Monday, 09 de February de 2009
Socialism 2
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%.[44] The Left Party in Germany has also grown in popularity.[45]

African socialism continues to be a major ideology around the continent. The People's Republic of China, Cuba, North Korea, Laos and Vietnam are states remaining from the first wave of socialism in the 20th century.

[edit] Economics

See also: Socialist economics

Economically, socialism denotes an economic system of state ownership and/or worker ownership of the means of production and distribution. In the economy of the Soviet Union, state ownership of the means of production was combined with central planning, in relation to which goods and services to make and provide, how they were to be produced, the quantities, and the sale prices. Soviet economic planning was an alternative to allowing the market (supply and demand) to determine prices and production. During the Great Depression, many socialists considered Soviet-style planned economies the remedy to capitalism's inherent flaws – monopoly, business cycles, unemployment, unequally distributed wealth, and the economic exploitation of workers.

In the West, neoclassical liberal economists such as Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman said that socialist planned economies would fail, because planners could not have the business information inherent to a market economy (cf. economic calculation problem), nor would managers in Soviet-style socialist economies match the motivation of profit. Consequent to Soviet economic stagnation in the 1970s and 1980s, socialists began to accept parts of their critique. Polish economist Oskar Lange, an early proponent of market socialism, proposed a central planning board establishing prices and controls of investment. 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.[46]

In western Europe, particularly in the period after World War II, many socialist parties in government implemented what became known as mixed economies. In the biography of the 1945 Labour Party Prime Minister Clem Attlee, Francis Beckett states: "the government... wanted what would become known as a mixed economy".[47] Beckett also states that "Everyone called the 1945 government 'socialist'." 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.

Also 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 Typically, this was achieved through compulsory purchase of the industry (i.e. with compensation). 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.[48][49]

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.[50] 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.[51] Some Marxists and anarcho-communists also propose a worker-managed economy based on workers councils, however 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]

[edit] Social and political theory

"Socialism cannot exist without a change in consciousness resulting in a new fraternal attitude toward humanity, both at an individual level, within the societies where socialism is being built or has been built, and on a world scale, with regard to all peoples suffering from imperialist oppression."

— Che Guevara, Marxist revolutionary, 1965 [52]

Marxist and non-Marxist social theorists agree that socialism developed in reaction to modern industrial capitalism, but disagree on the nature of their relationship. Émile Durkheim posits that socialism is rooted in the desire to bring the state closer to the realm of individual activity, in countering the anomie of a capitalist society. In socialism, Max Weber saw acceleration of the rationalization started in capitalism. As critic of socialism, he warned that placing the economy entirely in the state's bureaucratic control would result in an "iron cage of future bondage".

In the middle of the twentieth century, socialist intellectuals retained much influence in European philosophy; Eros and Civilization (1955), by Herbert Marcuse, explicitly attempts to merge Marxism with Freudianism. The social science of structuralism much influenced the socialist New Left in the 1960s and the 1970s.

[edit] Criticism

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 there is debate over 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, because of the impossibility of rational pricing of capital goods in a socialist economy since the state is the only owner of the capital goods. 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.[53][54]

Hayek's views were echoed by Winston Churchill in an electoral broadcast prior to the British general election of 1945:

. . . 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.[55]

This statement was challenged the next day by the Labour Party candidate, Clement Attlee, who went on to win the election.[56][57][58][59][60]

