Socialism

Socialism defined as a centrally planned economy in which the government controls all means of production—was the tragic failure of the twentieth century. Born of a commitment to remedy the economic and moral defects of CAPITALISM, it has far surpassed capitalism in both economic malfunction and moral cruelty. Yet the idea and the ideal of socialism linger on. Whether socialism in some form will eventually return as a major organizing force in human affairs is unknown, but no one can accurately appraise its  prospects who has not taken into account the dramatic story of its rise and fall.

The term socialism is derived from the word from the word socious which means society. Socialism prior concern is society and the injustice of the capitalist system that has inspired its origin. It is aeration against social and economic anarchy which the capitalist system has had produced. It is revolt against the exploitation of man by man and of child in field, factory, mine and workshop. It is challenge to society divided into two halves or classes-haves or have not and dragged mankind into perpetual conflicts and wars. Socialism has spread worldwide and emerged many school of socialism and each school has its own name and advocated its own point of view such as Fabianism in Britain, Syndicalism in France, Guild socialism in Britain. Socialism emerged as a political movement of class which aims to abolish exploitation of capitalism by using tools of the collective ownership and democratic management relied on instrument of production and distribution. It pays attention at securing an economic objective of any country. Socialism is the organization of workers which promotes the conquest of worker class, provide them political power so as to transform capitalist property into social prosperity. Socialism consider society as a whole and promotes the general well-being for all.

History of Socialism

Thomas More coined the term "utopia" in 1515 in his treatise titled "Utopia," but utopian imaginings began long before his. Platodescribed a similar environment when he wrote the philosophical work "Republic" in 360 B.C. In 1627, Francis Bacon's "New Atlantis" advocated a more scientific approach, rooted in the scientific method. Bacon envisioned a research-institute-like society where inhabitants studied science in an effort to create a harmonious environment through their accumulation of knowledge. In addition to these landmark works, more than 40 utopian-themed novels were published from 1700 to 1850, cementing its status as a very popular ideal [source: Foner]. Because many social injustices -- such as slaveryand oppression -- were running rampant, the theme was quite popular among embittered and dispirited populations.

While a French revolutionary named François Noël Babeuf is credited with the idea of doing away with private property to create equality and is often considered the first socialist, the concept wasn't popularized until the late 1700s, when the Industrial Revolutioncaused some drastic changes around the world.

The revolution marked a shift from agricultural societies to modern industries, in which tools were eschewed in favor of cutting-edge machinery. Factories and railways sprung up, resulting in tremendous wealth for the owners of these industries. While they profited from these changes, workers were thrown into sudden poverty due to a lack of jobs as machines began to replace human labor. Many people feared that this discrepancy in income would continue to spread, making the rich richer and the poor poorer.

This fear created unrest among the working class. Poor housing, coupled with bad working conditions and slave labor (which was still rampant in the United States and other countries), contributed to the desire for a more equal society. As a result, socialist ideals quickly became popular among the impoverished workers. Communes such as Brook Farm and New Harmony began popping up in the United States and Europe. These small communities abided by socialist principles and worked to avoid the class struggles that controlled the rest of the world. New Harmony was considered a center of scientific thought and boasted the United States' first free library, public school and kindergarten.

Despite the presence of small communes and the spread of socialist thought, socialism remained largely an idea, rather than reality. Soviet dictator Vladimir Ilyich Lenin was the first leader to put socialism to the test. Though he was a communist (a branch of socialism that used militant action to overthrow the upper class and government to achieve a utopian society), Lenin implemented many socialist initiatives in the Soviet Union after his takeover in 1917. These included forced nationalization of industry and collectivization of agriculture. Lenin's programs were not profitable, and he eventually resorted to a mixed economy. Communism is sometimes referred to as revolutionary socialism for its aggressive tactics. Although there are fundamental differences between the two theories, communism and socialism both aim to eliminate class struggles by encouraging government or state control of production and distribution.

