socialistic

Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes the economic, political and social theories and movements associated with the implementation of such systems. Social ownership can be state/public, community, collective, cooperative, or employee. While no single definition encapsulates the many types of socialism, social ownership is the one common element. Different types of socialism vary based on the role of markets and planning in resource allocation, on the structure of management in organizations, and from below or from above approaches, with some socialists favouring a party, state, or technocratic-driven approach. Socialists disagree on whether government, particularly existing government, is the correct vehicle for change.

Socialist systems are divided into non-market and market forms. Non-market socialism substitutes factor markets and often money with integrated economic planning and engineering or technical criteria based on calculation performed in-kind, thereby producing a different economic mechanism that functions according to different economic laws and dynamics than those of capitalism. A non-market socialist system seeks to eliminate the perceived inefficiencies, irrationalities, unpredictability, and crises that socialists traditionally associate with capital accumulation and the profit system in capitalism. By contrast, market socialism retains the use of monetary prices, factor markets and in some cases the profit motive, with respect to the operation of socially owned enterprises and the allocation of capital goods between them. Profits generated by these firms would be controlled directly by the workforce of each firm or accrue to society at large in the form of a social dividend. Anarchism and libertarian socialism oppose the use of the state as a means to establish socialism, favouring decentralisation above all, whether to establish non-market socialism or market socialism.

Socialist politics has been both internationalist and nationalist; organised through political parties and opposed to party politics; at times overlapping with trade unions and at other times independent and critical of them, and present in both industrialised and developing nations. Social democracy originated within the socialist movement, supporting economic and social interventions to promote social justice. While retaining socialism as a long-term goal, since the post-war period it has come to embrace a Keynesian mixed economy within a predominantly developed capitalist market economy and liberal democratic polity that expands state intervention to include income redistribution, regulation, and a welfare state. Economic democracy proposes a sort of market socialism, with more democratic control of companies, currencies, investments and natural resources.

The socialist political movement includes a set of political philosophies that originated in the revolutionary movements of the mid-to-late 18th century and out of concern for the social problems that were associated with capitalism. By the late 19th century, after the work of Karl Marx and his collaborator Friedrich Engels and advocacy for a post-capitalist system based on some form of social ownership of the means of production. By the early 1920s, communism and social democracy had become the two dominant political tendencies within the international socialist movement, with socialism itself becoming the most influential secular movement of the 20th century. Socialist parties and ideas remain a political force with varying degrees of power and influence on all continents, heading national governments in many countries around the world. Today, many socialists have also adopted the causes of other social movements such as feminism, environmentalism, and progressivism.

While the emergence of the Soviet Union as the world's first nominally socialist state led to socialism's widespread association with the Soviet economic model, several scholars posit that in practice, the model functioned as a form of state capitalism. See also Several academics, political commentators, and scholars have distinguished between authoritarian socialist and democratic socialist states, with the first representing the Eastern Bloc and the latter representing Western Bloc countries which have been democratically governed by socialist parties such as Britain, France, Sweden, and Western countries in general, among others. However, following the end of the Cold War, many of these countries have moved away from socialism as a neoliberal consensus replaced the social democratic consensus in the advanced capitalist world.

Etymology

For Andrew Vincent, " e word 'socialism' finds its root in the Latin , which means to combine or to share. The related, more technical term in Roman and then medieval law was . This latter word could mean companionship and fellowship as well as the more legalistic idea of a consensual contract between freemen".

Initial use of ''socialism'' was claimed by Pierre Leroux, who alleged he first used the term in the Parisian journal in 1832. Leroux was a follower of Henri de Saint-Simon, one of the founders of what would later be labelled utopian socialism. Socialism contrasted with the liberal doctrine of individualism that emphasized the moral worth of the individual whilst stressing that people act or should act as if they are in isolation from one another. The original utopian socialists condemned this doctrine of individualism for failing to address social concerns during the Industrial Revolution, including poverty, oppression, and vast wealth inequality. They viewed their society as harming community life by basing society on competition. They presented socialism as an alternative to liberal individualism based on the shared ownership of resources. Saint-Simon proposed economic planning, scientific administration and the application of scientific understanding to the organisation of society. By contrast, Robert Owen proposed to organise production and ownership via cooperatives. ''Socialism'' is also attributed in France to Marie Roch Louis Reybaud while in Britain it is attributed to Owen, who became one of the fathers of the cooperative movement.

