(Redirected from Socialist)
'Socialism'
refers to a broad array of doctrines or political movements that envisage a
socio-economic system in which property and the distribution of wealth are subject to control by the community
[1] for the purposes of increasing social and economic equality and cooperation. This control may be either direct—exercised through popular collectives such as
workers' councils—or indirect—exercised on behalf of the people by the state. As an
economic system, socialism is often characterized by
state or community ownership of the
means of production.
The modern socialist movement had its origin largely in the
working class movement of the late-
19th century. In this period, the term "socialism" was first used in connection with European social critics who criticized
capitalism and
private property. For
Karl Marx, who helped establish and define the modern socialist movement, socialism would be the socioeconomic system that arises after the proletarian revolution where the means of production are owned collectively. This society would then progress into
communism.
A diverse array of doctrines and movements have been referred to as "socialist." Since the 19th century, socialists have not agreed on a common doctrine or program. The various adherents of socialist movements are split into differing and sometimes opposing branches, particularly between
reformist socialists and
communists.
Since the 19th century, socialists have differed in their vision of socialism as a system of economic organization. Some socialists have championed the complete
nationalization of the means of production, while
social democrats have proposed selective nationalization of key industries within the framework of
mixed economies. Some
Marxists, including those inspired by the
Soviet model of economic development, have advocated the creation of
centrally planned economies directed by a state that owns all the means of production. Others, including Communists in
Yugoslavia and
Hungary in the 1970s and 1980s,
Chinese Communists since the
reform era, and some Western economists, have proposed various forms of
market socialism, attempting to reconcile the presumed advantages of cooperative or state ownership of the means of production with letting
market forces, rather than central planners, guide
production and
exchange.
[2] Anarcho-syndicalists and some elements of the U.S.
New Left favor decentralized collective ownership in the form of
cooperatives or workers' councils. Others may advocate different arrangements.
The
Socialist International, the affiliate body for most of the world's social democratic parties, such as the
Socialist Party of France, describes socialism as "an international movement for freedom, social justice and solidarity"
[3]
Historical precedents
In the history of political thought, certain elements of a socialist or communist outlook long predate the socialism that emerged in the first half of the 19th Century. For instance,
Plato's ''
Republic'' and
Thomas More's ''
Utopia'' have been cited.
[4] The 5th century
Mazdak movement in what is now Iran has been described as "communistic" for challenging the enormous privileges of the noble classes and the clergy and striving for an egalitarian society.
[5] William Morris considered that
John Ball, one of the leaders of the
Peasants' Revolt in England in 1381, was the first socialist.
[6] John Ball is credited with the famous saying:
During the
English Civil War in the mid 17th Century, movements identified with the socialist tradition include the
levellers and the
diggers, the latter believing that land should be held in common.
During the 18th-century
Enlightenment, criticism of inequality appeared in the work of political theorists such as
Jean Jacques Rousseau in France, whose ''Social Contract'' famously began, "Man is born free, and he is everywhere in chains."
[7] Following the
French Revolution of 1789,
François Noël Babeuf espoused the goals of common ownership of land and total economic and political equality among citizens.
Origins of socialism
The appearance of the term "socialism" is variously attributed to
Pierre Leroux in 1834,
[8] or to
Marie Roch Louis Reybaud in France, or else in England to
Robert Owen, who is considered the father of the
cooperative movement.
[9]
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.
[10]
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.
[11]
Saint-Simon
Saint Simon, who is called the founder of French socialism, argued that a brotherhood of man must accompany the scientific organization of industry and society. He proposed that production and distribution be carried out by the state, and that allowing everyone to have equal opportunity to develop their talents would lead to social harmony, and the state could be virtually eliminated. "Rule over men would be replaced by the administration of things."
[12]
Robert Owen
Robert Owen advocated the transformation of society into small, local collectives without such elaborate systems of social organization. Owen was a mill manager from 1800-1825. He transformed life in the village of New Lanark with ideas and opportunities which were at least a hundred years ahead of their time. Child labour and corporal punishment were abolished, and villagers were provided with decent homes, schools and evening classes, free health care, and affordable food.
[13]
The UK government's Factory Act of 1833 attempted to reduce the hours adults and children worked in the textile industry. A fifteen hour working day was to start at 5.30 a.m. and cease at 8.30 p.m. Children of nine to thirteen years could be worked no more than 9 hours, and those of a younger age were prohibited. There were, however, only four factory inspectors, and this law was broken by the factory owners.
