After the recent election on November 4, there has been a lot of talk about Zohran Mamdani, the new future mayor of New York City. Mamdani ran on a campaign focused on affordability and making sure working-class New Yorkers would be able to live in the city and have their basic needs met. He is a self-proclaimed democratic socialist, although his policies are actually those of social democracy. Many people don’t realize the difference between these two things, let alone other political ideologies. For example, many people don’t know that ideologies like social democracy, democratic socialism, socialism, and communism are all different things.
Capitalism is an economic system in which the means of production (like technology, factories, raw materials, land, etc) are largely privately owned and operated, for profit. In a free market capitalist system, prices for goods are primarily determined by supply and demand. Some people think that capitalism is good because it generates wealth and innovation, although this is only with certain regulations. Many western governments like ours utilize some version of capitalism. Socialists and communists would argue that this does not serve their citizens well and that it creates too much greed and inequality. Because the capitalist system is based on generating as much profit as possible for private individuals or companies, profit can be prioritized over people, and wealth distribution can become extremely skewed. For example, the top 10% of American households by wealth hold around 67% of total household wealth, while the bottom 50% hold 2.5% of total household wealth. This massive disparity is due to a capitalist system with not enough guardrails to keep things equitable. Socialists think that this system needs to be dismantled and rebuilt, while capitalists believe the system is fine the way it is or only needs to be tweaked a bit.
Socialism is seen by some people as the natural solution to the inequalities created by capitalism. It is a system in which the means of goods and services produced by the people are also controlled by the people, rather than privately owned for private profit. The goal is to make sure that wealth and power are shared more equally so that everyone benefits from the economy, not just the wealthy. Most people confuse socialism and communism with autocracy (a system of government where one person or a small group has all the power), thinking that you can’t have socialism and democracy at the same time. Socialism just means that the working class has the power instead of the top 1% of the wealthiest people.
Democratic socialism is the idea of reaching a socialist society through the process of electing socialist leaders. People like Zohran Mamdani and Bernie Sanders identify as democratic socialists, although their policies are actually policies of social democracy. Social democracy is when a society is capitalist but with certain social programs. Some examples of social programs are universal healthcare and childcare, subsidised housing, and free public transport. Examples of social democracies include Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Finland. Other countries, like the US, have certain policies of a social democracy but aren’t fully there. Here in the US, we have things like Social Security, Medicaid, and SNAP. The idea of social democracy is to smooth out inequalities created by capitalism. While Mamdani may say that he is a democratic socialist, his policies are more in line with social democracy because there is only so much he can do as one person in office.
Over the past decade, the number of young people in the United States who support socialism has been growing. 2025 polls by Gallup, Axios/Generation Lab, and YouGov/Cato Institute show increasingly large numbers of the American public, especially younger people, have a positive view of socialism. The latter poll’s results show that 60% of people aged 18-29 in the US view socialism favorably. Mamdani and his policies represent the change in US politics that younger generations seek in order to make their lives more affordable and equitable.
