The upsurge of socialist politics in the United States has sparked a renewed strategic debate on how to overcome capitalism. One issue, in particular, continues to divide democratic socialists from their Leninist critics: Can the prevailing institutions of political democracy be used for socialist transformation or does the entire existing state need to be overturned?

Though there is no way of answering this ahead of time with absolute certainty — and though a rupture with capitalism remains a distant prospect — grappling with this question is not an academic exercise. Whether socialists wager on a democratic road to socialism has important implications for how activists today relate to electoral politics, the labor movement, and organization-building.

This is an edited transcript of the debate on democratic socialism between Eric Blanc and Charlie Post at the recent Socialism in Our Time — Historical Materialism conference in New York City.