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Socialism



Clement Attlee, UK Prime Minister in the Labour Party government of 1945–51
Clement Attlee, UK Prime Minister in the Labour Party government of 1945–51

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."[32] 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 1945, 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,[33] 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?"[34]

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[31]

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.[35] France claimed to be the most state controlled capitalist country in the world, carrying through many nationalisations[36]

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".[37]

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.[38] 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.[39] Nevertheless, Anthony Crosland argued that capitalism had been ended, stating, "To the question 'Is this still capitalism?' I would answer 'No.'"[40] 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."[41] 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."[42]

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."[43] Cabinet minister Herbert Morrison famously argued that, "Socialism is what the Labour government does,".[39]

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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."[44]

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.[45] 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%.[46] The Left Party in Germany has also grown in popularity.[47]

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Socialism as an economic system

See also: Socialist economics

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.[48]

In western Europe, particularly in the period after World War II, many socialist parties in government implemented what became known as mixed economies.[49] 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.[50] 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.[51][52]

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).[53] 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.[54] 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.[55] 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 Recently socialists have also been working with the Technocracy movement to promote such concepts as Energy Accounting.[citation needed]

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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.

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Criticisms of socialism

Main article: 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.[56][57]

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, in which Attlee's Labour Party won in a landslide victory, 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.[58]

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See also

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Notes

  1. ^ "Socialism" Encyclopædia Britannica. 2006. Encyclopædia Britannica Online.
  2. ^ Marx, Karl, Communist Manifesto, Penguin (2002)
  3. ^ "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.
  4. ^ Encyclopedia Britannica, entry on Socialism
  5. ^ 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)
  6. ^ Morris, William, Dream of John Ball: A King's Lesson Project Gutenberg, accessed 11 July 2007
  7. ^ 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica "Gentleman" here means man of property, i.e. one who can earn a living from the income gained by the ownership of land or capital, in terms of rent or dividend, etc.← as distinct from the biblical condition of Eve and Adam, who toiled but had no landlord to whom to pay rent or other dues.
  8. ^ Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, Social Contract, p2, Penguin, (1968)
  9. ^ 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)
  10. ^ Oxford English Dictionary, etymology of socialism
  11. ^ Williams, Raymond (1976). Keywords: a vocabulary of culture and society. Fontana. 0006334792. 
  12. ^ Engels, Frederick, Preface to the 1888 English Edition of the Communist Manifesto, p202. Penguin (2002)
  13. ^ MIA: Encyclopedia of Marxism: Glossary of Organisations, First International (International Workingmen’s Association), accessed 5 July 2007
  14. ^ The Second (Socialist) International 1889–1923 accessed 12 July 2007
  15. ^ Engels, 1895 Introduction to Marx's Class Struggles in France 1848–1850
  16. ^ cf Footnote 449 in Marx Engels Collected Works on Engels' 1895 Introduction to Marx's Class Struggles in France 1848–1850
  17. ^ 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.
  18. ^ Fischer, Ernst, Marx in his own words, p135, quoting from Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte
  19. ^ Lenin, Meeting of the Petrograd Soviet of workers and soldiers' deputies October 25, 1917, Collected works, Vol 26, p239. Lawrence and Wishart, (1964)
  20. ^ Lenin, Collected Works, Vol 26, pp. 264–5. Lawrence and Wishart (1964)
  21. ^ Caplan, Brian. Lenin and the First Communist Revolutions, IV (HTML). George Mason University. Retrieved on 2008-02-14.
  22. ^ Payne, Robert; "The Life and Death of Lenin", Grafton: paperback pp. 425–440
  23. ^ Bertil, Hessel, Introduction, Theses, Resolutions and Manifestos of the first four congresses of the Third International, pxiii, Ink Links (1980)
  24. ^ "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))
  25. ^ [http://www.soviethistory.org/index.php?action=L2&SubjectID=1924nepmen&Year=1924 Soviet history: NEPmen
  26. ^ Serge, Victor, From Lenin to Stalin, p55.
  27. ^ Serge, Victor, From Lenin to Stalin, p52.
  28. ^ Brinton, Maurice (1975). The Bolsheviks and Workers' Control 1917–1921 : The State and Counter-revolution (HTML). Solidarity. Retrieved on 2007-01-22.
  29. ^ Bevan, Aneurin, In Place of Fear, p 63, p91
  30. ^ Bevan, Aneurin, In Place of Fear, p63
  31. ^ a b The Frankfurt Declaration
  32. ^ 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.
  33. ^ Crosland, Anthony, The Future of Socialism, p52
  34. ^ Bevan, Aneurin, In Place of Fear p50, pp. 126–128, p21 MacGibbon and Kee, second edition (1961)
  35. ^ 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
  36. ^ 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].
  37. ^ Beckett, Francis, Clem Attlee, p247. Politico's (2007)
  38. ^ Crosland, Anthony, The Future of Socialism, p9, p89. Constable (2006)
  39. ^ a b Beckett, Francis, Clem Attlee, Politico, 2007, p243
  40. ^ Crosland, Anthony, The Future of Socialism p46. Constable (2006)
  41. ^ Socialist International - Progressive Politics For A Fairer World
  42. ^ R Goodin and P Pettit (eds), A to contemporary political philosophy
  43. ^ [http://www.labour.org.uk/labour_policies Labour Party Clause Four
  44. ^ Many Venezuelans Uncertain About Chavez' '21st century Socialism' , Voice of America, Washington 9 July 2007. Accessed 12 July 2007
  45. ^ Communist Party of Nepal'
  46. ^ Christofias wins Cyprus presidency'
  47. ^ Germany’s Left Party woos the SPD'
  48. ^ John Barkley Rosser and Marina V. Rosser, Comparative Economics in a Transforming World Economy (Cambridge, MA.: MIT Press, 2004).
  49. ^ 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'."
  50. ^ 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
  51. ^ Socialist Party of Great Britain (1985). The Strike Weapon: Lessons of the Miners’ Strike (PDF) (in English). Retrieved on 2007-04-28. 
  52. ^ Hardcastle, Edgar (1947). "The Nationalisation of the Railways". Socialist Standard 43 (1). Socialist Party of Great Britain. 
  53. ^ Mattick, Paul. Marx and Keynes: the limits of the mixed economy (HTML) (English). Retrieved on 2007-04-28.
  54. ^ For more information on the cooperative economy, see Jaroslav Vanek, The Participatory Economy (Ithaca, NY.: Cornell University Press, 1971).
  55. ^ For more information on participatory economics, see Michael Albert and Robin Hahnel, The Political Economy of Participatory Economics (Princeton, NJ.: Princeton University Press, 1991).
  56. ^ Hayek, Friedrich (1994). The Road to Serfdom, 50th anniversary ed., University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-32061-8. 
  57. ^ Hans-Hermann Hoppe. A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism. Kluwer Academic Publishers. page 46 in PDF.
  58. ^ Alan O. Ebenstein. Friedrich Hayek: A Biography. (2003). University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0226181502 p.137

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References and further reading

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