 Democratic Socialism and the LawEwan McGaughey Working Papers from Centre for Business Research, University of Cambridge Abstract: Are democracy and socialism compatible? Does democratic socialism work? And what is its relation to the law? This paper shows that democratic socialism, by whatever name, is the dominant political model in wealthy democracies, popular among voters, and the chief driver of human progress. It explains how democratic socialism was built through the understanding of capitalism’s failures, especially the shape-shifting legal forms of private property in the means of production, freedom of contract, and competitive corporations. It identifies the 3 core features of 21st century democratic socialism: more public and common ownership, economic democracy on a floor of social rights, and fair taxes. These policies have been spreading, are the prevailing practice in most wealthy countries, and are highly popular among voters. It is a myth that the rules of capitalism lead to more innovation, productivity, less waste, or are good for democracy. The evidence suggests the reverse is true. Democratic socialism is humanity's greatest hope. Keywords: Democracy; socialism; law; labour; public ownership; economic democracy; fair taxes; innovation; productivity (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cbr:cbrwps:wp550 Access Statistics for this paper More papers in Working Papers from Centre for Business Research, University of Cambridge |
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