History Of Socialism

The history of socialism has its origins in the 1789 French Revolution and the changes which it brought, although it has precedents in earlier movements and ideas. ''The Communist Manifesto'' was written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels swept Europe, expressing what they termed scientific socialism. In the last third of the 19th century parties dedicated to Democratic socialism arose in Europe, drawing mainly from Marxism. The Australian Labor Party was the world's first elected socialist party when it formed government in the Colony of Queensland for a week in 1899.

In the first half of the 20th century, the Soviet Union and the communist parties of the Third International around the world mainly came to represent socialism in terms of the Soviet model of economic development and the creation of centrally planned economies directed by a state that owns all the means of production, although other trends condemned what they saw as the lack of democracy. In the United Kingdom, Herbert Morrison said that "socialism is what the Labour government does" whereas Aneurin Bevan argued that socialism requires that the "main streams of economic activity are brought under public direction", with an economic plan and workers' democracy. Some argued that capitalism had been abolished. Socialist governments established the mixed economy with partial nationalisations and social welfare.

By 1968, the prolonged Vietnam War gave rise to the New Left, socialists who tended to be critical of the Soviet Union and social democracy. Anarcho-syndicalists and some elements of the New Left and others favoured decentralised collective ownership in the form of cooperatives or workers' councils. Socialists have also adopted the causes of other social movements such as environmentalism, feminism and progressivism. At the turn of the 21st century, Latin America saw a pink tide, which championed socialism of the 21st century; it included a policy of nationalisation of major national assets, anti-imperialism, left-wing populism, and a rejection of the Washington Consensus and the neoliberal paradigm. It was first led by Venezuela president Hugo Chávez.

Origins of socialism

In antiquity

Ideas and political traditions that are conceptually related to modern socialism have their origins in antiquity and the Middle Ages. Ancient Egypt had a strong, unified, theocratic state which, along with its temple system employed peasants in massive labor projects and owned key parts of the economy, such as the granaries which dispensed grain to the public in hard times. This system of government is sometimes referred to as 'theocratic socialism".

In Ancient Greece, while private property was an acknowledged part of society with the basic element of Greek economic and social life being the privately owned estate or ''oikos'', it was still understood that the needs of the city or ''polis'' always came before those of the individual property owner and his family. Ancient Greeks were also encouraged by their custom of ''koinonia'' to voluntarily share their wealth and property with other citizens, forgive the debts of debtors, serve in roles as public servants without pay, and participate in other pro-social actions. This idea of ''koinonia'' could express itself it different ways throughout Ancient Greece from the communal oligarchy of Sparta to Tarentum where the poor could access any property held in common. Another Ancient Greek custom, the '' leitourgia'' resulted in the richest members of the community directly financing the state. By the late fifth century BC, more radical concepts of communal ownership became expounded in Greece. Possibly in reply to this, Aristophanes wrote his early 4th-century play, Ecclesiazusae, which parodies communist, egalitarian, and gynocratic concepts that were already familiar in Classical Athens. In the play, Athenian women are depicted as seizing control of the Athenian government and banning all private property. As the character Praxagora puts it "I shall begin by making land, money, everything that is private property, common to all." Plato later wrote his ''Republic'' which argues for the common distribution of property between the upper elite in society who are, similar to Sparta, to live communally.

The economy of the 3rd century BCE Mauryan Empire of India, under the rulership of its first emperor Chandragupta, who was assisted by his economic and political advisor Kautilya, has been described as," a socialized monarchy", "a sort of state socialism", and the world's first welfare state. Under the Mauryan system there was no private ownership of land as all land was owned by the king to whom tribute was paid by the Shudras, or laboring class. In return the emperor supplied the laborers with agricultural products, animals, seeds, tools, public infrastructure, and stored food in reserve for times of crisis. In Iran, Mazdak (died c. 524 or 528 CE), a priest and political refomer, preached and instituted a religiously based socialist or proto-socialist system in the Zoroastrian context of Sassanian Persia.

