I’ve taught for fourteen seasons at one of many largest labor unions in America, with a 30,000-strong membership. In these school rooms, full of hardworking women and men who combat on daily basis for honest wages and respect, I used to be shocked to search out how typically the phrase socialism introduced discomfort. Even among the many working class individuals who would profit essentially the most there’s a suspicion, even hostility, towards the thought.
I’ve seen the identical in India. Workers who battle with low wages, poor healthcare, and no social security web typically flip away once they hear the phrase. Why? Because a long time of propaganda from the media, from political elites, from those that revenue off inequality have painted socialism as the identical as communism, as one thing darkish, harmful, and dictatorial.
But socialism just isn’t communism.
Communism, as practiced within the Soviet Union or North Korea, is a couple of one-party state, top-down management, and suppression of particular person freedoms. That just isn’t what Zohran Mamdani or thousands and thousands of odd individuals the world over are preventing for.
Democratic socialism is one thing very totally different. It merely means utilizing our democratic programs to guarantee that everybody has entry to lifes fundamentals:
Good, inexpensive meals.
Safe and first rate housing.
Healthcare that doesnt bankrupt households.
Quality schooling for all kids.
Dignified jobs with honest pay.
A wholesome surroundings for future generations.
Is that basically radical? Or is it simply frequent sense?
Around the world, international locations have put these concepts into apply:
In Scandinavia, employees take pleasure in common healthcare, childcare, and robust unions.
In Canada and Ireland, healthcare is taken into account a proper, not a privilege.
In Germany, housing and labor protections are sturdy sufficient that employees don’t worry sudden destroy.
In Brazil and Bolivia, democratic socialist leaders lifted thousands and thousands out of poverty via meals packages, schooling, and redistribution of assets.
Even right here in Peru the place I’m now, and throughout Latin America, the reminiscence of inequality has pushed individuals to demand fairer programs.
So why are we so afraid within the United States and India? Because these on the high the billionaires, the company media, and the political class know that if working individuals unite round these fundamental calls for, their energy will shrink. And in order that they confuse us with labels, scare ways, and false historical past.
Thats why Zohran Mamdanis marketing campaign for mayor of New York City is so necessary. He just isn’t speaking about making a communist state. He is speaking about one thing a lot less complicated: ensuring that the individuals who construct the town the academics, taxi drivers, house well being aides, supply employees, building employees can reside with dignity, not simply survive.
If the richest nations on the earth can assure healthcare and housing, why not New York? Why not India? Why not in all places?
It is time we break the worry. Socialism, in its democratic type, just isn’t about taking away freedoms. It is about giving them again.
References & Further Reading
1. Bernie Sanders, What Democratic Socialism Means Today The Nation, Nov. 2015.
2. Thomas Piketty, Capital within the Twenty-First Century (Harvard University Press, 2014).
3. Freedom House, Scandinavian Democracies and Social Welfare (2021 report).
4. UNDP Human Development Report (2023) exhibiting excessive well-being in international locations with sturdy social security nets.
5. Zohran Mamdani Campaign Platform (NYC Mayoral Race, 2025) public statements and interviews.
Partha Banerjee
