There has been a lot of talk about democratic socialism in the last ten or so years. Mostly, socialism is used as a label for a political tendency (Bernie + the Squad + Democratic Socialists of America) or as a catchall term for a set of values and policy proposals (equality + community + Medicare for All + unions are good). It’s rare to hear many commentators or even socialists themselves talk about socialism as a new way of organizing society.

Yet there was a time when socialism was first and foremost a label for the social order to come. And debates about the nature of socialism, the possibility of alternatives to capitalism, and how to move from one social order to the next were a major focus. For socialists today interested in long-term questions about where our work is taking us, these discussions are still of great interest.

Otto Bauer was an important contributor to these debates. Bauer was a member of the Austrian Parliament in the first third of the twentieth century. He also served as deputy party leader for the Social Democratic Workers’ Party in Austria and was the country’s foreign minister in the months after its defeat in World War I. Some highlights from his life’s work were recently collected and published in a series of volumes on Austro-Marxism. (Austro-Marxism is the name sometimes given to the ideas of Austrian socialists who tried to find a third strategic path out of capitalism, one more democratic than Bolshevism but more ambitious than reformist social democracy.)