet up with friends or family and eat together, maybe go to the movies or down to the park.

These are all familiar, everyday activities. A socialist day off could be like any good day now. But what if you were free to spend your time how you like without worrying about cost or dreading going back to work? What if you didn’t have to think about paying rent or loans at the end of the month, or saving for college, or affording groceries?

What would that be like? …

We could build a world where no one suffers for their race, gender, or religion, and everyone is free, equal, and cared for. Building this world is the guiding star of our movement. When we labor for our common good instead of private profit, we can all have a secure and dignified life, and use our time and talents how we wish. …

Guarantee universal healthcare at no cost to individuals, including complete access to reproductive and gender-affirming care. Expand healthcare access and quality by investing in new public hospitals and clinics. Make all medical education and training public and free. …

Housing is a human right. Build new, publicly owned social housing, strictly regulate investment properties, establish universal rent control, and guarantee right to counsel for all tenants. …

Pass a federal jobs guarantee. Implement massive investment in sustainable, publicly owned energy and transit infrastructure. …

Establish public ownership of the largest corporations and essential industries to ensure democratic control and accountability to the people. Enact aggressive wealth taxes on the richest individuals and corporations to spend on public goods and infrastructure.

And so Americans become babies in a huge playpen, fussing over disappointments and intrusions on their safe spaces and crying for Mommy and Daddy to cuddle them.

The Democratic Socialists of America are the newly recruited stormtroopers clearing the way to perpetual power for the mighty American overclass. That overclass is a specialized social class of the highly educated—neither capitalist nor proletarian—first proposed by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel to serve the modern God-state with expert professionalism.