I’m always a little bit embarrassed when words in a document are not used well. Socialism comes in many forms and so does capitalism. To write about them as if they are single things is not helpful.
Communism is socialism’s dictatorial version and does not allow any other ideology (interesting note: East Germany had three communist parties, so voters did have a choice). Socialism can also be pursued in a democracy. Nations that have proportional voting (i.e. lots of choice) tend to have at least one socialist or social-democratic party.
The ideal of socialism is shared by all these folks in democracies and dictatorships alike. It would really help if any example declares which version is used for what result.
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The same problem arises with capitalism. China is a capitalist nation, and so is Denmark and so is the United States.
Where a system of money exists that can have various forms, another system of governance exists, too, and that can have various forms as well. Governance helps explain the differences.
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We can state that Denmark and the United States have the same form of capitalism, but the governing systems of both nations differ.
The US voters must compete with one another over who gets to represent them in districts. In Denmark, the voters do not compete with one another; all voters (very close to 100%) can point their finger to the person/party they voted for. In one nation, only the winners take up all seats, in the other nation every voter is represented at the table by their own choice.
In one nation, the majority decision is based on the winners, in the other nation the majority decision is based on all voters. The US has majority-of-the-majority democracy (majority among the winners that became the representatives). Denmark has a simple majority democracy (majority among the representatives).
There are more differences. In particular the Scandinavian countries have just one House and that’s it. In the US there are three levels (President, Senate and House of Reps) that all compete with each other. Remember, those are your three votes fighting with each other.
The voters in Denmark (and many European nations) control their capitalist societies therefore with relative ease. Nations that have a strong president (i.e. this is a winner-taking-all) are not delivering as well as nations without a strong president. Read more here.
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Yes, the United States has a constitution that makes changing the system difficult. EXCEPT in one spot: the local level. The US Constitution demands that all government put the better system in place; this must therefore be done at the local level.
That it does not need to be done at federal and state level is because these levels are discussed themselves in the US Constitution and they must therefore follow their given conditions first. Of these two, the State constitutions are actually the easiest to change.
Let’s start having proportional voting at the local level. All already agree that this is indeed the better system because there is no discrimination involved whereas district voting restricts and discriminates. A good place to start is the local level because almost the entire nation is a one-party system at that level.
Once we are used to proportional voting at the local level (and yes we are going to like it, mark my words), we will likely automatically want to change the State constitutions to also adopt proportional voting. Yes, it is fine if we limit this to five parties max, because twenty little parties are not very workable. Two parties, as we all know, are simply not enough. Neither party is good enough for the US.
Not the voters need to compete with one another; the parties need to compete (for real) with other parties. There must be a real choice and leading to a real result in who represents us at the decision-making table.
If interested in more:
