Socialism: Difference between revisions
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'''Socialism''' is the politico-economic theory of social organisation advocating that the [[means of production]], distribution, and exchange should be regulated or owned by the [[community]]. <ref>[http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/socialism "Socialism"] ''[[Merriam-Webster]]''. Merriam Webster Online.</ref> Modern socialism originated in the late nineteenth-century [[working class]] political movement. [[Karl Marx]] posited that socialism would be achieved via [[class struggle]] and a [[proletarian revolution]], it being the ''transitional'' stage between [[capitalism]] and [[Communism]].<ref>Marx, Karl, ''Communist Manifesto, Penguin (2002)</ref><ref>[http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9109587 "Socialism"] ''[[Encyclopædia Britannica]]''. 2006. Encyclopædia Britannica Online.</ref> |
'''Socialism''' is the politico-economic theory of social organisation advocating that the [[means of production]], distribution, and exchange should be regulated or owned by the [[community]]. <ref>[http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/socialism "Socialism"] ''[[Merriam-Webster]]''. Merriam Webster Online.</ref> Modern socialism originated in the late nineteenth-century [[working class]] political movement. [[Karl Marx]] posited that socialism would be achieved via [[class struggle]] and a [[proletarian revolution]], it being the ''transitional'' stage between [[capitalism]] and [[Communism]].<ref>Marx, Karl, ''Communist Manifesto, Penguin (2002)</ref><ref>[http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9109587 "Socialism"] ''[[Encyclopædia Britannica]]''. 2006. Encyclopædia Britannica Online.</ref> |
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Socialism is not a discrete philosophy of fixed doctrine and programme; its branches advocate a degree of [[social interventionism]] and [[economic interventionism]], sometimes opposing each other — especially the [[Reformism|reformists]] and the [[Revolutionary socialism|revolutionaries]]. Some require ''complete'' [[nationalization]] of the means of production, distribution, and exchange; [[Social democracy|social democrats]] propose ''selective'' nationalization of key national industries in [[Mixed economy|mixed economies]]; [[libertarian socialists]] advocate ''co-operative worker ownership'' of the means of production; Marxists (some inspired by the [[Economy of the Soviet Union|Soviet economic model]]), advocate State-controlled, [[Planned economy|centrally-planned economies]]; [[Anarcho-syndicalists]], [[Luxemburgists]], the U.S. [[New Left]] favour decentralised ownership via co-operative workers' councils. |
Socialism is not a discrete philosophy of fixed doctrine and programme; its branches advocate a degree of [[social interventionism]] and [[economic interventionism]], sometimes opposing each other — especially the [[Reformism|reformists]] and the [[Revolutionary socialism|revolutionaries]]. Some require ''complete'' [[nationalization]] of the means of production, distribution, and exchange; [[Social democracy|social democrats]] propose ''selective'' nationalization of key national industries in [[Mixed economy|mixed economies]]; [[libertarian socialists]] advocate ''co-operative worker ownership'' of the means of production; Marxists (some inspired by the [[Economy of the Soviet Union|Soviet economic model]]), advocate State-controlled, [[Planned economy|centrally-planned economies]]; [[Anarcho-syndicalists]], [[Luxemburgists]], the U.S. [[New Left]] favour decentralised ownership via co-operative workers' councils. and happy pink elephants |
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In the 1970s and the 1980s, Yugoslavian, Hungarian, and Chinese Communists proposed [[market socialism]] combining co-operative State ownership and the free market [[trade|exchange]]. <ref>"Market socialism," ''Dictionary of the Social Sciences''. Craig Calhoun, ed. Oxford University Press 2002; and "Market socialism" ''The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics''. Ed. Iain McLean and Alistair McMillan. Oxford University Press, 2003. See also [[Joseph Stiglitz]], "Whither Socialism?" Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1995 for a recent analysis of the market socialism model of mid–20th century economists [[Oskar R. Lange]], [[Abba P. Lerner]], and [[Fred M. Taylor]].</ref> |
In the 1970s and the 1980s, Yugoslavian, Hungarian, and Chinese Communists proposed [[market socialism]] combining co-operative State ownership and the free market [[trade|exchange]]. <ref>"Market socialism," ''Dictionary of the Social Sciences''. Craig Calhoun, ed. Oxford University Press 2002; and "Market socialism" ''The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics''. Ed. Iain McLean and Alistair McMillan. Oxford University Press, 2003. See also [[Joseph Stiglitz]], "Whither Socialism?" Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1995 for a recent analysis of the market socialism model of mid–20th century economists [[Oskar R. Lange]], [[Abba P. Lerner]], and [[Fred M. Taylor]].</ref> |
Revision as of 19:18, 2 September 2008
Socialism is the politico-economic theory of social organisation advocating that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be regulated or owned by the community. [1] Modern socialism originated in the late nineteenth-century working class political movement. Karl Marx posited that socialism would be achieved via class struggle and a proletarian revolution, it being the transitional stage between capitalism and Communism.[2][3]
Socialism is not a discrete philosophy of fixed doctrine and programme; its branches advocate a degree of social interventionism and economic interventionism, sometimes opposing each other — especially the reformists and the revolutionaries. Some require complete nationalization of the means of production, distribution, and exchange; social democrats propose selective nationalization of key national industries in mixed economies; libertarian socialists advocate co-operative worker ownership of the means of production; Marxists (some inspired by the Soviet economic model), advocate State-controlled, centrally-planned economies; Anarcho-syndicalists, Luxemburgists, the U.S. New Left favour decentralised ownership via co-operative workers' councils. and happy pink elephants
In the 1970s and the 1980s, Yugoslavian, Hungarian, and Chinese Communists proposed market socialism combining co-operative State ownership and the free market exchange. [4]
Historical precedents
Socialist thought and organisation predate Socialism as ideology, which emerged in the first-half of the nineteenth century. The Inca Empire is an early socialist empire — planned, large-scale economy; grain-house system; mandatory work schedules, et cetera. (Baudin, 1928) Moreover, in literature, Utopia, by Thomas More, posits a socialist utopia. [5] In fifth-century Persia, the Mazdak communists challenged Noble and Clerical privilege, criticized private property, and strove for an egalitarian society.[6] William Morris said John Ball, a leader of the Peasants' Revolt (1381) in England, was the first socialist, credited with saying: When Adam delved and Eve span, Who was, then, the gentleman? [7] [8] In the English Civil War, in the mid seventeenth century, the socialist movements include the Levellers, and the Diggers, advocating common tenancy of land.