The post-World War I era saw a rise in democratic socialism in Europe. Socialist parties became active in the governments of Germany, Sweden, the Netherlands, Belgium and Great Britain. Socialism also became popular in portions of Africa, Latin America and Asia

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Forms of Socialism- There are different forms of socialism which are given below.

Utopian Socialism

Dreamers who have sought to improve our imperfect world are scattered across the pages of history. Sir Thomas More (1478--1535), a Catholic saint and martyr who served as an advisor to England's Henry VIII, was one such dreamer. More's famous book Utopia borrowed a Greek word meaning "no place." Today, utopian commonly refers to unrealistic ideals. More blamed poverty, waste, and avarice on private property, and proposed the creation of "Utopia," where everyone would share everything.

Utopian socialism is the idea that collective ownership eliminates greed and promotes personal growth, cultural enrichment, and democracy.

People would work for the common good in jobs of their choice. Prices would be superfluous, because there would be as much joy from giving as from receiving; supplying and demanding would be equally satisfying.

More's ideas were largely ignored until early in the nineteenth century, when social ferment and the prospect of revolution swept Europe. Utopian socialism bloomed. Prominent utopians of this period included the French philosopher Charles Fourier (1772--1837) and the philanthropist Robert Owen (1771--1858). Owen, though born into poverty, became wealthy as a Scottish cotton-mill owner while still in his twenties. Infatuated with the utopian vision, he financed several self-contained, communally owned villages in Scotland and the United States. Neat rows of houses, free education, better working conditions, and wages in proportion to hours worked attracted thousands of people to this grand experiment. But all utopian communities of this period were (predictably?) poorly managed and uniformly failed.

It seems ironic that some of Owen's dreams were integrated into public policies in many modern mixed economies. Free public education, socialized medicine in much of Europe and medical insurance in the United States, healthier working conditions, and substantial parts of our current welfare system can all be traced to utopian goals.

Marxian socialism

In Marxist theory, socialism, lower-stage communism or the socialist mode of production refers to a specific historical phase of economic development and its corresponding set of social relations that eventually supersede capitalism in the schema of historical materialism. In this definition, socialism is defined as a mode of production where the criterion for production is use-value, where production for use is coordinated through conscious economic planning and the law of value no longer directs economic activity. Socialism would be based on the principle of To each according to his contribution. The social relations of socialism are characterized by the working-class effectively controlling and owning the means of production and the means of their livelihood either through cooperative enterprises or public ownership and self management, so that the social surplus would accrue to the working class or society as a whole.

This view is consistent with, and helped to inform, early conceptions of socialism where the law of value no longer directs economic activity, and thus monetary relations in the form of exchange-value, profit, interest and wage labor would not operate and apply to socialism.

The Marxian conception of socialism stood in contrast to other early conceptions of socialism, most notably early forms of market socialism based on classical economics including Mutualism and Ricardian socialism, which unlike the Marxian conception, retained commodity exchange and markets for labor and the means of production. The Marxian conception was also heavily opposed to Utopian socialism.

Although Karl Marx and Fredrick Engels wrote very little on socialism and neglected to provide any details on how it might be organized, numerous Marxists and neoclassical economists used Marx's theory as a basis for developing their own models and proposals for socialist economic systems and served as a point of reference for the socialist calculation debate.

Christian socialism

Many prominent socialists were militant atheists, for example, but others expressly connected socialism to religion. Even the rationalist Saint-Simon had called for a “new Christianity” that would join Christian social teachings with modern science and industry to create a society that would satisfy basic human needs. His followers attempted to put this idea into practice, giving rise to a Saint-Simonian sect sometimes called “the religion of the engineers.” This combination of an appeal to universal brotherhood and a faith in enlightened management also animated the best-selling utopian novel Looking Backward (1888), by the American journalist Edward Bellamy. In England the Anglican clergymen Frederick Denison Maurice and Charles Kingsley initiated a Christian socialist movement at the end of the 1840s on the grounds that the competitive individualism of laissez-faire capitalism was incompatible with the spirit of Christianity. The connection between Christianity and socialism persisted through the 20th century. One manifestation of this connection was liberation theology—sometimes characterized as an attempt to marry Marx and Jesus—which emerged among Roman Catholic theologians in Latin America in the 1960s. Another, perhaps more modest, manifestation is the Christian Socialist Movement in Britain, which affiliates itself with the British Labour Party. Several members of Parliament have belonged to the Christian Socialist Movement, including Prime Minister Gordon Brown, the son of a Methodist minister, and his predecessor, Tony Blair, an Anglican who converted to Catholicism not long after he left office.