The definition and usage of ''socialism'' settled by the 1860s, replacing ''associationist'', ''co-operative'', and ''mutualist'' that had been used as synonyms while ''communism'' fell out of use during this period. An early distinction between ''communism'' and ''socialism'' was that the latter aimed to only socialise production while the former aimed to socialise both production and consumption (in the form of free access to final goods). By 1888, Marxists employed ''socialism'' in place of ''communism'' as the latter had come to be considered an old-fashioned synonym for ''socialism''. It was not until after the Bolshevik Revolution that ''socialism'' was appropriated by Vladimir Lenin to mean a stage between capitalism and communism. He used it to defend the Bolshevik program from Marxist criticism that Russia's productive forces were not sufficiently developed for communism. The distinction between ''communism'' and ''socialism'' became salient in 1918 after the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party renamed itself to the All-Russian Communist Party, interpreting ''communism'' specifically to mean socialists who supported the politics and theories of Bolshevism, Leninism and later that of Marxism–Leninism, although communist parties continued to describe themselves as socialists dedicated to socialism. According to ''The Oxford Handbook of Karl Marx'', "Marx used many terms to refer to a post-capitalist society—positive humanism, socialism, Communism, realm of free individuality, free association of producers, etc. He used these terms completely interchangeably. The notion that 'socialism' and 'Communism' are distinct historical stages is alien to his work and only entered the lexicon of Marxism after his death".

In Christian Europe, communists were believed to have adopted atheism. In Protestant England, ''communism'' was too close to the Roman Catholic communion rite, hence ''socialist'' was the preferred term. Engels wrote that in 1848, when ''The Communist Manifesto'' was published, socialism was respectable in Europe while communism was not. The Owenites in England and the Fourierists in France were considered respectable socialists while working-class movements that "proclaimed the necessity of total social change" denoted themselves ''communists''. This branch of socialism produced the communist work of Étienne Cabet in France and Wilhelm Weitling in Germany. British moral philosopher John Stuart Mill discussed a form of economic socialism within a liberal context that would later be known as liberal socialism. In later editions of his ''Principles of Political Economy'' (1848), Mill posited that "as far as economic theory was concerned, there is nothing in principle in economic theory that precludes an economic order based on socialist policies" and promoted substituting capitalist businesses with worker cooperatives. While democrats looked to the Revolutions of 1848 as a democratic revolution which in the long run ensured liberty, equality, and fraternity, Marxists denounced it as a betrayal of working-class ideals by a bourgeoisie indifferent to the proletariat.

History

Early socialism

Socialist models and ideas espousing common or public ownership have existed since antiquity. The economy of the 3rd century BCE Mauryan Empire of India, an absolute monarchy, has been described by some scholars as "a socialized monarchy" and "a sort of state socialism" due to "nationalisation of industries". Other scholars have suggested that elements of socialist thought were present in the politics of classical Greek philosophers Plato and Aristotle. Mazdak the Younger (died c. 524 or 528 CE), a Persian communal proto-socialist, instituted communal possessions and advocated the public good. Abu Dharr al-Ghifari, a Companion of Muhammad, is credited by multiple authors as a principal antecedent of Islamic socialism. The teachings of Jesus are frequently described as socialist, especially by Christian socialists. records that in the early church in Jerusalem " one claimed that any of their possessions was their own", although the pattern soon disappears from church history except within monasticism. Christian socialism was one of the founding threads of the British Labour Party and is claimed to begin with the uprising of Wat Tyler and John Ball in the 14th century CE. After the French Revolution, activists and theorists such as François-Noël Babeuf, Étienne-Gabriel Morelly, Philippe Buonarroti and Auguste Blanqui influenced the early French labour and socialist movements.Thomas Kurian (ed). ''The Encyclopedia of Political Science'' CQ Press. Washington D.c. 2011. p. 1555 In Britain, Thomas Paine proposed a detailed plan to tax property owners to pay for the needs of the poor in '' Agrarian Justice'' while Charles Hall wrote ''The Effects of Civilization on the People in European States'', denouncing capitalism's effects on the poor of his time. This work influenced the utopian schemes of Thomas Spence.