[14] In the same year Owen stated:
In a ''Paper Dedicated to the Governments of Great Britain, Austria, Russia, France, Prussia and the United States of America'' written in 1841, Owen wrote: "The lowest stage of humanity is experienced when the individual must labour for a small pittance of wages from others."
[15]
Proudhon
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon pronounced that "Property is theft" and that socialism was "every aspiration towards the amelioration of society". Proudhon termed himself an anarchist and proposed that free association of individuals should replace the coercive state.
[16][17] Proudhon,
Benjamin Tucker, and others developed these ideas in a free-market direction, while Mikhail Bakunin, Piotr Kropotkin, and others adapted Proudhon's ideas in a more conventionally socialist direction.
In a letter to Marx in 1846, Proudhon wrote:
Bakunin
Bakunin
, the father of modern anarchism, was a
libertarian socialist, a theory by which the workers would directly manage the means of production through their own productive associations. There would be "equal means of subsistence, support, education, and opportunity for every child, boy or girl, until maturity, and equal resources and facilities in adulthood to create his own well-being by his own labor."
[18]
While many socialists emphasized the gradual transformation of society, most notably through the foundation of small, utopian communities, a growing number of socialists became disillusioned with the viability of this approach and instead emphasized direct political action. Early socialists were united, however, in their desire for a society based on cooperation rather than competition.
Marxism and the socialist movement
Karl Marx
In 1848,
Karl Marx and
Frederick Engels published the
Communist Manifesto. Marx and Engels drew from the socialist or communist ideas born in the
French Revolution of 1789, the German philosophy of
GWF Hegel, and English political economy, particularly that of
Adam Smith and
David Ricardo. Marx and Engels developed a body of ideas which they called
scientific socialism, more commonly called
Marxism.
The
Communist Manifesto says "The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles"
[19] and famously declared that the working class would be the "grave digger" of the capitalist class.
Marx and Engels distinguished their scientific socialism from what they termed the
utopian socialism of some other socialist trends. For
Marxists, socialism or, as Marx termed it, the first phase of communist society, can be viewed as a transitional stage characterized by common or state ownership of the
means of production under democratic workers' control and management, which Engels argued was beginning to be realised in the
Paris Commune of 1871, before it was overthrown.
[20] They see this stage in history as a transition between
capitalism and the "higher phase of communist society" in which human beings no longer suffer from alienation and "all the springs of co-operative wealth flow more abundantly." Here "society inscribe[s] on its banners: From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!"
[21] For Marx, a communist society entails the absence of differing
social classes and thus the end of class warfare. According to Marx and Engels, once a socialist society had been ushered in, the state would begin to "wither away",
[22] and humanity would be in control of its own destiny for the first time.
[23]
Marx and Engels argued that capitalism "compels all nations, on pain of extinction, to adopt the bourgeois mode of production"
[24] and raised the seminal call, "Proletarians of all countries, unite".
[25]
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.
[26] 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.
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.
Paris Commune
In 1871, in the wake of the
Franco-Prussian War, an uprising in Paris established the
Paris Commune. According to Marx and Engels, for a few weeks the Paris Commune provided a glimpse of a socialist society, before it was brutally suppressed by the French government.
In the Paris Commune, large-scale industry was to be "based on the association of the workers" joined into "one great union", all posts in government were elected by universal franchise, elected officials took only the average worker's wage and were subject to recall. For Engels, this was what the
dictatorship of the proletariat looked like (as opposed to the "dictatorship of the bourgeoisie", which was capitalism). Engels goes on to state: "In reality, however, the state is nothing but a machine for the oppression of one class by another, and indeed in the democratic republic no less than in the monarchy; and at best an evil inherited by the proletariat after its victorious struggle for class supremacy", and a new generation of socialists, "reared in new and free social conditions, will be able to throw the entire lumber of the state on the scrap-heap".
[27]
After the Paris Commune, the differences between supporters of Marx and Engels and those of
Bakunin were too great to bridge. The
anarchist section of the First International was expelled from the International at the 1872
Hague Congress and they went on to form the
Jura federation. The First International was disbanded in 1876.
The Second International
As the ideas of Marx and Engels took on flesh, particularly in central Europe, socialists sought to unite in an international organisation. 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.
[28] It was termed the "Socialist International" and Engels was elected honorary president at the third congress in 1893.
Just before his death in 1895, Engels argued that there was now a "single generally recognised, 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.
[29] 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.
[30]
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.
[31] 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 organisation, 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 so
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