In the eighteenth century France, Enlightenment criticism of socio-economic inequality is the gist of Jean Jacques Rousseau in the Social Contract, that begins: Man is born free, and he is everywhere in chains. [9] After the the French Revolution, François Noël Babeuf advocated common ownership of land and politico-economic equality among citizens.
Origins of socialism
The appearance of the term "socialism" is variously attributed to Pierre Leroux in 1834,[10] or to Marie Roch Louis Reybaud in France, or else in Britain to Robert Owen in 1827, who is considered the father of the cooperative movement.[11][12]
The first modern socialists were early 19th century Western European social critics. In this period, socialism emerged from a diverse array of doctrines and social experiments associated primarily with British and French thinkers—especially Robert Owen, Charles Fourier, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Louis Blanc, and Saint-Simon. These social critics criticised the excesses of poverty and inequality of the Industrial Revolution, and advocated reforms such as the egalitarian distribution of wealth and the transformation of society into small communities in which private property was to be abolished. Outlining principles for the reorganization of society along collectivist lines, Saint-Simon and Owen sought to build socialism on the foundations of planned, utopian communities.
According to some accounts, the use of the words "socialism" or "communism" was related to the perceived attitude toward religion in a given culture. In Europe, "communism" was considered to be the more atheistic of the two. In England, however, that sounded too close to communion with Catholic overtones; hence atheists preferred to call themselves socialists.[13]
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/59/Henri_de_Saint-simon_portrait.jpg/150px-Henri_de_Saint-simon_portrait.jpg)
By 1847, according to Frederick Engels, "Socialism" was "respectable" on the continent of Europe, while "Communism" was the opposite; the Owenites in England and the Fourierists in France were considered Socialists, while working class movements which "proclaimed the necessity of total social change" termed themselves "Communists". This latter was "powerful enough" to produce the communism of Étienne Cabet in France and Wilhelm Weitling in Germany.[14]
The International Workingmen's Association — the First International
In 1864, the International Workingmen's Association (IWA) or First International, was founded in London. Victor Le Lubez, a French radical republican living in London, invited Marx to come, "as a representative of German workers", according to Saul Padover.[15] The IWA held a preliminary conference in 1865 and its first congress at Geneva in 1866. Marx was appointed a member of the committee and, according to Padover, Marx and Johann Georg Eccarius, a tailor living in London, were to become, "the two mainstays of the International from its inception to its end". The First International became the first major international forum for the promulgation of socialist ideas.
The Social Democratic Workers' Party of Germany was founded in 1869 under the influence of Marx and Engels. In 1875, it merged with the General German Workers' Association of Ferdinand Lassalle to become what is known today as the German Social Democratic Party (SPD). Socialism became increasingly associated with newly formed trade unions. In Germany, the SPD built trade unions and in Austria, France and other European countries, socialist parties and anarchists played a prominent role in forming and building up trade unions, especially from the 1870s onwards. This stood in contrast to the British experience, where moderate New Model Unions dominated the union movement from the mid–nineteenth century and where trade unionism was stronger than the political labour movement until the formation and growth of the Labour Party in the early years of the twentieth century. In the United States, the first socialist party was founded in 1876 and was organized as a Marxist party in 1890; the Socialist Labor Party exists to the present day. An early leader of the Socialist Labor Party was Daniel De Leon who had considerable influence beyond the United States as well.[citation needed]
Socialist groups supported diverse views of socialism, from the gradualism of many trade unionists to the radical, revolutionary theory of Marx and Engels. Anarchists and proponents of other alternative visions of socialism, who emphasized the potential of small-scale communities and agrarianism, coexisted with the more influential currents of Marxism and social democracy. The anarchists, led by the Russian Mikhail Bakunin, believed that capitalism and the state were inseparable and that one could not be abolished without the other.
The Second International
As the ideas of Marx and Engels took on flesh, particularly in central Europe, socialists sought to unite in an international organization. In 1889, on the centennial of the French Revolution of 1789, the Second International was founded, with 384 delegates from 20 countries representing about 300 labour and socialist organizations.[16] It was termed the "Socialist International" and Engels was elected honorary president at the third congress in 1893.
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Just before his death in 1895, Engels argued that there was now a "single generally recognized, crystal clear theory of Marx" and a "single great international army of socialists". Despite its illegality due to the Anti-Socialist Laws of 1878, the Social Democratic Party of Germany's use of the limited universal male suffrage were "potent" new methods of struggle which demonstrated their growing strength and forced the dropping of the Anti-Socialist legislation in 1890, Engels argued.[17] In 1893, the German SPD obtained 1,787,000 votes, a quarter of votes cast. However, before the leadership of the SPD published Engels' 1895 Introduction to Marx's Class Struggles in France 1848–1850, they removed certain phrases they felt were too revolutionary.[18]
Marx believed that it was possible to have a peaceful socialist transformation in England, although the British ruling class would then revolt against such a victory.[19] America and Holland might also have a peaceful transformation, but not in France, where Marx believed there had been "perfected... an enormous bureaucratic and military organization, with its ingenious state machinery" which must be forcibly overthrown. However, eight years after Marx's death, Engels argued that it was possible to achieve a peaceful socialist revolution in France, too.[20]
World War I
When World War I began in 1914, many European socialist leaders supported their respective governments' war aims. The social democratic parties in the UK, France, Belgium and Germany supported their respective state's wartime military and economic planning, discarding their commitment to internationalism and solidarity.
Lenin, however, denounced the war as an imperialist conflict, and urged workers worldwide to use it as an occasion for proletarian revolution. The Second International dissolved during the war, while Lenin, Trotsky, Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg, together with a small number of other Marxists opposed to the war, came together in the Zimmerwald Conference in September 1915.
