socialism Flashcards

Question

Utopian socialism

Answer 1

Utopian socialists were thinkers who despised the exploitation, greed and selfish individualism of capitalism but had a different vision of a utopian society. The two main thinkers were Robert Owen (1771–1858) and Charles Fourier (1772–1837). Both men disliked free-market capitalism and proposed that small-scale cooperative communities should replace it. Marx ironically named this branch of socialism ‘utopian’ as he deemed the ideas of Owen and Fourier to be idealistic, simplistic fantasies with no plan as to how their proposed societies would be created or maintained. All utopian socialist societies of the nineteenth century failed.

Answer 2

Marxism is named after the most important key socialist thinker, Karl Marx, although many of his ideas were developed with his great collaborator, Friedrich Engels. Marx and Engels were responsible for several ‘firsts’ within socialist thinking: l First to argue that human nature had been distorted by capitalism l First to critique capitalist economics l First to place social class at the heart of socialist ideas l First to argue that the state was not neutral but a puppet of the ruling class l First to articulate the need for and the inevitability of revolution Marx and Engels claimed that their political theories were based on ‘scientific’ explanations of history and society and that they were inevitable: that the world would overthrow capitalism and a communist society would emerge. Marx and Engel’s theory of revolution was based on the ideas of historical materialism, dialectic, social class and class consciousness. l In historical materialism, economic conflict is the catalyst for historical and social development within society. It has driven the economic struggle between contending groups within society, such as slave society (slave vs master), feudal society (peasant vs landowner) and capitalism (worker vs capitalist). The economic base (supported by private property, money, supply and demand) forms the superstructure (culture, politics, law, ideology, religion, art and social consciousness) that is the foundation of the entire society and is reinforced by the state. l Historical development is driven by a dialectic — a continuing chain of contradictions between two opposing forces, the exploited and the exploiters. History had already passed through the first four stages of dialectic change (see Figure 11.1, page 342) when Marx was writing and he predicted that it would inevitably proceed to the final five stages, leading to revolution, the destruction of capitalism and the emergence of a socialist society. l Social class is central to the perception of human history, which is described as a series of economic phases and consists of two main classes. The capitalist stage sees the ruling class take the surplus value of the workers, thereby exploiting them. l The emergence of class consciousness among the proletariat will start the revolution. History will then pass through several stages, ending with the disappearance of the state and a perfect communist society, which marks the end of history.

Answer 3

Historical materialism A theory which argues that economic factors are the driving force for changing events. This economic base forms and shapes the superstructure, which is made up of culture, politics, law, religion, ideology and social consciousness. Dialectic A clash of ideas and perceptions between each stage of history. It occurs when the pre-existing set of values of society, as understood by the ruling class, are no longer valued by the majority. A new society will be born from these two opposing tensions. Class consciousness The moment when the proletariat realises that capitalism is exploiting them, thus empowering them to begin the collective struggle of revolution, after which communism, the perfect socialist society, will be established.

Answer 4

Numerous social thinkers adapted Marx and Engels’ ideas during the twentieth century. Rosa Luxemburg was heavily influenced by them. Like Marx, Luxemburg was a determinist (believing that individuals are slaves to the forces of history outside of our control) and disagreed with Lenin’s voluntarism (that people make history and that historical change is not inevitable). During the Russian Revolution, Lenin argued that there needed to be a ‘vanguard elite’ to guide the population. Luxemburg argued that the proletariat’s struggle for reform and democracy would create the class consciousness necessary to overthrow the capitalist society and state. However, she offered important variations on the conclusions of Marx and Engels: l Luxemburg disagreed with Marxist historical materialism. She argued that less economically developed societies could have communist revolutions and did not need to wait until capitalism had reached a final stage. These ideas would be especially influential with socialist internationalism (see page 433). l Luxemburg disagreed with the Marxist view that there would be no need for democracy after the revolution, arguing: ‘Without general elections, without unrestricted freedom of the press and assembly, without a free struggle of opinion, life dies in every institution.’ l Luxemburg is often praised for anticipating the dictatorship of the party that occurred in countries that had Marxist-inspired revolutions, such as Russia and China. Marxism was adapted by Lenin and later by Stalin in the USSR, by Chairman Mao in China and by Castro in Cuba. None of the countries ever attained the communism that Marx and Engels envisaged. In each case the state grew rather than withered, and in communist Russia and China, the state used extreme violence to enforce socialist ideas. Finally, in all of these cases, the communism was nationalist in nature, rather than internationalist as Marx and Engels had proposed and as Luxemburg advocated.

Answer 5

Rosa Luxemburg (1871–1919) adapted the ideas of Marx and Engels for the early twentieth century and sometimes disagreed with their conclusions. She insisted that democracy and free elections must continue in a post-revolutionary communist society Rosa Luxemburg was heavily influenced by Marx and Engels but her main contribution to socialism was to modify their ideas and to offer differences to the Marxism practised by Lenin and Trotsky in communist Russia. Her key work was The Accumulation of Capital (1913). Luxemburg’s main ideas l Evolutionary socialism is flawed as capitalism cannot be reformed. l Marx’s historical materialism idea is flawed as capitalism does not need to reach a ‘final stage’ before it can be abolished. Like Lenin, Luxemburg argued that communist revolutions could happen in less economically developed societies. l Lenin’s belief of a ‘vanguard elite’ needed to guide the population towards revolution is also flawed. Class consciousness will develop ‘spontaneously’ as the proletariat struggle for workplace reforms and democracy. Mass strike action will help develop the revolutionary state. l Socialism must be internationalist rather than nationalist, which is consistent with what Marx and Engels had argued.

