Sublime

We should be the subjects of what we do and what we value, rather than being subjected to what we supposedly need to do and what we supposedly value. How such a revolution of our lives is possible—and what it requires of us—is specified by the principles of democratic socialism that I will articulate. The challenge of democratic socialism is to dev

The neoliberal reforms we have witnessed over the past decades are no doubt pernicious. The downfall of the welfare state, however, is due not only to neoliberal ideology but also to the general reliance on the generation of capital wealth, which makes the welfare state hostage to economic crises.

Under democratic socialism, we are committed to sharing the socially necessary labor time, but also to reducing it as much as possible through technological innovation. Based on our different abilities, we participate in the social labor that we recognize as necessary for the common good (food production, construction, health care, childcare, educa

the key to democratic socialism is to have institutions in which we participate because we recognize ourselves and our freedom in their form.

analytical definitions are the following. What I call social democracy comprises any form of socialism or Marxism that limits itself to redistribution and does not grapple with the fundamental question of value in the mode of production. Democratic socialism, by contrast, requires a fundamental and practical revaluation of the capitalist measure of

Thus, I will seek to show that the Idea of freedom demands that we overcome the social form of wage labor. While the social form of wage labor bears the democratic promise of freedom and equality within itself, the dynamic of wage labor ultimately makes it impossible to achieve and sustain an actual democratic state, which would enable everyone to

Capitalism is a historical form of life in which wage labor is the foundation of social wealth. The deepest stakes of Marx’s critique of capitalism reside in his critique of the measure of value that is entailed by the dependence of society on wage labor.

If we are committed to capitalism, we are committed to commodifying more and more aspects of our lives. This vicious circle can be broken only through an overcoming of capitalism, which requires a transformation of our conception of value.

To live a free life, it is not enough that we have the right to freedom. We must have access to the material resources as well as the forms of education that allow us to pursue our freedom and to “own” the question of what to do with our time. What belongs to each one of us—what is irreducibly our own—is not property or goods but the time of our li