The Revolutions of 1917–23
By 1917, the atmosphere of enthusiastic patriotism which had greeted the start of the First World War had evaporated and was replaced by an upsurge of radicalism in most of Europe and as far afield as the United States (see Socialism in the United States) and Australia. In February 1917, revolution broke out in Russia and the workers, soldiers and peasants set up workers', soldiers' and peasants' councils (in Russian, soviets), while power was placed into the hands of a Provisional government prior to the convocation of a Constituent Assembly. Lenin arrived in Russia in April 1917 and called for "All power to the Soviets". The Bolsheviks won a majority in the Soviets in October 1917 and at the same time the October Revolution was led by Lenin and Trotsky. At the Petrograd Soviet on the 25 October 1917, Lenin declared, "Long live the world socialist revolution!"[21]
On 26 October 1917, the day after seizing power, Lenin drew up a Draft Regulations on Workers' Control, granting workers' control in enterprises with not less than five workers and office employees, who were to be granted access to all books, documents and stocks, and whose decisions were to be "binding upon the owners of the enterprises."[22] The new Soviet government immediately nationalised the banks and major industry, and repudiated, or refused to acknowledge and pay, the former Romanov regime's national debts. It implemented a system of government through the elected workers' councils or soviets. It sued for peace and withdrew from the First World War. The elections to the Constituent Assembly were held in November 1917 and were won by the non-Marxist, peasant-based Socialist-Revolutionary (SR) party with almost twice as many votes as the Bolsheviks.[23] The Constituent Assembly was convened for 13 hours between 4 p.m. and 4:40 a.m., January 5–6, 1918. The SR leader Victor Chernov was elected President of the fledgling republic. The following day the Bolsheviks dissolved the assembly.[24]
The Russian revolution of October 1917 gave rise to the formation of Communist Parties around the world, and the revolutions of 1917-23 which followed. In this period, few Communists — least of all Lenin and Trotsky — doubted that the success of socialism in Soviet Russia depended on successful socialist revolutions carried out by the working classes of the most developed capitalist countries.[25][26] For this reason, in 1919, Lenin and Trotsky drew together the Communist Parties from around the world into a new 'International', the Communist International (also termed the Third International or Comintern).
The German Revolution of November 1918 overthrew the old monarchy and, as in Russia, Workers' and Soldiers' Councils almost entirely made up of SPD and Independent Social Democrats (USPD) members were set up. The Weimar republic was established and placed the SPD in power, under the leadership of Friedrich Ebert. In January 1919 the Spartacist Putsch challenged the power of the SPD government. Ebert sided with the army and the Freikorps which quelled the Workers' and Soldiers' Councils . The German Communist leaders Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg were apprehended and brutally murdered. A Communist regime under Kurt Eisner in Bavaria in early 1919 was also put down in blood. A Communist regime briefly held power under Béla Kun in Hungary. There were revolutionary movements in Vienna, the industrial centres of northern Italy, and revolutionary movements in the Ruhr area in Germany in 1920 and in Saxony in 1923.
However, these revolutionary movements failed to spread the socialist revolution into the advanced capitalist countries of Europe. In Soviet Russia things were desperate. In August 1918, Lenin was shot in the head and wounded by Fanya Kaplan. Under siege from a trade boycott and invasion by Germany, UK, USA, France and other forces, facing civil war and starvation, the Soviet regime implemented War Communism in June, 1918. All private enterprise was made illegal, strikers could be shot, "non-working classes" were forced to work and the Soviet regime could requisition grain from the peasants for the workers in the cities.
By 1920, the Red Army, led by Trotsky, had largely defeated the White Armies. In 1921, War Communism was ended, and under the New Economic Policy (NEP), private ownership was restored to small and medium enterprises, and especially to the peasants. The peasants had resented and hindered the requisitions of grain so that the situation in the cities remained desperate or was getting worse. Lenin declared that the "commanding heights" of industry would still be under state control, but that the NEP was a capitalist measure in a country that was still largely unripe for socialism. Businessmen and women, called 'NEPmen', began to flourish,[27] and the rich peasant (or 'Kulak', meaning 'fist') gained more power.
Lenin, now half-paralyzed from several strokes, castigated the powers the state had assumed in the Soviet Union by 1923. It had reverted to "a bourgeois czarist machine... barely varnished with socialism."[28] After Lenin's death in January 1924, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, falling steadily under the control of Stalin, rejected the theory that socialism could not be built in the Soviet Union on its own. Stalin declared a policy of "socialism in one country", namely the Soviet Union. Despite demands by the increasingly marginalized Left Opposition for the restoration of soviet democracy,[29] the Soviet Union continued to develop a bureaucratic and authoritarian model of social development, which was condemned by Democratic Socialists, Anarchists, Trotskyists and others for undermining the initial socialist ideals of the Russian Revolution.[30]
The inter-war era and World War II
The Russian Revolution of October 1917 brought about the definitive ideological division between Communists as denoted with a capital "C" on the one hand and other communist and socialist trends such as anarcho-communists and social democrats, on the other. The Left Opposition in the Soviet Union gave rise to Trotskyism which was to remain isolated and insignificant for another fifty years, except in Sri Lanka where Trotskyism gained the majority and the pro-Moscow wing was expelled from the Communist Party.
In 1922, the fourth congress of the Communist International took up the policy of the United Front, urging Communists to work with rank and file Social Democrats while remaining critical of their leaders, who they criticized for "betraying" the working class by supporting the war efforts of their respective capitalist classes. For their part, the social democrats pointed to the dislocation caused by revolution, and later, the growing authoritarianism of the Communist Parties. When the Communist Party of Great Britain applied to affiliate to the Labour Party in 1920 it was turned down.
Socialism after World War II
In 1945, the world’s three great powers met at the Yalta Conference to negotiate an amicable and stable peace. UK Prime Minister Winston Churchill joined USA President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee. With the relative decline of Britain compared to the two superpowers, the USA and the Soviet Union, however, many viewed the world as "bi-polar" — a world with two irreconcilable and antagonistic political and economic systems. Many termed the Soviet Union "socialist", not least the Soviet Union itself, but also commonly in the USA, China, Eastern Europe, and many parts of the world where Communist Parties had gained a mass base. In addition, scholarly critics of the Soviet Union, such as economist Friedrich Hayek were commonly cited as critics of socialism.
