Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., was recently asked whether the socialist movement in the United States could become a “slippery slope” to communism.
she laughed.
“I mean, no. I think it’s very stupid,” Ocasio-Cortez responded.
But communism does not necessarily begin with the promise of communism. It could start by promising to make housing affordable, provide universal health care, make the rich pay their fair share, and give working-class Americans greater economic power.
Zohran Mamdani years before becoming mayor spoke At the 2021 Young Democratic Socialists of America conference, it was declared that the purpose of the movement is not just to raise class consciousness, but to “win socialism.” He called for the election of more socialists and identified one main goal: “the ultimate goal of seizing the means of production.”
Mamdani admitted there was a lack of public support for the goal “at the moment”. But that doesn’t mean abandoning the end goal; it means changing the approach to getting there. Socialists, he argued, needed to meet people where they stood on issues, organize over time and gradually build support for their more radical goals.
Mamdani is not alone.
Megan Romer, national co-chair of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), told The New Yorker in August ask Whether America’s largest corporations would remain private under democratic socialism. In response, she advocated public ownership of key industries. When asked if she believed in owning the means of production, her answer was clear: “I do.”
Romer explained that the DSA is not trying to change everything overnight, but rather wants to gradually shift economic power from the billionaire class to the working class. DSA’s own platform explicitly calls for public ownership of America’s largest companies and key industries.
Historical connections are very important. Seizing the means of production—transferring power from capitalist owners to workers—is the central point of Marx’s communist framework. The only difference today is the time frame. Today, no one will revolt in the streets overnight, as Marx believed in his time. But their political preferences yes transfer.
But there’s a key difference: Promising ownership to the working class doesn’t necessarily mean workers will ultimately exercise that power. Nor does it mean that idealistic young socialists will get the paradise they voted for.
Cuba provides a historical example. At the beginning of Fidel Castro’s revolution, most people were on his side. Nationalization initially targeted only large foreign-invested enterprises, but later expanded to domestic enterprises, giving the state control of most productive properties. For decades, the vast majority of Cubans have suffered from extreme poverty, food shortages and political repression. Only a few at the top can benefit from “seizing the means of production.”
Socialism and communism are not two completely independent ideas that developed independently of each other. They share common Marxist roots.
In the Marxist-Leninist tradition, socialism is understood as an early stage in the development of communist society—not simply as an alternative to communist society. Marx described the lower and higher stages of communist society, and Lenin later made this relationship explicit.
These are not just proposals to expand government benefits. They overlap directly with central ideas in Marx’s communist framework.
Democratic socialism does not exist in a completely sealed box, completely separate from communist ideas. We don’t have to wait for overlap. We can already identify it in the ideas discussed today.
Modern democratic socialists do not all agree with this process, and many explicitly reject authoritarian communism. But their stated economic goals still share important foundations with Marxist theory.
The dividing lines are not as clear-cut as political labels sound. Ideas associated with different stages of socialist and communist theory may overlap long before society reaches anything resembling full communism.
So perhaps the question is not just whether democratic socialism and communism are the same. This is where their ideas about capitalism, private property and economic power have converged – and how far the proposed transformation intends to go.
Before concerns about such a shift are derided as “silly,” their shared intellectual history deserves examination.
The question is not just where democratic socialism ends and communism begins. The question is how many lines have been crossed in the ideas being proposed today.
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Holly Jean Soto is a freelance and economic communicator dedicated to making complex economic, social, and political ideas accessible to everyday audiences. She graduated from George Mason University with a BA in Economics and is a contributor to Young Voices.