I will define Socialist as a state where the means of production are democratically owned. So worker run businesses, cooperatives, etc. I mean to distinguish a the type of socialism that I am talking about from the social democracies of today's Western Europe. To me, these are more welfare state capitalisms than the socialisms I am questioning about.
I will define Democracies as political systems with elections, multiple legitimate parties, separation of powers, and respect for individual rights (freedom of speech, press, assembly, etc.).
I want to know if there have ever been any states with both of these aspects. As I understand it, most socialisms of the 20th C were tied to the USSR, and inherited the authoritarian Marxist-Leninist one party state model. At the same time though (at least in the Cuban case), there were worker owned companies. So there are (somewhat) democratic economic institutions, but authoritarian political institutions.
On the other hand as I understand it, most liberal democracies are capitalist. So they have democratic political institutions, but (somewhat) authoritarian economic institutions.
Have there ever been any countries that have had both democratic political and economic institutions?
Also, if you take issue with my classification of socialism as economic democracy or any other assumptions I make, please, let me know.
**Part 1 **
Interesting question.
I would add that Socialism is not just restrained to the democratic ownership of means of production. To understand why, we must look at the development of Capitalism during the 19th century in Europe in particular because this is the period where the Socialist movement became increasingly prominent. While there were many schools of Socialist thought, the most significant one was the Marxian one because of the influence they had on not only Marxian Socialists but also on the Non Marxists (Fabian Socialists, Social Democrats, Anarchist Socialism).
For Marx, the emergence of Capitalism lay in the development of the productive forces of the economy. The Industrial Revolution transformed the means of production from being scattered and being petty tools in the hands of a self employed labour into large centralized and gigantic machinery situated in a factory that was operated by wage labourers. Initially, most of the tools were made by workers themselves and much of the products created were consumed by them and their families leading to relatively little for exchange. The transformation and rapid advancement of means of production led to dramatic sophistication of commodity exchange and the creation of joint stock companies (i.e corporation).The organization of enterprises is nothing but a superficial expression of commodity expression and it took the form it did because it was the most convenient and efficient way for expansion of Capital. Thus, the root for socialization of means of production is already done by Capitalism. The contradictions arise because inspite of Socialization the ownership of means of production is still under capitalist control and functions on a Capitalist basis (production for profit and for exchange) be it State owned or privately owned.
Over the long run the rate of profit which is defined as ratio of surplus value to total amount of capital invested must fall. The contradiction between the anarchy in production in markets and highly centralizing nature of capital is because the productive forces of the economy have outgrown the capitalist mode of production and what ended up creating it and making it so powerful (the continuous expansion of capital) itself becomes a barrier to further progress as the limits of markets are reached and a subsequent crisis comes about. This can only be solved through collective ownership of means of production, abolition of wage labour, markets and liberation of productive forces of the economy i.e Socialism. This happens because of inability of enterprises to be ran on profits. Socialism through revolution ensures that this Socialized enterprises run on a democratic basis and the competition between them is put an end as it was viewed to lead to a wastage of resources.
The growth of bureaucracy in both the private and public sector was because of increasing rationalization and scientific nature of production. Thus bureaucracy became necessary to manage this vast means of production. This was considered exploitative by Socialists and thus they supported non commodity economy and collective ownership of means of production with promotion of localized production and negation of (to use a Marxian phrase) law of value. It is also opposed to domination of bureaucratic and technocratic method in government and managerialism in enterprise.
So, where does Liberal democracy fits into this scheme? The general view was that liberal were the spokesperson of the Capitalist class and different political parties represented different sections of the "ruling class". he very purpose of the Socialist revolution is to smash the State which was viewed by Marx as the organization that held class based society together which otherwise would have collapsed because of the contradictions and antagonism between different classes. Thus this class based exploitation was the basis for political power. Under Socialist society, the proletariat no longer exists and thus the ‘State’ collapses into civil society because the conditions for existence of political power which is class based antagonism no longer exist.
Some argue that Catalonia during the Spanish civil war qualifies as the best example, but it only existed for a few years. Other than that, there have been regions where worker control of private enterprises (worker cooperatives) are a norm, such as contemporary Emilia Romagna in Italy and the Basque region of Spain. But they are not 100% of the economy, and the Democratic national government of these nations extends outside of these regions.
Looking at other countries, when experiencing economic problems, both Marxist-Leninist and Capitalist countries they encouraged the growth of cooperatives. For example, when the USSR and Cuba experienced agricultural production problems in the 1970s, they both legalized privately owned worker cooperatives*. In the 1930s in the USA, many types of cooperatives were formed to counter the depression.
*Depending on the country and the 'wave' of cooperatives, the government let these cooperatives be more or less independent. Later waves were more independent and successful at increasing production.