This view was not universally shared, particularly in Europe, and especially in Britain, where the Communist Party was very weak. In 1951, British Health Minister Aneurin Bevan expressed the view that, "It is probably true that Western Europe would have gone socialist after the war if Soviet behaviour had not given it too grim a visage. Soviet Communism and Socialism are not yet sufficiently distinguished in many minds."[31]
In 1949, the Chinese Revolution established a Communist state in China. Criticizing the invasion and trade embargo of the young Soviet state, Bevan wrote "At the moment it looks as though the United States is going to repeat the same folly in China... You cannot starve a national revolution into submission. You can starve it into a repressive dictatorship; you can starve it to the point where the hellish logic of the police state takes charge."[32]
In 1951, the Socialist International was refounded by the European social democratic parties. It declared: "Communism has split the International Labour Movement and has set back the realisation of Socialism in many countries for decades... Communism falsely claims a share in the Socialist tradition. In fact it has distorted that tradition beyond recognition. It has built up a rigid theology which is incompatible with the critical spirit of Marxism."[33]
In the postwar years, socialism became increasingly influential throughout the so-called Third World. Countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America frequently adopted socialist economic programs. In many instances, these nations nationalized industries held by foreign owners. The Soviet Union had become a superpower through its adoption of a planned economy, albeit at enormous human cost. This achievement seemed hugely impressive from the outside, and convinced many nationalists in the former colonies, not necessarily communists or even socialists, of the virtues of state planning and state-guided models of social development. This was later to have important consequences in countries like China, India and Egypt, which tried to import some aspects of the Soviet model.
The last quarter of the twentieth century marked a period of major crisis for Communists in the Soviet Union and the Eastern bloc, where the growing shortages of housing and consumer goods, combined with the lack of individual rights to assembly and speech, began to disillusion more and more Communist party members. With the rapid collapse of Communist party rule in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe between 1989 and 1991, the Soviet version of socialism has effectively disappeared as a worldwide political force.
Social democracy in power
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/ce/Attlee_BW_cropped.jpg/200px-Attlee_BW_cropped.jpg)
In 1945, the British Labour Party led by Clement Attlee was swept to power on a radical programme. Socialist (and in some places Communist) parties also dominated postwar governments in France, Italy, Czechoslovakia, Belgium, Norway and other European countries. The Social Democratic Party had been in power in Sweden since 1932, and Labour parties also held power in Australia and New Zealand. In Germany, on the other hand, the Social Democrats were defeated in Germany's first democratic elections in 1949. The unity of the democrats and the Communist parties which had been established in the wartime resistance movements continued in the immediate postwar years. The democratic socialist parties of Eastern Europe, however, were destroyed when Stalin imposed "Communist" regimes in these countries.
Social democracy at first took the view that they had begun a "serious assault" on the five "Giant Evils" afflicting the working class, identified for instance by the British social reformer William Beveridge: "Want, Disease, Ignorance, Squalor, and Idleness."[34] However on the left wing of the Labour Party, Aneurin Bevan, who had been responsible for introducing the Labour Party’s National Health Service in 1948, criticised the government for not going further. Bevan demanded that the "main streams of economic activity are brought under public direction" with economic planning, and criticised the Labour Party's implementation of nationalisation for not empowering the workers in the nationalised industries with democratic control over their operation. In his In Place of Fear, which Crosland called the "the most widely read socialist book" of the period,[35] Bevan begins: "A young miner in a South Wales colliery, my concern was with one practical question: Where does the power lie in this particular state of Great Britain, and how can it be attained by the workers?"[36]
The Frankfurt Declaration of the refounded Socialist International stated:
1. From the nineteenth century onwards, capitalism has developed immense productive forces. It has done so at the cost of excluding the great majority of citizens from influence over production. It put the rights of ownership before the rights of man. It created a new class of wage-earners without property or social rights. It sharpened the struggle between the classes. Although the world contains resources which could be made to provide a decent life for everyone, capitalism has been incapable of satisfying the elementary needs of the world’s population. It proved unable to function without devastating crises and mass unemployment. It produced social insecurity and glaring contrasts between rich and poor. It resorted to imperialist expansion and colonial exploitation, thus making conflicts between nations and races more bitter. In some countries, powerful capitalist groups helped the barbarism of the past to raise its head again in the form of Fascism and Nazism.
— The Frankfurt Declaration 1951[33]
The social democratic governments in the post war period introduced measures of social reform and wealth redistribution through state welfare and taxation policy. For instance, the newly elected UK Labour government carried out nationalisations of major utilities such as mines, gas, coal, electricity, rail, iron and steel and the Bank of England.[37] France claimed to be the most state controlled capitalist country in the world, carrying through many nationalisations[38]
In the UK, the National Health Service was established, bringing free health care to all for the first time. Social housing for working class families was provided in council housing estates and university education was made available for working class people through a grant system. Free school milk was introduced by Ellen Wilkinson, Minister for Education, who told the 1946 Labour Party conference: "Free milk will be provided in Hoxton and Shoreditch, in Eton and Harrow. What more social equality can you have than that?" Attlee's biographer argues that this "contributed enormously to the defeat of childhood illnesses resulting from bad diet. Generations of poor children grew up stronger and healthier because of this one small and inexpensive act of generosity by the Attlee government".[39]
In 1956, Anthony Crosland estimated that 25% of industry was nationalised in the UK, and that public authorities accounted for a similar percentage of total employment, including the nationalised industries.[40] However the parliamentary leadership of the social democracies in general had no intention of ending capitalism, and their national outlook and their dedication to the maintenance of the post-war 'order' prevented the social democracies from moving to nationalize the "commanding heights" of industry. They were termed 'socialist' by all in 1945, but in the UK, for instance, where Social Democracy had a large majority in Parliament, "The government had not the smallest intention of bringing in the 'common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange'" as written in Clause 4 of the Labour Party constitution.[41] Nevertheless, Anthony Crosland argued that capitalism had been ended, stating, "To the question 'Is this still capitalism?' I would answer 'No.'"[42] In Germany, the Social Democratic Party adopted the Godesberg Program in 1959, which rejected class struggle and Marxism.
