Democratic socialists

Economics

Democratic socialists have promoted various different models of socialism and economics, ranging from market socialism, where socially owned enterprises operate in competitive markets and are self-managed by their workforce, to non-market participatory economics based on decentralisedeconomic planning, and democratic central planning. Democratic socialism can also be committed to a decentralised form of economic planning where productive units are integrated into a single organisation and organised based on self-management. Eugene V. Debs and Norman Thomas, both United States Presidential candidates for the Socialist Party of America, understood socialism to be an economic system structured upon production for use and social ownership in place of the for-profit system and private ownership of the means of production. Contemporary proponents of market socialism and decentralised planning have argued that rather than socialism itself, the primary reason for the economic shortcomings of Soviet-type economies was their administrative-command system and its failure to create rules and operational criteria for the efficient operation of state enterprises in their hierarchical allocation of resources and commodities. All types of democratic socialists, including those in favor of central planning, often cite the lack of democracy in the political and economic systems of Marxist–Leninist regimes as a reason for their historical or contemporary shortcomings or failures.