Democratic socialism
Democratic socialism is a political ideology advocating a democratic political system alongside a socialist economic system, involving a combination of political democracy with social ownership of the means of production. Sometimes used synonymously with "socialism", the adjective "democratic" is often added to distinguish itself from the Marxist-Leninist brand of socialism, which is widely viewed as being non-democratic.
Democratic socialism is distinguished from both the Soviet model of centralized socialism and from social democracy, where "social democracy" refers to support for political democracy, regulation of the capitalist economy, and a welfare state. The distinction with the former is made on the basis of the authoritarian form of government and centralized economic system that emerged in the Soviet Union during the 20th century, while the distinction with the latter is made on the basis that democratic socialism is committed to systemic transformation of the economy while social democracy is not. That is, whereas social democrats only seek to "humanize" capitalism through state intervention, democratic socialists see capitalism as inherently incompatible with the democratic values of liberty, equality and solidarity; and believe that the issues inherent to capitalism can only be solved by superseding private ownership with some form of social ownership. Ultimately democratic socialists believe that reforms aimed at addressing the economic contradictions of capitalism will only cause more problems to emerge elsewhere in the economy, that capitalism can never be sufficiently "humanized", and therefore it must ultimately be replaced by socialism.