In 1980, with the rise of Ronald Reagan in the U.S. and Margaret Thatcher in Britain, and Brian Mulroney in Canada, the Western welfare state found itself under increasing political pressure. Margaret Thatcher had abolished free school milk for children when Education Secretary in the 1970–74 Conservative government. Now monetarists and neoliberals attacked social welfare systems as an impediment to individual entrepreneurship. Western European socialists were under intense pressure to refashion their parties in the late 1980s and early 1990s and to reconcile their traditional economic programs with the integration of a European economic community based on liberalizing markets. The Labour Party in the United Kingdom went through a period of intense struggle, epitomised by Labour leader Neil Kinnock’s passionate and highly publicised 1985 Labour Party conference attack on the Militant Tendency and his repudiation of the demands of the miners who had been defeated after a year-long all-out strike against pit closures. By the 1990s, released from the pressure of the left, the Labour Party, especially under the premiership of Tony Blair, put together a set of policies based on encouraging the market economy while promoting the involvement of private industry in delivering public services.
In 1989, the 18th Congress of the Socialist International at Stockholm adopted a Declaration of Principles which declares that "Democratic socialism is an international movement for freedom, social justice and solidarity. Its goal is to achieve a peaceful world where these basic values can be enhanced and where each individual can live a meaningful life with the full development of his or her personality and talents and with the guarantee of human and civil rights in a democratic framework of society."[43] The objectives of the Party of European Socialists, the socialist bloc in the European Parliament, are "to pursue international aims in respect of the principles on which the European Union is based, namely principles of freedom, equality, solidarity, democracy, respect of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, and respect for the Rule of Law." The companion to contemporary political philosophy states: "The rallying cry of the French Revolution—equality, liberty and fraternity—now constitute essential socialist values."[44]
In 1995, the UK Labour Party revised its aims: "The Labour Party is a democratic socialist party. It believes that by the strength of our common endeavour we achieve more than we achieve alone, so as to create for each of us the means to realise our true potential and for all of us a community in which power, wealth and opportunity are in the hands of the many, not the few."[45] Cabinet minister Herbert Morrison famously argued that, "Socialism is what the Labour government does,".[41]
Socialism in the 21st century
In some Latin American countries, socialism has re-emerged in recent years, with an anti-imperialist stance, the rejection of the policies of neo-liberalism and the nationalisation or part nationalisation of oil production, land and other assets. Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez and Bolivian President Evo Morales, for instance, refer to their political programs as socialist. Chávez has coined the term "21st century socialism" (sometimes translated more literally as "Socialism of the 21st century"). After winning re-election in December 2006, President Chávez said, "Now more than ever, I am obliged to move Venezuela's path towards socialism."[46]
In the developing world, some elected socialist parties and communist parties remain prominent, particularly in India and Nepal. The Communist Party of Nepal in particular calls for multi-party democracy, social equality, and economic prosperity.[47] In China, the Chinese Communist Party has led a transition from the command economy of the Mao period to an economic program they term the socialist market economy or "socialism with Chinese characteristics." Under Deng Xiaoping, the leadership of China embarked upon a program of market-based reform that was more sweeping than had been Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev's perestroika program of the late 1980s. Deng's program, however, maintained state ownership rights over land, state or cooperative ownership of much of the heavy industrial and manufacturing sectors and state influence in the banking and financial sectors. In South Africa the ANC abandoned its partial socialist allegiances on taking power and followed a standard neo-liberal route. But from 2005 through to 2007 the country was wracked by many thousands of protests from poor communities. One of these gave rise to a mass movement of shack dwellers, Abahlali baseMjondolo that, despite major police suppression, continues to advocate for popular people's planning and against the marketization of land and housing. Communist candidate Dimitris Christofias won a crucial presidential runoff in Cyprus, defeating his conservative rival with a majority of 53%.[48] The Left Party in Germany has also grown in popularity.[49]
Socialism as an economic system
The term socialism is used to refer to an economic system characterized by state ownership or worker ownership of the means of production and distribution. In the Soviet Union, state ownership of productive property was combined with central planning. Down to the workplace level, Soviet economic planners decided what goods and services were to be produced, how they were to be produced, in what quantities, and at what prices they were to be sold (see economy of the Soviet Union). Soviet economic planning was promoted as an alternative to allowing prices and production to be determined by the market through supply and demand. Especially during the Great Depression, many socialists considered Soviet-style planning a remedy to what they saw as the inherent flaws of capitalism, such as monopolies, business cycles, unemployment, vast inequalities in the distribution of wealth, and the exploitation of workers.
In the West, neoclassical liberal economists such as Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman argued that socialist planned economies were doomed to failure. They asserted that central planners could never match the overall information inherent in the decision-making throughout a market economy (see economic calculation problem). Nor could enterprise managers in Soviet-style socialist economies match the motivation of private profit-driven entrepreneurs in a market economy.
Following the stagnation of the Soviet economy in the 1970s and 1980s, many socialists have begun to accept some of this critique. Polish economist Oskar Lange, for example, was an early proponent of "market socialism." He proposed a Central Planning Board that sets the prices of producer goods and controls the overall level of investment in the economy. The prices of producer goods would be determined through trial and error. The prices of consumer goods would be determined by supply and demand, with the supply coming from state-owned firms that would set their prices equal to the marginal cost, as in perfectly competitive markets. The Central Planning Board would distribute a "social dividend" to ensure reasonable income equality.[50]
In Western Europe, particularly in the period after World War II, many socialist parties in government implemented what became known as mixed economies.[51] These governments nationalised major and economically vital industries while permitting a free market to continue in the rest. These were most often monopolistic or infrastructural industries like mail, railways, power and other utilities. In some instances a number of small, competing and often relatively poorly financed companies in the same sector were nationalised to form one government monopoly for the purpose of competent management, of economic rescue (in the UK, British Leyland, Rolls Royce), or of competing on the world market.[52] Typically, this was achieved through compulsory purchase of the industry (i.e. with compensation). For example in the UK the nationalization of the coal mines in 1947 created a coal board charged with running the coal industry commercially so as to be able to meet the interest payable on the bonds which the former mine owners' shares had been converted into.[53][54]
These nationalized industries would frequently be combined with Keynesian economics and incomes policies in order to guide the entire economy (see indicative planning and dirigisme).[55] Nevertheless, most economists, and many socialists, consider that these economies were (or are) capitalist economies, and the aspirations of those who believed the mixed economy would abolish boom and slump, mass unemployment, and industrial unrest, were disappointed with the onset of the first world wide recession of 1973–4, the oil crisis of this period, and the monetary instability which followed. Some far left socialists, as well as some workers in the nationalised industries, also criticised the nationalisations for not establishing workers' control of the nationalised industries, through elected representatives, and the amount of compensation paid to the previous owners.