[edit] See also

Sister project Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Socialism

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ a b Newman, Michael. (2005) Socialism: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-280431-6
  2. ^ "Socialism" Merriam-Webster. Merriam Webster Online.
  3. ^ Marx, Karl, Communist Manifesto, Penguin (2002)
  4. ^ "Socialism" Encyclopedia Britannica. 2006. Encyclopædia Britannica Online.
  5. ^ Frank E. Smitha, Adam Smith, Socialists and Liberals (2003)
  6. ^ [1]. MacroHistory: World History.
  7. ^ "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.
  8. ^ Leroux: socialism is “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)
  9. ^ Oxford English Dictionary, etymology of socialism
  10. ^ Russell, Bertrand (1972). A History of Western Philosophy. Touchstone. p. 781
  11. ^ Williams, Raymond (1976). Keywords: a vocabulary of culture and society. Fontana. ISBN 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. ^ Lenin, Meeting of the Petrograd Soviet of workers and soldiers' deputies 25 October 1917, Collected works, Vol 26, p239. Lawrence and Wishart, (1964)
  18. ^ Lenin, Collected Works, Vol 26, pp. 264–5. Lawrence and Wishart (1964)
  19. ^ Caplan, Brian. "Lenin and the First Communist Revolutions, IV" (HTML). George Mason University. http://www.gmu.edu/departments/economics/bcaplan/museum/his1d.htm. Retrieved on 2008-02-14. 
  20. ^ Payne, Robert; "The Life and Death of Lenin", Grafton: paperback pp. 425–440
  21. ^ Bertil, Hessel, Introduction, Theses, Resolutions and Manifestos of the first four congresses of the Third International, pxiii, Ink Links (1980)
  22. ^ "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 p. 418, Feb 1922. (Quoted by Mosche Lewin in Lenin's Last Struggle, p. 4. Pluto (1975))
  23. ^ Soviet history: NEPmen
  24. ^ Serge, Victor, From Lenin to Stalin, p. 55.
  25. ^ Serge, Victor, From Lenin to Stalin, p. 52.
  26. ^ Brinton, Maurice (1975). "The Bolsheviks and Workers' Control 1917–1921 : The State and Counter-revolution" (HTML). Solidarity. http://www.spunk.org/texts/places/russia/sp001861/bolintro.html. Retrieved on 2007-01-22. 
  27. ^ Bevan, Aneurin, In Place of Fear, p 63, p91
  28. ^ a b The Frankfurt Declaration
  29. ^ Bevan, Aneurin, In Place of Fear, p63
  30. ^ 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.
  31. ^ Crosland, Anthony, The Future of Socialism, p52
  32. ^ Bevan, Aneurin, In Place of Fear p.50, pp.126–128, p.21 MacGibbon and Kee, second edition (1961)
  33. ^ British Petroleum, privatized in 1987, was officially nationalised in 1951 per government archives [2] with further government intervention during the 1974–79 Labour Government, cf 'The New Commanding Height: Labor Party Policy on North Sea Oil and Gas, 1964–74' in Contemporary British History, Volume 16, Issue 1 Spring 2002 , pages 89–118. Elements of these entities already were in public hands. Later Labour re-nationalised steel (1967, British Steel) after Conservatives de-nationalized it, and nationalized car production (1976, British Leyland), [3]. In 1977, major aircraft companies and shipbuilding were nationalised
  34. ^ The nationalized public utilities include CDF (Charbonnages de France), EDF (Électricité de France), GDF (Gaz de France), airlines (Air France), banks (Banque de France), and Renault (Régie Nationale des Usines Renault) [4].
  35. ^ Beckett, Francis, Clem Attlee, p247. Politico's (2007)
  36. ^ Crosland, Anthony, The Future of Socialism, pp.9, 89. Constable (2006)
  37. ^ a b Beckett, Francis, Clem Attlee, Politico, 2007, p243
  38. ^ Crosland, Anthony, The Future of Socialism p46. Constable (2006)
  39. ^ Socialist International - Progressive Politics For A Fairer World
  40. ^ R Goodin and P Pettit (eds), A to contemporary political philosophy
  41. ^ Labour Party Clause Four
  42. ^ Many Venezuelans Uncertain About Chavez' '21st century Socialism' , Voice of America, Washington 9 July 2007. Accessed 12 July 2007
  43. ^ Communist Party of Nepal'
  44. ^ Christofias wins Cyprus presidency'
  45. ^ Germany’s Left Party woos the SPD'
  46. ^ John Barkley Rosser and Marina V. Rosser, Comparative Economics in a Transforming World Economy (Cambridge, MA.: MIT Press, 2004).
  47. ^ Beckett, Francis, Clem Attlee, (2007) Politico's.
  48. ^ Socialist Party of Great Britain (1985) (PDF). The Strike Weapon: Lessons of the Miners’ Strike. London: Socialist Party of Great Britain. http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/pdf/ms.pdf. Retrieved on 2007-04-28. 
  49. ^ Hardcastle, Edgar (1947). "The Nationalisation of the Railways". Socialist Standard (Socialist Party of Great Britain) 43 (1). http://www.marxists.org/archive/hardcastle/1947/02/railways.htm. Retrieved on 28 April 2007. 
  50. ^ Vanek, Jaroslav, The Participatory Economy (Ithaca, NY.: Cornell University Press, 1971).
  51. ^ Michael Albert and Robin Hahnel, The Political Economy of Participatory Economics (Princeton, NJ.: Princeton University Press, 1991).
  52. ^ "At the Afro-Asian Conference in Algeria" speech by Che Guevara to the Second Economic Seminar of Afro-Asian Solidarity in Algiers, Algeria on February 24 1965
  53. ^ Hayek, Friedrich (1994). The Road to Serfdom (50th anniversary ed.). University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-32061-8. 
  54. ^ Hans-Hermann Hoppe. A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism. Kluwer Academic Publishers. page 46 in PDF.
  55. ^ Alan O. Ebenstein. Friedrich Hayek: A Biography. (2003). University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0226181502 p.137
  56. ^ Morgan, Kenneth (1984). Labour in power, 1945-1951. Oxford: Clarendon Press. p. 39. 
  57. ^ Harris, Kenneth (1983). Attlee (1st American ed.). New York: Norton. p. 257-258. 
  58. ^ Spartacus Educational, The 1945 General Election
  59. ^ The Listener magazine, 14 June 1945.
  60. ^ Williams, Francis (1949). Fifty years' march; the rise of the Labour Party. London: Odhams Press. p. 358. 

[edit] References and further reading

[edit] External links

Introductory articles

Tags: socialism, working, Marx, revolution, capitalism, society, capital

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