The first self-conscious socialist movements developed in the 1820s and 1830s. Groups such as the Fourierists, Owenites and Saint-Simonians provided a series of analyses and interpretations of society. Especially the Owenites overlapped with other working-class movements such as the Chartists in the United Kingdom. The Chartists gathered significant numbers around the People's Charter of 1838 which sought democratic reforms focused on the extension of suffrage to all male adults. Leaders in the movement called for a more equitable distribution of income and better living conditions for the working classes. The first trade unions and consumer cooperative societies followed the Chartist movement. Pierre-Joseph Proudhon proposed his philosophy of mutualism in which "everyone had an equal claim, either alone or as part of a small cooperative, to possess and use land and other resources as needed to make a living". Other currents inspired Christian socialism "often in Britain and then usually coming out of left liberal politics and a romantic anti-industrialism" which produced theorists such as Edward Bellamy, Charles Kingsley and Frederick Denison Maurice.

The first advocates of socialism favoured social levelling in order to create a meritocratic or technocratic society based on individual talent. Henri de Saint-Simon was fascinated by the potential of science and technology and advocated a socialist society that would eliminate the disorderly aspects of capitalism based on equal opportunities. He sought a society in which each person was ranked according to his or her capacities and rewarded according to his or her work. His key focus was on administrative efficiency and industrialism and a belief that science was essential to progress. This was accompanied by a desire for a rationally organised economy based on planning and geared towards large-scale scientific and material progress.

West European social critics, including Louis Blanc, Charles Fourier, Charles Hall, Robert Owen, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon and Saint-Simon were the first modern socialists who criticised the poverty and inequality of the Industrial Revolution. They advocated reform, Owen advocating the transformation of society to small communities without private property. Owen's contribution to modern socialism was his claim that individual actions and characteristics were largely determined by their social environment. On the other hand, Fourier advocated Phalanstères (communities that respected individual desires, including sexual preferences), affinities and creativity and saw that work has to be made enjoyable for people. Owen and Fourier's ideas were practiced in intentional communities around Europe and North America in the mid-19th century.

Paris Commune

The Paris Commune was a government that ruled Paris from 18 March (formally, from 28 March) to 28 May 1871. The Commune was the result of an uprising in Paris after France was defeated in the Franco-Prussian War. The Commune elections were held on 26 March. They elected a Commune council of 92 members, one member for each 20,000 residents.

Because the Commune was able to meet on fewer than 60 days in total, only a few decrees were actually implemented. These included the separation of church and state; the remission of rents owed for the period of the siege (during which payment had been suspended); the abolition of night work in the hundreds of Paris bakeries; the granting of pensions to the unmarried companions and children of National Guards killed on active service; and the free return of all workmen's tools and household items valued up to 20 francs that had been pledged during the siege.

First International

In 1864, the First International was founded in London. It united diverse revolutionary currents, including socialists such as the French followers of Proudhon, Blanquists, Philadelphes, English trade unionists and social democrats. In 1865 and 1866, it held a preliminary conference and had its first congress in Geneva, respectively. Due to their wide variety of philosophies, conflict immediately erupted. The first objections to Marx came from the mutualists who opposed state socialism. Shortly after Mikhail Bakunin and his followers joined in 1868, the First International became polarised into camps headed by Marx and Bakunin. The clearest differences between the groups emerged over their proposed strategies for achieving their visions. The First International became the first major international forum for the promulgation of socialist ideas.