In Enlightenment thought (c. 1600s–1800)

The basis for modern socialism primarily originates with the Age of Enlightenment and the accompanying rise of liberalism and the Industrial Revolution. The French philosophes such as Montesquieu, Voltaire, and Rousseau and other European intellectuals such as Adam Smith and Immanuel Kant criticized the traditional purview, policies, and character of governments, believing that through reform changes could be made that benefited all of society rather than just a privileged elite. These Enlightenment thinkers usually tempered their aims in relation to government intervention, proposing that government ought to be limited in its control of individuals, a belief typically associated with the contemporaneous laissez-faire economic system. Some thinkers believed differently such as the French writers Jean Meslier, Étienne-Gabriel Morelly, and Abbé de Mably who formulated schemes to solve the inequality in society through the redistribution of wealth and the abolition of private property. The French Enlightenment philosopher Marquis de Condorcet did not oppose the existence of private property, but did believe that the primary cause of suffering in society was the lower classes' lack of land and capital and therefore supported policies similar to the modern social safety net that could be used to protect the most vulnerable.

In response to the inequalities in the industrializing economy of late 18th century Britain pamphleteers and agitators such as Thomas Spence and Thomas Paine began to advocate for social reform. As early as the 1770s Spence called for the common ownership of land, democratically run decentralized government, and welfare support especially for mothers and children. His views were detailed in his self-published pamphlets such a
Property in Land Every One's Right
in 1775 an

in 1796. Thomas Paine proposed a detailed plan to tax property owners to pay for the needs of the poor in his pamphlet ''Agrarian Justice (1797).'' Due to their dedication to social equality and democracy, Condorcet and Paine can be seen as the predecessors of social democracy. Charles Hall wrote ''The Effects of Civilization on the People in European States'' (1805), denouncing capitalism's effects on the poor of his time. In the post-revolutionary period in the decade after the French Revolution of 1789, activists and theorists like François-Noël Babeuf and Philippe Buonarroti spread egalitarian ideas that would later influence the early French labour and socialist movements. The views of Babeuf, Sylvain Maréchal, and Restif de la Bretonne specifically formed the basis for the emerging concepts of revolutionary socialism and modern communism. These social critics criticized 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 one where private property is abolished and the means of production are owned collectively.

Early modern socialism (1800-1830s)

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 Thomas Spence, Charles Fourier, Saint-Simon, Robert Owen. Outlining principles for the reorganisation of society along collectivist lines, Saint-Simon, Fourier, and Owens served as the primary advocates for what later became known as Utopian Socialism. The views of these original utopian socialist thinkers were not identical. For example, Saint-Simon and Fourier saw no need to abolish private property or adopt democratic principles, while Owen supported both democracy and collective ownership of property. Followers of the radical English labor agitator Thomas Spence, the Spenceans, were notable figures in the early British labor movement.

While Fourier and Owen sought to build socialism on the foundations of small, planned, utopian communities, Saint-Simon desired to enact change through a large scale initiative that put industrialists and experts in charge of society. Early-19th-century followers of the utopian theories of such thinkers as Owen, Saint-Simon and Fourier could use the terms ''co-operative'', ''mutualist'', ''associationist'', ''societarian'', ''phalansterian'', ''agrarianist'', and ''radical'' to describe their beliefs along with the later term ''socialist.'' The English word "socialist" in its modern sense relates to Owenite thought and dates from at least 1822.

Henri de Saint-Simon

Claude Henri de Rouvroy, comte de Saint-Simon (1760–1825) was the founder of French socialism as well as modern theoretical socialism in general. As one of the founders of positivism along with his secretary Auguste Comte, Saint-Simon sought to impose upon political science the same level of empiricism and consistency as existed within the physical sciences. As early as 1803 in his work ''Letters from an inhabitant of Geneva'' he suggested the formation of a group of intellectual elites that would be used to resolve society's most pressing concerns. In his later 1817 work Saint-Simon envisioned a state that dedicated itself to the solving of all social problems through industrial management. In this new system, production and distribution were to be based on social need, while private property was to be subordinated to the needs of society as a whole. Saint-Simon categorized society into two general classes, the workers, comprising wage laborers, manufacturers, scientists, engineers, scholars, bankers, merchants and anyone else who contributed to production and distribution, and the idlers such as land owners, rentiers, the military, the nobility, and the clergy, who made no material contributions to the economy.