Some socialists propose various decentralized, worker-managed economic systems. One such system is the "cooperative economy," a largely free market economy in which workers manage the firms and democratically determine remuneration levels and labor divisions. Productive resources would be legally owned by the cooperative and rented to the workers, who would enjoy usufruct rights.[56] Another, more recent, variant is "participatory economics," wherein the economy is planned by decentralized councils of workers and consumers. Workers would be remunerated solely according to effort and sacrifice, so that those engaged in dangerous, uncomfortable, and strenuous work would receive the highest incomes and could thereby work less.[57] Some Marxists and Anarcho-communists also propose a worker managed economy based on workers councils, however unlike participatory economics in Anarcho communism workers are remunerated according to their needs (which are largely self determined in an anarcho communist system). Recently socialists have also been working with the Technocracy movement to promote such concepts as Energy Accounting.[citation needed]
Socialism and social and political theory
Marxist and non-Marxist social theorists have both generally agreed that socialism, as a doctrine, developed as a reaction to the rise of modern industrial capitalism, but differ sharply on the exact nature of the relationship. Émile Durkheim saw socialism as rooted in the desire simply to bring the state closer to the realm of individual activity as a response to the growing anomie of capitalist society. Max Weber saw in socialism an acceleration of the process of rationalization commenced under capitalism. Weber was a critic of socialism who warned that putting the economy under the total bureaucratic control of the state would not result in liberation but an 'iron cage of future bondage.'
Socialist intellectuals continued to retain considerable influence on European philosophy in the mid–20th century. Herbert Marcuse's 1955 Eros and Civilization was an explicit attempt to merge Marxism with Freudianism. Structuralism, widely influential in mid–20th century French academic circles, emerged as a model of the social sciences that influenced the 1960s and 1970s socialist New Left.
Criticisms of socialism
Criticisms of socialism range from claims that socialist economic and political models are inefficient or incompatible with civil liberties to condemnation of specific socialist states. There is much focus on the economic performance and human rights records of Communist states, although some proponents of socialism reject the categorization of such states as socialist.
In the economic calculation debate, classical liberal Friedrich Hayek argued that a socialist command economy could not adequately transmit information about prices and productive quotas due to the lack of a price mechanism, and as a result it could not make rational economic decisions. Ludwig von Mises argued that a socialist economy was not possible at all. Hayek further argued that the social control over distribution of wealth and private property advocated by socialists cannot be achieved without reduced prosperity for the general populace, and a loss of political and economic freedoms.[58][59]
Some individuals, such as Winston Churchill, have claimed that socialism slowly evolves into a totalitarian regime when people begin to defect from supporting it. During his 1945 election campaign Churchill stated that:
...a socialist policy is abhorrent to the British ideas of freedom. Socialism is inseparably interwoven with totalitarianism and the object worship of the state. It will prescribe for every one where they are to work, what they are to work at, where they may go and what they may say. Socialism is an attack on the right to breathe freely. No socialist system can be established without a political police. They would have to fall back on some form of Gestapo, no doubt very humanely directed in the first instance.[60]
See also
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/4/4a/Commons-logo.svg/30px-Commons-logo.svg.png)
- Alter-globalization
- To each according to his contribution
- Anti-capitalism
- Fabian Society
- History of socialism
- History of socialism in Great Britain
- Industrial revolution
- Information revolution
- Labour movement
- List of socialist songs
- List of socialist states
- Participatory economics
- Socialism in the United States
- Syndicalism
Notes
- ^ "Socialism" Merriam-Webster. Merriam Webster Online.
- ^ Marx, Karl, Communist Manifesto, Penguin (2002)
- ^ "Socialism" Encyclopædia Britannica. 2006. Encyclopædia Britannica Online.
- ^ "Market socialism," Dictionary of the Social Sciences. Craig Calhoun, ed. Oxford University Press 2002; and "Market socialism" The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics. Ed. Iain McLean and Alistair McMillan. Oxford University Press, 2003. See also Joseph Stiglitz, "Whither Socialism?" Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1995 for a recent analysis of the market socialism model of mid–20th century economists Oskar R. Lange, Abba P. Lerner, and Fred M. Taylor.
- ^ Encyclopedia Britannica, entry on Socialism
- ^ The Cambridge History of Iran Volume 3, The Seleucid, Parthian and Sasanian Period, edited by Ehsan Yarshater, Parts 1 and 2, p1019, Cambridge University Press (1983)
- ^ Morris, William, Dream of John Ball: A King's Lesson Project Gutenberg, accessed 11 July 2007
- ^ 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica "Gentleman" denotes Man of property, living from a landlord's income from land, or of capital: rent, dividend, et cetera.← unlike Eve and Adam, who toiled with no landlord to whom to pay rent and dues.
- ^ Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, Social Contract, p2, Penguin, (1968)
- ^ Leroux called socialism “the doctrine which would not give up any of the principles of Liberty, Equality, Fraternity” of the French Revolution of 1789. "Individualism and socialism" (1834)
- ^ Oxford English Dictionary, etymology of socialism
- ^ Russell, Bertrand (1972). A History of Western Philosophy. Touchstone. p. 781
- ^ Williams, Raymond (1976). Keywords: a vocabulary of culture and society. Fontana. 0006334792.