Fabian Socialism

Founded in England in 1884, the Fabian Society jettisoned the utopian ideal of small communities, urging instead nationalization of heavy industry and municipal ownership of public utilities. Otherwise, their agenda echoed many reforms proposed by utopians: universal suffrage, income redistribution, free education and medical care, and laws to ensure safe work environments, forbid child labor, and limit women's working hours.

The early Fabians included such prominent intellectuals as playwright George Bernard Shaw, science fiction writer H. G. Wells, historian G. D. H. Cole, and Sidney and Beatrice Webb, a married team of economists. This small band grew and, as it collected members who were active in the British union movement, evolved into the present Labour party, which dominated the British government from World War I until 1980. Many advocates of capitalism blamed the Labour party's policies of nationalization for technological obsolescence and the sluggish growth of the British economy. They credit massive privatization since 1980 for the modern resurgence of British industry.

Guild socialism

Related to syndicalism but nearer to Fabianism in its reformist tactics, Guild Socialism was an English movement that attracted a modest following in the first two decades of the 20th century. Inspired by the medieval guild, an association of craftsmen who determined their own working conditions and activities, theorists such as Samuel G. Hobson and G.D.H. Cole advocated the public ownership of industries and their organization into guilds, each of which would be under the democratic control of its trade union. The role of the state was less clear: some guild socialists envisioned it as a coordinator of the guilds’ activities, while others held that its functions should be limited to protection or policing. In general, however, the guild socialists were less inclined to invest power in the state than were their Fabian compatriots.

Anarcho-communism

Anarcho- communism is a theory of anarchism which advocates the abolition of the state, capitalism, wages and private property and in favor of common ownership of the means of production, direct democracy, and a horizontal network of voluntary associations and workers' councils with production and consumption based on the guiding principle: "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need".

Some forms of anarchist communism such as insurrectionary anarchism are strongly influenced by egoism and radical individualism, believing anarcho-communism is the best social system for the realization of individual freedom. Some anarcho-communists view anarcho-communism as a way of reconciling the opposition between the individual and society.

Anarcho-communism developed out of radical socialist currents after the French Revolution but was first formulated as such in the Italian section of the First International. The theoretical work of Peter Kropotkin took importance later as it expanded and developed pro-organization list and insurrectionary anti-organization list sections.

To date, the best-known examples of an anarchist communist society (i.e., established around the ideas as they exist today and achieving worldwide attention and knowledge in the historical canon), are the anarchist territories during the Spanish Revolution and the Free Territory during the Russian Revolution. Through the efforts and influence of the Spanish Anarchists during the Spanish Revolution within the Spanish Civil War, starting in 1936 anarchist communism existed in most of Aragon, parts of the Levante and Andalusia, as well as in the stronghold of Anarchist Catalonia before being crushed by the combined forces of the regime that won the war, Hitler, Mussolini, Spanish Communist Party repression (backed by the USSR) as well as economic and armaments blockades from the capitalist countries and the Second Spanish Republic itself. During the Russian Revolution, anarchists such as Nestor Makhno worked to create and defend—through the Revolutionary Insurrectionary Army of Ukraine—anarchist communism in the Free Territory of the Ukraine from 1919 before being conquered by the Bolsheviks in 1921.