Abandoning economic liberalism, he instead propounded a system which would replace the traditional state with a brotherhood of man that incorporated industry and society into a single centralized organization. In this new society all people would have equal opportunity within a meritocratic order, ignoring traditional class divisions based on nobility and wealth. Saint-Simon, influenced by earlier French thinkers like Condorcet, believed in a materialist interpretation of history, similar to the later Marxist historical materialism, which could be used to predict future developments, and wherein the economic condition of civilization is determined by the level of technology, with the three general epochs being slavery, serfdom, and finally the proletariat or wage labor. Saint-Simon did not see the working class or proletariat as crucial to change, but instead believed that manufacturers, bankers, artists, scholars, and other educated people would transform society into one where humans made the best possible use of nature and the government was chiefly concerned with the proper administration of material goods and services. Notably, Saint-Simon never fully condemned or repudiated private property as an institution. In his final work ''Le Nouveau Christianism'' in 1825 he outlined his belief that his political theories were based on Christian principles and that his system embodied certain Christian ideals such as love for others and selflessness.

After Saint-Simon's death in 1825 his followers, known as the Saint-Simonians, continued to spread and develop his teachings, initiating the widespread use of the terms "socialism", "socialize", "socialization", and "socializing the instruments of labor". His followers, led by Amand Bazard and Barthélemy Enfantin, began to trend more towards radicalism than Saint-Simon becoming increasingly critical of private property while demanding the emancipation of women. The Saint-Simonian book ''Exposition de la doctrine de Saint-Simon'', published in two volumes from 1828 to 1830 and featuring condensed speeches by Bazard and Enfantin, proved to be a landmark in socialist theory. The Saint-Simonians rejected communist style proposals for a system that would abolish private property and institute a 'community of goods' which they considered an act of, "reprehensible violence" which violated, "the first of all moral laws". However, according to their address to the French Chamber of Deputies in 1830, Bazard and Enfantin still maintained there should be collective ownership of all," instruments of labor, land, and capital" and that noble privileges and inheritance ought to be abolished so that all hierarchy and reward in society is based on an individual's merit, capacity, and effort alone. Bazard and Enfantin believed that history could be summed up as the historical changes in the forms of class exploitation and that private ownership of the means of production must be gradually abolished. Because of their emphasis on labor they summed up their socialist program with principle "To each according to his ability and to each ability according to its work." They also introduced the idea that class antagonism between the workers and owners came from the dispute over possession of the instruments of labor. From 1830 onward the Saint-Simonians began to refer to the opposition between the bourgeoise and the proletariat. Beginning in 1832 Bazard and Enfantin began to emphasize the term "socialism" as the word that best represented their system. According to John Stuart Mill writing in 1848 the Saint-Simonians had," sowed the seeds of all the socialist tendencies."

Charles Fourier

François Marie Charles Fourier (1772–1837) was a French utopian socialist and philosopher. Modern scholars credit Fourier with having originated the word in 1837. As early as 1808, he had argued in the ''Theory of the Four Movements'' that the extension of the liberty of women was the general principle of all social progress, though he disdained any attachment to a discourse of "equal rights". Fourier inspired the founding of the communist community called La Reunion near present-day Dallas, Texas as well as several other communities within the United States, such as the North American Phalanx in New Jersey and Community Place and five others in New York State. Fourierism manifested itself "in the middle of the 19th century (where) literally hundreds of communes (phalansteries) were founded on fourierist principles in France, N. America, Mexico, S. America, Algeria, Yugoslavia, ''etc''".

Robert Owen

Robert Owen (1771–1858) advocated the transformation of society into small, local collectives without such elaborate systems of social organisation. Owen managed mills for many years. 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. Owen is considered the father of the cooperative movement.Oxford English Dictionary, etymology of socialism

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 to cease at 8.30 p.m. Children of nine to thirteen years could work no more than 9 hours, and workers of a younger age were prohibited. There were, however, only four factory inspectors, and factory owners flouted this law. In the same year Owen stated: "Eight hours' daily labor is enough for any dulthuman being, and under proper arrangements sufficient to afford an ample supply of food, raiment and shelter, or the necessaries and comforts of life, and for the remainder of his time, every person is entitled to education, recreation and sleep."

Leaving England for the United States, Robert Owen and his sons began an experiment with a socialist community in New Harmony, Indiana in 1825. Advertisements announced the experiment for the cooperative colony, bringing various people to attempt an 8-hour work-day of which Owen was a proponent. The town banned money and other commodities for trade, using "labour tickets" denominated in the number of hours worked. Owen's son, Robert Dale Owen, would say of the failed socialism experiment that the people at New Harmony were "a heterogeneous collection of radicals, enthusiastic devotees to principle, honest latitudinarians, and lazy theorists, with a sprinkling of unprincipled sharpers thrown in".Robert Owen: Pioneer of Social Reforms
by Joseph Clayton, 1908, A.C. Fifield, London The larger community lasted only until 1827, at which time smaller communities were formed, which led to further subdivision, until individualism replaced socialism in 1828. New Harmony dissolved in 1829 due to constant quarrels as parcels of land and property were sold and returned to private use. 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".

