I have noticed that one barrier against productive political discussion is a dissonance between definitions assigned by various groups to common political words. I made this thread in hopes that you guys would help me define some of the most common ones. Below are my mental definitions of a few (I will be adding to this list). I realize they may differ from the dictionary definition or that put forth by academics, but part of this is a look at the psyche of debaters, so it's ok to be wrong. Just use your gut definition, and please challenge mine if you find a fault in them.
Democratic Socialist: Seek not to replace the capitalist system, but buffer it with the state in an effort to make it more humane.
Socialist: Seeks to replace the capitalist economic system with a socialist one. This is a huge category with a million little splinters which I won't get into.
Your definition of Socialists covers both democratic and non-democratic versions of Socialism.
What you are describing under the label Democratic Socialist is a Social Democrat.
