The Democratic Socialist Association (DSA), formerly “Socialist Students”, is a non-partisan political society in the University of York, that aims to provide an open meeting place for reflective thinking, democratic debate of ideas, formulation of proposals, free exchange of experiences and interlinking for effective action, for any student who feels akin to the values of socialism and does not want to get involved with pretentious and self-important student party-politics.

We are committed to unite York’s progressive forces into a plural, diversified, inclusive, non-confessional, and non-party oriented society that:

• promotes non-violent social resistance to the process of dehumanisation that the world is undergoing, by providing a platform to the alter-globalisation movement of the World Social Forum
• opposes all totalitarian and reductionist views of economy, development and history and the use of violence as a means of social control by the state
• upholds respect for human rights, the practices of real democracy, participatory democracy, peaceful relations, in equality and solidarity, among people, ethnicities, genders and nations, and condemn all forms of domination and all subjection of one person by another
• directly opposes savage neoliberalist policies, while promoting the radical reform of the institutions and organisations that enforce them
• discusses and proposes solutions to the problems of exclusion and social inequality that the process of corporate globalisation with its racist, sexist and environmentally destructive dimensions is creating internationally and within countries

“A thinking man is not suitable as a party member; he soon thinks himself right through and out of the party” – Friedrich Nietzsche