Individualist anarchist Josiah Warren, who was one of the original participants in the New Harmony Society, saw the community as doomed to failure due to a lack of individual sovereignty and private property. In ''Periodical Letter II'' (1856), he wrote of the community: "It seemed that the difference of opinion, tastes and purposes increased just in proportion to the demand for conformity. Two years were worn out in this way; at the end of which, I believe that not more than three persons had the least hope of success. Most of the experimenters left in despair of all reforms, and conservatism felt itself confirmed. We had tried every conceivable form of organization and government. We had a world in miniature. --we had enacted the French revolution over again with despairing hearts instead of corpses as a result. ...It appeared that it was nature's own inherent law of diversity that had conquered us ...our 'united interests' were directly at war with the individualities of persons and circumstances and the instinct of self-preservation... and it was evident that just in proportion to the contact of persons or interests, so are concessions and compromises indispensable."

Development of modern socialism (1830s–1850s)

In France, socialists thinkers and politicians such as Pierre-Joseph Proudhon and Louis Blanc continued spreading their egalitarian economic and social doctrines. While earlier socialists had 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 in their desire for a society based on cooperation rather than competition.

Chartism, which flourished from 1838 to 1858, "formed the first organised labour movement in Europe, gathering significant numbers around the People's Charter of 1838, which demanded the extension of suffrage to all male adults. Prominent leaders in the movement also called for a more equitable distribution of income and better living conditions for the working classes. The very first trade unions and consumers’ cooperative societies also emerged in the hinterland of the Chartist movement, as a way of bolstering the fight for these demands". The word ''socialism'' first appeared on 13 February 1832 in ''Le Globe'', a French Saint-Simonian newspaper founded by Pierre Leroux.A new English dictionary on historical principles (vol 9, pt 1), founded mainly on the materials collected by the Philological Society, Edited with the assistance of many scholars and men of science
See Volume 9, Part 1 of ''A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles'', page 358, entry "Socialism," 1888, Clarendon Press, Oxford Leroux, a Christian socialist, saw individualism as the primary moral sickness plaguing society.

The French politician Philippe Buchez became the leader of the Christian socialist movement in France during the 1830s. In 1839 the socialist writer Louis Blanc wrote his first work on socialism, the treatise, ''La Organisation du Travail''. The groundbreaking pamphlet "What is Property?" which declared that "Property is theft" was published by Pierre-Joseph Proudhon in 1840. Louis Reybaud published ''Études sur les réformateurs contemporains ou socialistes modernes'' in 1842 in France. By 1842, socialism "had become the topic of a major academic analysis" by a German scholar, Lorenz von Stein, in his ''Socialism and Social Movement''.George Thomas Kurian (ed). ''The Encyclopedia of Political Science'' CQ Press. Washington D.c. 2011. Pgs. 1555

Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809–1865) 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. Proudhon himself, Benjamin Tucker, and others developed these ideas in a mutualist direction, while Mikhail Bakunin (1814–1876), Peter Kropotkin (1842–1921), and others adapted Proudhon's ideas in a more conventionally socialist direction. In a letter to Marx in 1846, Proudhon wrote: "I myself put the problem in this way: to bring about the return to society, by an economic combination, of the wealth which was withdrawn from society by another economic combination. In other words, through Political Economy to turn the theory of Property against Property in such a way as to engender what you German socialists call community and what I will limit myself for the moment to calling liberty or equality."

Mikhail Bakunin

Mikhail Bakunin (1814–1876), 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 labour."

Alexander Herzen

Alexander Herzen was a Russian writer, revolutionary, and the first champion of socialism in Russia. His writings contributed to the abolition of serfdom in Russia under Alexander II, and he later became known as the "Father of Russian socialism". Herzen initiated the belief that socialism would eventually take hold in Russia using the traditional rural Russian communal villages or ''mir'' as a basis for its propagation. Influenced by Hegel, he believed that only though revolution could the dialectic be accelerated to bring about socialism, he translated many socialist books into Russian so they could be accessible to Russian speakers and financially supported Proudhon's publications.