- ^ Engels, Frederick, Preface to the 1888 English Edition of the Communist Manifesto, p202. Penguin (2002)
- ^ MIA: Encyclopedia of Marxism: Glossary of Organisations, First International (International Workingmen’s Association), accessed 5 July 2007
- ^ The Second (Socialist) International 1889–1923 accessed 12 July 2007
- ^ Engels, 1895 Introduction to Marx's Class Struggles in France 1848–1850
- ^ cf Footnote 449 in Marx Engels Collected Works on Engels' 1895 Introduction to Marx's Class Struggles in France 1848–1850
- ^ In England, "Insurrection would be madness where peaceful agitation would more swiftly and surely do the work... But, mark me, as soon as it finds itself outvoted on what it considers vital questions, we shall see here a new slaveowners's war." Interview with Karl Marx, Head of L'Internationale, by R. Landor New York World, July 18, 1871.
- ^ Fischer, Ernst, Marx in his own words, p135, quoting from Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte
- ^ Lenin, Meeting of the Petrograd Soviet of workers and soldiers' deputies October 25, 1917, Collected works, Vol 26, p239. Lawrence and Wishart, (1964)
- ^ Lenin, Collected Works, Vol 26, pp. 264–5. Lawrence and Wishart (1964)
- ^ Caplan, Brian. "Lenin and the First Communist Revolutions, IV" (HTML). George Mason University. Retrieved 2008-02-14.
- ^ Payne, Robert; "The Life and Death of Lenin", Grafton: paperback pp. 425–440
- ^ Bertil, Hessel, Introduction, Theses, Resolutions and Manifestos of the first four congresses of the Third International, pxiii, Ink Links (1980)
- ^ "We have always proclaimed and repeated this elementary truth of marxism, that the victory of socialism requires the joint efforts of workers in a number of advanced countries." Lenin, Sochineniya (Works), 5th ed Vol XLIV p418, February 1922. (Quoted by Mosche Lewin in Lenin's Last Struggle, p4. Pluto (1975))
- ^ [http://www.soviethistory.org/index.php?action=L2&SubjectID=1924nepmen&Year=1924 Soviet history: NEPmen
- ^ Serge, Victor, From Lenin to Stalin, p55.
- ^ Serge, Victor, From Lenin to Stalin, p52.
- ^ Brinton, Maurice (1975). "The Bolsheviks and Workers' Control 1917–1921 : The State and Counter-revolution" (HTML). Solidarity. Retrieved 2007-01-22.
- ^ Bevan, Aneurin, In Place of Fear, p 63, p91
- ^ Bevan, Aneurin, In Place of Fear, p63
- ^ cf Beckett, Francis, Clem Attlee, Politico, 2007, p243. "Idleness" meant unemployment, and hence the starvation of the worker and his/her family. It was not then a pejorative term. Unemployment benefit, as well as national insurance and hence state pensions, were introduced by the 1945 Labour government.
- ^ Crosland, Anthony, The Future of Socialism, p52
- ^ Bevan, Aneurin, In Place of Fear p50, pp. 126–128, p21 MacGibbon and Kee, second edition (1961)
- ^ British Petroleum, privatised in 1987, was officially nationalised in 1951 according to government archives [1] with further government intervention during the 1974–79 Labour Government, cf 'The New Commanding Height: Labour Party Policy on North Sea Oil and Gas, 1964–74' in Contemporary British History, Volume 16, Issue 1 Spring 2002 , pages 89–118. Some elements of some of these entities were already in public hands. Later Labour renationalised steel (1967, British Steel) after it was denationalised by the Conservatives, and nationalised car production (1976, British Leyland), [2]. In 1977, major aircraft companies and shipbuilding were nationalised
- ^ The nationalization of public utilities included the CDF - Charbonnages de France; EDF - Électricité de France; GDF - Gaz de France, airlines (Air France), banks (Banque de France) and many other private companies like the Renault car factory (Régie Nationale des Usines Renault) [3].
- ^ Beckett, Francis, Clem Attlee, p247. Politico's (2007)
- ^ Crosland, Anthony, The Future of Socialism, p9, p89. Constable (2006)
- ^ a b Beckett, Francis, Clem Attlee, Politico, 2007, p243
- ^ Crosland, Anthony, The Future of Socialism p46. Constable (2006)
- ^ Socialist International - Progressive Politics For A Fairer World
- ^ R Goodin and P Pettit (eds), A to contemporary political philosophy
- ^ [http://www.labour.org.uk/labour_policies Labour Party Clause Four
- ^ Many Venezuelans Uncertain About Chavez' '21st century Socialism' , Voice of America, Washington 9 July 2007. Accessed 12 July 2007
- ^ Communist Party of Nepal'
- ^ Christofias wins Cyprus presidency'
- ^ Germany’s Left Party woos the SPD'
- ^ John Barkley Rosser and Marina V. Rosser, Comparative Economics in a Transforming World Economy (Cambridge, MA.: MIT Press, 2004).
- ^ For instance, in the biography of the 1945 Labour Party Prime Minister Clem Attlee, Beckett states "the government... wanted what would become known as a mixed economy". Beckett, Francis, Clem Attlee, (2007) Politico's. Beckett also makes the point that "Everyone called the 1945 government 'socialist'."
- ^ In the UK, British Aerospace was a combination of major aircraft companies British Aircraft Corporation, Hawker Siddeley and others. British Shipbuilders was a combination of the major shipbuilding companies including Cammell Laird, Govan Shipbuilders, Swan Hunter, and Yarrow Shipbuilders
- ^ Socialist Party of Great Britain (1985). The Strike Weapon: Lessons of the Miners’ Strike (PDF). London. Retrieved 2007-04-28.
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suggested) (help)CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - ^ Hardcastle, Edgar (1947). "The Nationalisation of the Railways". Socialist Standard. 43 (1). Socialist Party of Great Britain. Retrieved 2007-04-28.
- ^ Mattick, Paul. "Marx and Keynes: the limits of the mixed economy" (HTML). Retrieved 2007-04-28.
- ^ For more information on the cooperative economy, see Jaroslav Vanek, The Participatory Economy (Ithaca, NY.: Cornell University Press, 1971).
- ^ For more information on participatory economics, see Michael Albert and Robin Hahnel, The Political Economy of Participatory Economics (Princeton, NJ.: Princeton University Press, 1991).
