Democratic socialism and social democracy explained concisely

Here is everything required to understand the meaning of these terms from zero knowledge, starting with basic definitions.

The means of production is everything required to produce a commodity (good/service) apart from labour.

Socialism is the collective, common or public ownership of the means of production.

Because socialism is such a broad idea, socialist ownership can mean anything from a small co-operative to an entire government.

Democracy where the people collectively control a government – usually with elected representatives, or representative democracy.

Liberalism is an ideological description of almost every nation state currently existing on the planet.

Democratic socialism

Today democratic socialism is used to refer to socialism achieved through liberal democracy.

Democratic socialism is a term used to promote the democratic nature of socialism and distancing electoral candidates from past dictators which were branded as socialist or were a more authoritarian variant of socialist.

Originally democratic socialism was used to refer to a form of socialism which leaned even more heavily on workplace/economic democracy, featured a market or decentralised planning. It did not have to be achieved by democracy, as it only required that democracy would be maintained after the attainment of democratic socialism.

Social democracy

Social democracy refers to liberalism with a greater focus on economic equality, regulation, welfare and other left-leaning aspects. A better term for what social democracy represents today is social liberalism.

Social democracy is not socialist and does not fundamentally change the relationship between the majority of people and the means of production.

Democratic socialism is often contracted to DemSoc whereas social democracy is similar shortened to SocDem.