Bakunin's followers were called collectivists and sought to collectivise ownership of the means of production while retaining payment proportional to the amount and kind of labour of each individual. Like Proudhonists, they asserted the right of each individual to the product of his labour and to be remunerated for his particular contribution to production. By contrast, anarcho-communists sought collective ownership of both the means and the products of labour. As Errico Malatesta put it, "instead of running the risk of making a confusion in trying to distinguish what you and I each do, let us all work and put everything in common. In this way each will give to society all that his strength permits until enough is produced for every one; and each will take all that he needs, limiting his needs only in those things of which there is not yet plenty for every one". Anarcho-communism as a coherent economic-political philosophy was first formulated in the Italian section of the First International by Malatesta, Carlo Cafiero, Emilio Covelli, Andrea Costa and other ex-Mazzinian republicans.Nunzio Pernicone, "Italian Anarchism 1864–1892", pp. 111–113, AK Press 2009. Out of respect for Bakunin, they did not make their differences with collectivist anarchism explicit until after his death.James Guillaume
"Michael Bakunin – A Biographical Sketch"
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Syndicalism emerged in France inspired in part by Proudhon and later by Pelloutier and Georges Sorel."Socialism"
at ''Encyclopedia Britannica''. It developed at the end of the 19th century out of the French trade-union movement (''syndicat'' is 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. Syndicalism is an economic system that organises industries into confederations (syndicates) and the economy is managed by negotiation between specialists and worker representatives of each field, comprising multiple non-competitive categorised units. Syndicalism is a form of communism and economic corporatism, but also refers to the political movement and tactics used to bring about this type of system. An influential anarchist movement based on syndicalist ideas is anarcho-syndicalism. The International Workers Association is an international anarcho-syndicalist federation of various labour unions.

The Fabian Society is a British socialist organisation established to advance socialism via gradualist and reformist means. The society laid many foundations of the Labour Party and subsequently affected the policies of states emerging from the decolonisation of the British Empire, most notably India and Singapore. Originally, the Fabian Society was committed to the establishment of a socialist economy, alongside a commitment to British imperialism as a progressive and modernising force.''Discovering Imperialism: Social Democracy to World War I'', 25 November 2011. (p. 249): "the pro-imperialist majority, led by Sidney Webb and George Bernard Shaw, advanced an intellectual justification for central control by the British Empire, arguing that existing institutions should simply work more 'efficiently'." Later, the society functioned primarily as a think tank and is one of fifteen socialist societies affiliated with the Labour Party. Similar societies exist in Australia (the Australian Fabian Society), in Canada (the Douglas-Coldwell Foundation and the now disbanded League for Social Reconstruction) and in New Zealand.

Guild socialism is a political movement advocating workers' control of industry through the medium of trade-related guilds "in an implied contractual relationship with the public". It originated in the United Kingdom and was at its most influential in the first quarter of the 20th century. Inspired by medieval guilds, theorists such as Samuel George Hobson and G. D. H. Cole advocated the public ownership of industries and their workforces' organisation into guilds, each of which under the democratic control of its trade union. Guild socialists were less inclined than Fabians to invest power in a state. At some point, like the American Knights of Labor, guild socialism wanted to abolish the wage system.

Second International

As the ideas of Marx and Engels gained acceptance, particularly in central Europe, socialists sought to unite in an international organisation. In 1889 (the centennial of the French Revolution), the Second International was founded, with 384 delegates from twenty countries representing about 300 labour and socialist organisations. Engels was elected honorary president at the third congress in 1893. Anarchists were banned, mainly due to pressure from Marxists. It has been argued that at some point the Second International turned "into a battleground over the issue of libertarian versus authoritarian socialism. Not only did they effectively present themselves as champions of minority rights; they also provoked the German Marxists into demonstrating a dictatorial intolerance which was a factor in preventing the British labour movement from following the Marxist direction indicated by such leaders as H. M. Hyndman".

Reformism arose as an alternative to revolution. Eduard Bernstein was a leading social democrat in Germany who proposed the concept of evolutionary socialism. Revolutionary socialists quickly targeted reformism: Rosa Luxemburg condemned Bernstein's '' Evolutionary Socialism'' in her 1900 essay ''Social Reform or Revolution?'' Revolutionary socialism encompasses multiple social and political movements that may define "revolution" differently. The Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) became the largest and most powerful socialist party in Europe, despite working illegally until the anti-socialist laws were dropped in 1890. In the 1893 elections, it gained 1,787,000 votes, a quarter of the total votes cast, according to Engels. In 1895, the year of his death, Engels emphasised ''The Communist Manifesto'' emphasis on winning, as a first step, the "battle of democracy".

In South America, the Socialist Party of Argentina was established in the 1890s led by Juan B. Justo and Nicolás Repetto, among others. It was the first mass party in the country and in Latin America. The party affiliated itself with the Second International.

Early 20th century

For four months in 1904, Australian Labor Party leader Chris Watson was the Prime Minister of the country. Watson thus became the head of the world's first socialist or social democratic parliamentary government. Australian historian Geoffrey Blainey argues that the Labor Party was not socialist at all in the 1890s, and that socialist and collectivist elements only made their way in the party's platform in the early 20th century.

In 1909, the first Kibbutz was established in Palestine by Russian Jewish Immigrants. The Kibbutz Movement expanded through the 20th century following a doctrine of Zionist socialism. The British Labour Party first won seats in the House of Commons in 1902.

By 1917, the patriotism of World War I changed into political radicalism in Australia, most of Europe and the United States. Other socialist parties from around the world who were beginning to gain importance in their national politics in the early 20th century included the Italian Socialist Party, the French Section of the Workers' International, the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party, the Swedish Social Democratic Party, the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party and the Socialist Party in Argentina, the Socialist Workers' Party in Chile and the Socialist Party of America in the United States.

Russian Revolution

In February 1917, a revolution occurred in Russia. Workers, soldiers and peasants established soviets (councils), the monarchy fell and a provisional government convened pending the election of a constituent assembly. In April of that year, Vladimir Lenin, leader of the Bolshevik faction of socialists in Russia and known for his profound and controversial expansions of Marxism, was allowed to cross Germany to return from exile in Switzerland.

Lenin had published essays on his analysis of imperialism, the monopoly and globalisation phase of capitalism, as well as analyses on social conditions. He observed that as capitalism had further developed in Europe and America, the workers remained unable to gain class consciousness so long as they were too busy working to pay their expenses. He therefore proposed that the social revolution would require the leadership of a vanguard party of class-conscious revolutionaries from the educated and politically active part of the population.

Upon arriving in Petrograd, Lenin declared that the revolution in Russia had only begun, and that the next step was for the workers' soviets to take full authority. He issued a thesis outlining the Bolshevik programme, including rejection of any legitimacy in the provisional government and advocacy for state power to be administered through the soviets. The Bolsheviks became the most influential force. On 7 November, the capitol of the provisional government was stormed by Bolshevik Red Guards in what later was officially known in the Soviet Union as the Great October Socialist Revolution. The provisional government ended and the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic—the world's first constitutionally socialist state—was established. On 25 January 1918, Lenin declared "Long live the world socialist revolution!" at the Petrograd Soviet and proposed an immediate armistice on all fronts and transferred the land of the landed proprietors, the crown and the monasteries to the peasant committees without compensation.

The day after assuming executive power on 25 January, Lenin wrote ''Draft Regulations on Workers' Control'', which granted workers control of businesses with more than five workers and office employees and access to all books, documents and stocks and whose decisions were to be "binding upon the owners of the enterprises". Governing through the elected soviets and in alliance with the peasant-based Left Socialist-Revolutionaries, the Bolshevik government began nationalising banks and industry; and disavowed the national debts of the deposed Romanov