- ^ Hayek, Friedrich (1994). The Road to Serfdom (50th anniversary ed. ed.). University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-32061-8.
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has extra text (help) - ^ Hans-Hermann Hoppe. A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism. Kluwer Academic Publishers. page 46 in PDF.
- ^ Alan O. Ebenstein. Friedrich Hayek: A Biography. (2003). University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0226181502 p.137
References and further reading
- Guy Ankerl, Beyond Monopoly Capitalism and Monopoly Socialism, Cambridge MA: Schenkman, 1978.
- Beckett, Francis, Clem Attlee, Politico's (2007) 978-1842751923
- G.D.H. Cole, History of Socialist Thought, in 7 volumes, Macmillan and St. Martin's Press, 1965; Palgrave Macmillan, 2003 reprint; 7 volumes, hardcover, 3160 pages, ISBN 1-4039-0264-X.
- Friedrich Engels, Socialism: Utopian and Scientific, Pathfinder; 2r.e. edition (December 1989) 978-0873485791
- Friedrich Engels, The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, Zurich, 1884. LCC HQ504 .E6
- Albert Fried and Ronald Sanders, eds., Socialist Thought: A Documentary History, Garden City, NY: Doubleday Anchor, 1964. LCCN 64-0 – 0.
- Phil Gasper, The Communist Manifesto: A Road Map to History's Most Important Political Document, Haymarket Books, paperback, 224 pages, 2005. ISBN 1-931859-25-6.
- Élie Halévy, Histoire du Socialisme Européen. Paris, Gallimard, 1948.
- Michael Harrington, Socialism, New York: Bantam, 1972. LCCN 76-0.
- Jesús Huerta de Soto, Socialismo, cálculo económico y función empresarial (Socialism, Economic Calculation, and Entrepreneurship), Unión Editorial, 1992. ISBN 84-7209-420-0.
- Makoto Itoh, Political Economy of Socialism. London: Macmillan, 1995. ISBN 0333553373.
- Kitching, Gavin (1983). Rethinking Socialism. Meuthen. ISBN 0416358403.
{{cite book}}
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(help) - Oskar Lange, On the Economic Theory of Socialism, Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1938. LCCN 38-0 – 0.
- Michael Lebowitz, Build It Now: Socialism for the 21st Century, Monthly Review Press, 2006. ISBN 1-58367-145-5.
- Marx, Engels, The Communist Manifesto, Penguin Classics (2002) 978-0140447576
- Marx, Engels, Selected works in one volume, Lawrence and Wishart (1968) 978-0853151814
- Ludwig von Mises, Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis [4], Liberty Fund, 1922. ISBN 0-913966-63-0.
- Joshua Muravchik, Heaven on Earth: The Rise and Fall of Socialism, San Francisco: Encounter Books, 2002. ISBN 1-893554-45-7.
- Michael Newman, Socialism: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford University Press, 2005. ISBN 0-19-280431-6.
- Bertell Ollman, ed., Market Socialism: The Debate among Socialists, Routledge, 1998. ISBN 0-415-91967-3.
- Leo Panitch, Renewing Socialism: Democracy, Strategy, and Imagination. ISBN 0-8133-9821-5.
- Emile Perreau-Saussine, What remains of socialism ?, in Patrick Riordan (dir.), Values in Public life: aspects of common goods (Berlin, LIT Verlag, 2007), pp. 11–34
- Richard Pipes, Property and Freedom, Vintage, 2000. ISBN 0-375-70447-7.
- John Barkley Rosser and Marina V. Rosser, Comparative Economics in a Transforming World Economy. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2004. ISBN 9780262182348.
- Maximilien Rubel and John Crump, Non-Market Socialism in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. ISBN 0-312-00524-5.
- David Selbourne, Against Socialist Illusion, London, 1985. ISBN 0-333-37095-3.
- James Weinstein, Long Detour: The History and Future of the American Left, Westview Press, 2003, hardcover, 272 pages. ISBN 0-8133-4104-3.
- Peter Wilberg, Deep Socialism: A New Manifesto of Marxist Ethics and Economics, 2003. ISBN 1-904519-02-4.
- Edmund Wilson, To the Finland Station: A Study in the Writing and Acting of History, Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1940. LCCN 4-0 – 00.
External links
- Resources on socialism
- In Defense of Marxism
- The Marxists Internet Archive (online library of Marxist writers)
- Reason in Revolt: Marxism and Modern Science By Alan Woods and Ted Grant
- Science, Marxism & the Big Bang: A Critical Review of Reason in Revolt by Peter Mason
- Marxist.net - a resource on socialist writers
- History of socialism at Spartacus Educational
- Modern History Sourcebook on socialism
- Socialist history at What Next?
- PBS' "Heaven on Earth: the Rise and Fall of Socialism"
- Towards a New Socialism by W. Paul Cockshott and Allin Cottrell
- "New Ideas of Socialism" by Luke Martell
- Katherine Verdery: Anthropology of Socialist Societies
- 21st Century Socialism web magazine
- Introductory articles
- "Why Socialism?" by Albert Einstein
- "Socialism: Utopian and Scientific" by Friedrich Engels
- "The Soul of Man under Socialism" by Oscar Wilde
- "What remains of Socialism" by Emile Perreau-Saussine
- "Socialism and Liberty" by George Bernard Shaw
- "The Two Souls of Socialsm" by Hal Draper
- "Approaching Socialism" by Harry Magdoff and Fred Magdoff
- Socialism website
- The Counterhegemonic Blogspot Socialism in Action
- Critical appraisals
- "Socialism", by Robert Heilbroner
- "Socialism" Economic Policy 2nd Lecture, by Ludwig von Mises
- "The Intellectuals and Socialism", by Friedrich A. Hayek
- "A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism", by Hans-Hermann Hoppe
- Lecture XXXV "A Philosophy of Life" includes a critique of marxist socialism by Sigmund Freud
- "State socialism and anarchism" by Benjamin Tucker
- "Towards a New Socialism?" Review Essay by Len Brewster
- Socialism/Antisocialism A survey and a critical appraisal