Socialism - Misplaced Pages

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Eirik (usurped) (talk | contribs) at 04:40, 8 May 2003 (typo). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Revision as of 04:40, 8 May 2003 by Eirik (usurped) (talk | contribs) (typo)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)

Socialism is a term with conflicting definitions. Among liberals in the USA and Social Democrats throughout western Europe it generally denotes an utopia where the view that the state is responsible for effecting an even or more equitable distribution of wealth and for taking control of all or some of the means of production and distribution of resources in an economy. It is seen as a successor to capitalism, as both an economy and an ideology.

In Marxism, it is a stage of history and class structure in which power has passed to the peasant and the proletariat. Karl Marx specifically focused on control of the means of production, which he saw as passing from monarchs under feudalism, to bourgeois professionals and an upper-middle-class facilitating capitalists under capitalism, and then to the workers themselves, whose contributions he saw as under-valued.

Those calling themselves socialists can be divided into at least three main categories which all have different definitions for socialism: Social democrats in countries where no negative connotation for the word socialism exists (e.g. France), Dictatorships or One-party-states of countries like Cuba, China and North Korea who choose to call themselves socialists, and groups, often operating at grass-root level just about all over the world. The members of the last group usually call themselves communists in countries where social-democrats call themselves socialists (France) and anarchists where the current or former dictatorial regime calls itself socialist (such as Eastern Europe). In addition, the groups usually call themselves anarchists in the USA, although the USA hasn't ever had a regime calling itself socialist or communist.

An example of the last group would be the official ideology of the People's Republic of China. According to it China is currently in the primary stage of socialism. However, unlike Grass-root level definitions of socialism, this definition does not exclude or encourage state policies regarding distribution of wealth, and hence Chinese economic reform allows for policies which most grass-root activists would regard as capitalistic.

In the view of the Social Democrats, socialism can only exist in combination with democracy. Hence, they don't consider China socialistic, since the level of democracy has not been developed very far.

Socialism and communism

Extreme forms of socialism are commonly called communism, though philosophers (particularly Marxist philosophers) reserve that to mean the final, stateless, market-less, moneyless, and wage-less stage in the supposed progression of a socialist society operating according to the principle of universal free access to goods and services and volunteer labour. There are also mixed governmental forms sometimes called "socialism" or more accurately, state capitalism; while many who support these forms are happy being called socialists, others consider themselves to be, not socialists, but moderate capitalists. Communism is at one extreme, and at the other are those who wish to permit some amount of (moderately regulated) private enterprise and are called, for example in Germany, Social Democrats. Indeed, there have been dozens of different terms for different kinds of socialism.

Socialism and capitalism

In the view of Social Democrats and some of the Dictatorship Socialists there is a continuum from pure capitalism to pure socialism. The point on the continuum where "socialism" becomes "capitalism" often varies, in the opinion of different socialist groups. Some who support a mixed economy are happy to be called socialists, while others who support a mixed economy would rather be called moderate capitalists. This is especially the case in the United States and some other countries, where the word "socialism" has extremely negative connotations it does not have in other parts of the world. (Asking whether a supporter of a mixed economy is a moderate capitalist or a moderate socialist is like asking "is the glass half empty or half full?")

Support for a mixed economy can come from the socialist tradition; but it can also be derived from other points of views, e.g. Keynesianism. This is often not so much as a difference of policy, as a difference of political origins or means used to defend a viewpoint. Increasingly the socialist and liberal (in the American sense) traditions are merging, and so it increasingly makes little sense to distinguish socialist and non-socialist support for a mixed economy.

In addition to the Social Democrats parties of mainland Europe the Irish Labour Party, Britain's Labour Party, and the Social Democratic and Labour Party of Northern Ireland all are (or originated as) democratic socialist parties.

It is questionable whether there are any purely laissez faire capitalist, as opposed to mixed, economies in the world today. Even the United States, which is often considered much closer to pure capitalism than most of the world's other mixed economies, has many state capitalist institutions, such as

The cornerstone beliefs of communism, which stem from Karl Marx, are based around the notion that a capitalist society is a class society.

Mainstream British and European democratic socialists do not consider their beliefs to stem from Karl Marx, instead they promote a mixed economy where capitalist enterprises operate side by side with government enterprises and regulation. The goal of such government activity is to counteract the tendency of pure capitalism to produce income and wealth inequalities.

In America socialism had its beginnings in 1888 with the publication of Looking Backwards by Edward Bellamy. In the years that followed, hundreds of Bellamy clubs sprung up to implement his vision for a socialist society. Bellamy argued persuasively in his later book Equality (1897) that without socialism, the promises of the founding fathers of pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness were impossible to carry out, and democracy was a sham. In 1905 the Industrial Workers of the World was founded by Eugene Debs and had a huge impact. Later, the word "socialism" became more widely used to cover not only the revolutionary communist notion of a transitory state, but the more reformist social democratic tradition typified by parties such as the British Labour party. These parties felt that gradual reform within the democratic structures could also provide improvements in the circumstances of the working class. These parties typically support tax-funded services such as public education and infrastructure projects (which may parallel the Keynesian notion that large scale public spending can be used to "restart" an economy in recession), as well as measures such as welfare payments and medical care, which are considered to be controversial in some countries and among some people.

This form of democratic socialism grew during the first part of the 20th century, particularly after the depredations of World War II. It was at the height of its power in Europe in the 1960s. Since this time it has undergone a number of changes. The philosophies of many of the social democratic parties overlap or have become indistinguishable from the American liberal tradition which suggests that social reform and improvement in the conditions of the working class can take place despite, or even helped by, the presence of an active capitalist economy.