Etymology and terminology (c. 19th century–20th century)

While the use of the term ''socialism'' was initially adopted to describe the philosophy of the Saint-Simonians, which advocated the socialized ownership of the means of production, the term was quickly appropriated by working class movements in the 1840s, and in the 19th century the term ''socialism'' came to encompass a wide and diverse range of economic policies and doctrines which could include any view from generic opposition against ''laissez-faire'' capitalism to the systematic communism of classical Marxism and anything in between. In general a view could be deemed as socialism or socialistic if it advocated for the government to take action that would benefit the lower classes and ameliorate economic and social problems in society. According to Sheldon Richman, " the 19th and early 20th centuries, 'socialism' did not exclusively mean collective or government ownership of the means of production but was an umbrella term for anyone who believed labour was cheated out of its natural product under historical capitalism."
* Pierre Leroux who claimed priority in coining the word ''socialism'' presented his definition of the term as "a political organization in which the individual is sacrificed to society", stating he had intended to create a term that would directly oppose the term "individualism".
* French philosopher Émile Littré defined socialism in 1859 as only as a general sentiment that society ought to be improved, claiming it otherwise was without any set doctrine, instead being only a tendency to modify and improve society with the involvement of the working class. In a later dictionary, Littré defined it merely as a system which "offers a plan of social reform."
* French philosopher Paul Janet, defined socialism as "every doctrine that teaches that the state has a right to correct the inequality of wealth which exists among men.
* In his summation of socialism the 19th-century, Belgian economist Émile Laveleye stated that "socialistic doctrine aims at introducing greater equality in social conditions, and....realizing those reforms by law."
* Pierre-Joseph Proudhon concisely defined socialism as "every aspiration towards the improvement of society."
* German economist Adolf Held claimed in 1877 that any view was socialistic if it exhibited a "tendency which demands the subordination of the individual will to the community."
* Writing in 1887, English historian of socialist thought Thomas Kirkup defined socialism, as it was generally conceived of at the time as, "the systematic interference of the state in favour of the suffering classes", and "the use of public resources on behalf of the poor."
* Preeminent French sociologist Emile Durkheim recognized in his late 19th century study on Saint-Simon any theory as socialism if it demanded that the "directing and knowing organs of society" be connected with its economic functions.
* In his 1904 book ''Die Frau und der Sozialismus'', German socialist politician August Bebel defined socialism as "science applied with clear consciousness and full knowledge to every sphere of human activity."
* Published in 1911, the ''Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition'' defined socialism as "that policy or theory which aims at securing...a better distribution and...a better production of wealth than now prevails."

Prior to the Revolutions of 1848, ''communism'' and ''socialism'' had differing religious implications with socialism being seen as secular and atheistic and communism being seen as religious, leading to Owen preferring the term socialism. In 1830, the two leaders of socialist group the Saint-Simonians, Amand Bazard and Barthélemy Enfantin, denounced communism to the French Chamber of Deputies. Because the Saint-Simonians still advocated the socialization of the means of production, just not all private property, this established an important early distinction between their school of socialism and the communism of rival political groups such as the Neo-Babouvists.

According to Friedrich Engels, by 1847 ''socialism'', such as that of the Owenites and Fourierists, was considered a respectable, middle-class, or bourgeoise movement on the continent of Europe, while ''communism'' was considered a less respectable working-class movement associated with organizations such as those led by Wilhelm Weitling and Étienne Cabet. It was on this basis of appealing to a broad working class movement that Marx and Engels chose the term ''communist'' for their ''Communist Manifesto'' of 1848. Despite this initial preference, the use of the term ''communism'' was sparse from the 1860s onward, possibly due to its association with militancy in France and Germany, and instead the terms ''socialism'' or ''social democratic'' became preferred even by followers of the Marxist tradition. ''Socialism'' was the word predominantly used by Marxists up until World War I and the Bolshevik Revolution, at which time Vladimir Lenin made the conscious decision to replace the term ''socialism'' with ''communism'', renaming the ''Russian Social Democratic Labor Party'' to the ''All-Russian Communist Party''.

Marxism and the socialist movement (1850s–1910s)

"The French Revolution of 1789," Karl Marx (1818–1883) and Frederick Engels

HOME


Content is Copyleft
Website design, code, and AI is Copyrighted (c) 2014-2017 by Stephen Payne


Consider donating to Wikimedia



As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases