Socialism: Origins And History

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Socialism

Origins of Socialism

Socialism describes any theory of politics or economics that the community should own and manage the property and natural resources rather than individuals. The term ‘socialism’ has been applied throughout history, including utopianism, anarchism, Soviet communism, and social democracy, to very different economic and political systems. These systems differ widely in their structure, but they share the opposite

Socialism’s intellectual roots go back at least as far as ancient Greek times when in his dialogue, Republic (360 B.C.), the philosopher Plato depicted a type of collective society. In England in the 16th century, for his Utopia, an imaginary island where money has been abolished and people live and work together, Thomas More drew on platonic ideals.

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In the late 18th century, the invention of the steam engine powered the Industrial Revolution, which brought sweeping economic and social change first to Great Britain, then to the rest of the world. Factory owners became wealthy, while many workers lived in increasing poverty, laboring for long hours under difficult and sometimes dangerous conditions.

Socialism emerged as a response to the expanding capitalist system. It presented an alternative, aimed at improving the lot of the working class and creating a more egalitarian society. In its emphasis on public ownership of the means of production, socialism contrasted sharply with capitalism, which is based around a free market system and private ownership.

Karl Marx and Socialism

It was Karl Marx the most influential theorist of socialism, who called Owen, Fourier and other earlier socialist thinkers “utopians,” and dismissed their visions as dreamy and unrealistic. For Marx, society was made up of classes: When certain classes controlled the means of production, they used that power to exploit the labor class.

In their 1848 work The Communist Manifesto, Marx and his collaborator, Friedrich Engels, argued that true “scientific socialism” could be established only after a revolutionary class struggle, with the workers emerging on top.

After Marx died in 1883, his influence on socialist thought only grew after his death. His ideas were taken up and expanded upon by various political parties (such as the German Social Democratic Party) and leaders like Vladimir Lenin and Mao Zedong.

Most socialist thinking came to dominate Marx’s emphasis on the revolutionary clash between capital and labor, but other brands of socialism continued to develop. Formed around Christian religious principles, Christian socialism or collective societies. Not only capitalism, even state, was seen by anarchism as negative and wasteful. Social democracy held that it was possible to achieve socialist goals through gradual political reform rather than revolution.

Socialism in the 20s

Social democracy and communism emerged as the two most dominant socialist movements in the world in the 20th century especially after the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the formation of the Soviet Union. By the end of the 1920s, Lenin’s revolution-focused view of socialism had given way to the foundation and consolidation of absolute power under the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Soviet and other communists joined forces in resisting fascism with other socialist movements. This coalition collapsed after the Second World War as the Soviet Union formed acros communist regimes

With the collapse of these regimes in the late 1980s and the ultimate fall of the Soviet Union itself in 1991, communism as a global political force was greatly diminished. Only China, Cuba, North Korea, Laos and Vietnam remain communist states, meanwhile, over the course of the 20th century, social democratic parties won support in many European countries by pursuing a more centrist ideology. Their ideas called for a gradual pursuit of social reforms (like public education and universal healthcare) through the processes of democratic government within a largely capitalist system.

What is the Utopian Socialism?

Early socialists such as Henri de Saint-Simon, Robert Owen and Charles Fourier offered their own social organization models based on cooperation rather than competition. Although Saint-Simon proposed a system in which the state controls production and distribution for the good of all members of society, Both Fourier and Owen (in France and Britain respectively) proposed systems based on small, non-centralized, collective communities.

In 1825, Owen, who owned and operated textile mills in Lanark, Scotland, went to the United States to launch an experimental community in New Harmony, Indiana. His planned community was founded on the principles of self-sufficiency, cooperation, and property ownership, shortly after the experiment failed, Owen lost a lot of his fortune. More than 40 small cooperative farming communities were founded across the United States, inspired by Fourier’s theories. One of these, based in Red Bank, New Jersey, lasted into the 1930s.

How does Socialism Work?

An in-depth analysis of the different aspects of socialism as an ideology shows its theoretical elements that can be defined as follows:

· Socialism aimed at a social advantage rather than private advantage:

The main philosophy of socialism is that it always gives priority to the social good or to the common welfare of society, and secondary importance is given to the welfare of the individual. Remembering our memory, we can say that Rousseau first enunciated this concept in modern times era, The common good was of primary importance in his conception of the general will, and he declared in no uncertain terms that individuals should conform to the general will directed at the common good, and through this change, they will be able to achieve the objective of moral upliftment, It is necessary to better serve the socialization of production and distribution of the common good goal. Private profile and fulfillment of the needs of a few people can never be the aim of any social thinker at the detriment of the desires of others. From this perspective, it is asserted that socialism is far better than any other ideology of politics. Nevertheless, this opinion was criticized by many progressives, For this very reason, socialism is a polemical concept.

· Socialism is about democracy, but it’s more than that:

Confusion about the relationship between socialism and democracy has been found. It is accepted in all hands that socialism is not complete without democracy and that democracy is empty without socialism. Bernard Crick says: “Socialism is a special form of democracy, it arises from a tradition of democratic ideals and to some extent, democratic experience. Democracy is a necessary, but not a sufficient, part of any definition of socialism.”

Socialism says that each one’s free development is the condition of everyone’s free development. Democracy is also aiming for the same noble goal. Socialism through the cooperation machinery and collective ownership of the means of production can ensure the development of everyone. In socialism, each individual has the appropriate scope for exercising rights and freedoms of culture, not all citizens have the scope to be directly involved in state administration; they do it through their representatives. In such a situation, it is the duty of the democratic government to see the translation into reality of the most important goals of socialism, if there are inequalities among individuals especially economic inequality that make democracy a mockery.

There is a need for both socialism and democracy. Democracy emphasizes rights and freedoms, and socialism seeks to create a friendly atmosphere to realize them. But without the other, one can’t reach the destination. The above-mentioned intimate relationship between socialism and democracy is not based on imagination, but on the realities on the ground.

· The State of Socialism is founded on cooperation

Cooperation has been mentioned as a fundamental principle of socialism. Here we would like to highlight other aspects without citizen cooperation and also cooperation between the ruler and the ruled, no state structure can fulfill its responsibilities, that is why each state aspires to co-operation and a socialist state emphasizes it because it abhors competition and struggle between citizens. Men are not always interested in working together, and they often forget this principle. So it’s the state’s responsibility to create an atmosphere of citizen cooperation, and that could be achieved under socialism.

A critic makes the following observation: ‘No socialist can be a socialist logically and thoroughly unless he gives the correct answer, namely that they (citizens) must cooperate so that they can escape the struggle of life to do things worth doing for their own sake.’ “Hence the social creed which underlies the socialist view of the state is that society is an association of human beings, formed with the object of giving all its members the opportunity to satisfy their desires for spiritual freedom and the good life”.

The noble and exalted goal of the cooperation is stated here that it is tragic that individualism has overlooked this by stressing rivalry. This perspective is usually found in the idealist philosophers ‘ writings. Rousseau and Hegel in general assumed that a government had noble goals. Before them, the same thing was said by Plato and Aristotle. We conclude that the object of socialism is noble.

· Life alone is not a struggle for existence

Most individualists who borrow the famous phrase from Darwin claim that only the fittest people can survive. In his most thought-provoking book The Origin of the Species (1859), Charles Darwin (1809-1882) said that it was found in the animal world that only the fit animals could survive. Many individualists argue that there is ongoing competition or struggle between individuals in society and that ultimately only those individuals who have been able to establish their superiority in all or many respects will survive.

The individuals will be left alone for this contest and any kind of external intervention will be avoided. But this argument has been rejected by the socialists. A point of view in life is not just about battle or rivalry. Life has larger and more noble goals, and these can be achieved if individuals are fully liberated from the petty necessities of their day today.

It is the noble duty of all individuals to advance society’s culture and development, to know more equality, and to exercise more rights. Rights and freedoms can help individuals develop their personalities. Therefore, the socialists argue that all this is only possible in a true socialist society.

So life should not be thrown into a competition that is unlimited and cut-throat. The life that individualism conceives is a life of competition and hard fighting. The life imagined by socialism is a life of leisure and comfort for greater and more noble purposes.

· Socialism requires individuals ‘ overall development:

There is a long and heated controversy between socialism and individualism, and the main point of this controversy is that the former attempts to subjugate the individual to authority or common order, or suggests subjugation. Nothing can be done by individuals alone. Development and welfare, of course, can only be accomplished through cooperation and common order or property ownership.

But this is strongly opposed by the individualists. Forcing the person to conduct authority direction is another name of coercion and loss of liberty. The socialist system, the individualists say, would stand on the road of individuals ‘ all-around growth. Yet socialists reject this claim, and their point is that it is only through the socialist system that change is universal.

Furthermore, the socialists argue that only socialism professes to liberate individuals from the various pressures and necessities of daily life, and this promises all-around development abundantly. C. E. M. Joad says, “Socialism in fact seeks to free the individual from the pressure of material cares, in order that he may live his life in his own way and freely develop his personality”.

Individualism throws the individuals within themselves into the vortex of fierce competition, creating a lot of tension, uncertainty and anxiety. This blocks the personality’s free development. To sum up, the point of view of liberalism is the rivalry between people, whereas socialism argues that this form of competition creates an atmosphere of conflict and uncertainty.

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