Syndicalism

Near the anarcho-communists on the decentralist side of socialism were the syndicalists. Inspired in part by Proudhon’s ideas, syndicalism developed at the end of the 19th century out of the French trade-union movement—syndicat being the French word for trade union. It was a significant force in Italy and Spain in the early 20th century until it was crushed by the fascist regimes in those countries. In the United States, syndicalism appeared in the guise of the Industrial Workers of the World, or “Wobblies,” founded in 1905.

The hallmarks of syndicalism were workers’ control and “direct action.” Syndicalists such as Fernand Pelloutier distrusted both the state, which they regarded as an agent of capitalism, and political parties, which they thought were incapable of achieving radical change. Their aim was to replace capitalism and the state with a loose federation of local workers’ groups, which they meant to bring about through direct action—especially a general strike of workers that would bring down the government as it brought the economy to a halt. Georges Sorel elaborated on this idea in his Réflexions sur la violence (1908; Reflections on Violence), in which he treated the general strike not as the inevitable result of social developments but as a “myth” that could lead to the overthrow of capitalism if only enough people could be inspired to act on it.

Socialism effect on society

Positive effect of socialism -

A Fair System

Socialism gives equal distribution of national wealth and provides everyone with equal opportunities, irrespective of their, color, caste, creed or economic status. Socialism, in its truest sense, means equality by all means.

Eliminates Social Evils

Socialism reduces poverty with eatable wealth distribution. It also eliminates ill health, as it lays the foundation for the availability of proper health facilities for everyone. Socialism eliminates other forms of social deprivation too, by caring for everyone.

Reducing Disparities

Socialism reduces the social, economic, and political inequalities that exist within capitalist societies. By taking the ownerships of production units from the rich and presenting them to the workers, the government gives the workers a chance to earn more profits and thus rise to levels of economic well being.

More Humane & True

The effort to make everybody equal in economic, social, and political terms makes socialism more morally worthwhile than capitalism. It reinforces the fact that everyone was created equally and it was only through human actions that disparities arose.

Improved Standard Of Living

The idea behind socialism is to bring up the living standards of the poorest. It actually works towards raising the living standards to similar levels, as the better-off members of the respective societies.

Unity

As people work for a common cause and all the profits are shared equally, the feeling of selfishness is eliminated and a united feeling is gained. Plus, since socialism bars the difference caused on the grounds of color, sex, creed or religion, harmony and unity become the keywords for the countrymen.

Creates Better Human Resources

As all people, irrespective of their differences, are provided extensive public services and better facilities, they achieve their full potential. Better education facilities for all also help in creating better human resource. Manpower doubles, thus doubling the country’s economic growth, as everyone works towards a life of betterment.

Negative effect  Of Socialism

Unreal Theory

True socialism is an imaginative theory and cannot be implemented as it is. Today, socialism is not adopted in the same way, as it was advocated by Karl Marx and other socialists. The original form of socialism is neither preached nor practiced.

Negatively Influences Growth Of Economy

Socialism is actually economically inefficient, as it puts off entrepreneurs from generating wealth, because they usually have to pay higher taxes.

Improper Implementation

In socialist countries today, there are a handful of bureaucrats who control and use the power of the state. They redistribute and regulate wealth and decide on taxation for the people. Thus, in reality, people do not have control over wealth. This limits people’s political freedom and reverses the overall concept.

Poverty & Social Evils Are Not Eliminated

Socialism might redistribute some of the wealth of the richest members of the society to the poor, but this move does not eliminate poverty as a whole. The overall growth of economy suffers considerably. If there is not enough wealth, then distribution can be hampered.

Boosts Incompetence

As socialism provides the poorest with higher levels of income via social security payments, it deters them from working hard, if at all. It also creates a negative feeling in the minds of hard working fellows, as they gain no extra incentives for working hard. Adding to their woes, lazy people get paid equally as they do. This negatively impacts productivity and thus economic growth.

No Real Increase In Standard Of Living

Instead of improving the living standards for all, socialism actually lowers the income of the richest to reduce the divide and make them fall close to the income levels of the poorest.