Answer 6

Social democracy was the revisionism of Webb’s democratic socialism and had its origins in Germany and the UK after the Second World War. Socialism faced hostility in the West as the Cold War unfolded, and revisionist socialists had to accept that the post-war economic boom was increasing prosperity and living standards. Rather than alienating the working class, capitalism was delivering tangible benefits.

Answer 7

Revisionism To review and change a political theory. For example, social democracy revised the ideas of democratic socialism. To differentiate between types of revisionism the term ‘neo- revisionism’ is sometimes used — for example the third way, a revision of social democracy, is sometimes called neo- revisionism. Social justice A moral justification to redistribute wealth so as to limit inequality and provide equal opportunities for everyone in society.

Answer 8

Social democrats such as Crosland argued that capitalism should be reformed and not replaced, which was a significant break with the ideas of Webb. Crosland argued that social democracy represented a socialism that recognised the world as it was and not what more traditional socialists might wish it to be. He argued that ‘Marx had little or nothing to offer the contemporary socialist’ and disagreed with Marx, Engels, Luxemburg and Webb when he stated that the inherent contradictions within capitalism (between the exploiter and the exploited) did not drive social change. After the Second World War, the Attlee Labour government nationalised the major utilities: coal, steel, the railways, electricity and gas. Webb’s ideas proposed continual nationalisation of UK industry in order to achieve common ownership with a society and economy coordinated by technocrats of a socialist state. Such collectivism was necessary because, as Labour politician Douglas Jay argued, ‘the gentleman in Whitehall really does know better what is good for people than the people know themselves’. For Crosland, these high levels of collectivism threatened individual freedom and initiative, and his version of socialism abandoned trying to replace capitalism in favour of reforming it. Social democracy’s key ideas were as follows: l The mixed economy A blend of free-market capitalism (in the form of privately owned industry) and state collectivism (nationalised companies). l State management Facilitating the mixed economy via state management of the economy to deliver continual growth and full employment that would incorporate the ideas of Keynes. l The welfare state When capitalism has been suitably reformed, the state funds a welfare state that promotes social justice and equality of opportunity.

Answer 9

Crosland believed that managed capitalism, rather than the laissez-faire economics of pre-war governments, could deliver social justice, a core value of social democracy. ‘I came to hate and loathe social injustice because I disliked the class structure of our society, because I could not tolerate the indefensible differences of status and income that disfigure our society.’ Social democracy proposed distributing the wealth created by the free market more evenly across society. Crosland argued: ‘The socialist seeks a distribution of rewards, status and privileges egalitarian enough to minimise social resentment, to secure justice between individuals and to equalise opportunities.’ Social justice would be promoted through progressive taxation and by ensuring that the proceeds were fairly distributed across the welfare state. For Crosland, social justice meant tackling the inequality of opportunity, especially within education. l He argued for state-sponsored social engineering to ensure an egalitarian society. Grammar schools, in his view, favoured middle-class children while most working- class children received an inferior education at secondary modern schools. l Crosland broadly succeeded in creating comprehensive education (merging grammar and secondary modern schools) which, he argued, would decrease class division. By embracing a mixed economy, social democracy abandoned Webb’s fully socialist state, which would have eradicated free-market capitalism, and settled instead for reforming it. l Social democracy became the first branch of socialism to recognise a role for the free market and privately owned companies, which Marx, Engels, Luxemburg and Webb would all have opposed. l Economic state intervention, via Keynesian regulation of the economy, would ensure continual full employment and economic growth. l Crosland argued that Keynesianism ‘legitimised the doctrine of equality’ and was a powerful attack ‘on the free market of the day’. l Influenced by the liberal ideas of Rawls, Crosland would not accept vast inequality and advocated progressive taxation. However, Keynesianism should not be equated to socialism. Social democracy favoured collective state intervention and management of the economy, as Keynes (a liberal) wanted to preserve capitalism rather than radically change it.

Answer 10

Social democracy was a marriage between economic efficiency and egalitarian social justice. From 1945 to the early 1970s there was a period of sustained growth, full employment and low inflation. Historian Edmund Dell has been critical of Crosland for assuming that this economic profusion was permanent: ‘Crosland was convinced that the economic problem, if not yet solved, would be solved in the course of the next decade or at most two. He wrote as if the age of abundance was almost upon us.’ It was not. Keynes’ demand management ideas were no longer effective when the 1973 oil crisis led to a global recession and Western governments could not spend their way out of an economic downturn. James Callaghan’s Labour government had to ask for an emergency loan from the International Monetary Fund in 1976. For neo-liberals this demonstrated the hubris of social democracy in believing that the state could control the economy. As Labour chancellor (and later prime minister) James Callaghan told the Labour Party conference in 1976: ‘The cosy world we were told would go on forever, where full employment would be guaranteed by a stroke of the Chancellor’s pen … is gone.’ Generous pay rises to workers of nationalised state utilities were now impossible. The welfare state faced a crisis, tax revenues decreased as businesses struggled, and mass unemployment re-emerged (with a sharp increase in demand for welfare benefit) for the first time in a generation. Rising public spending on social justice could not be maintained with a struggling economy, and Crosland concluded that for state spending ‘the party was over’. Labour’s perceived economic ineptitude helped usher in Margaret Thatcher’s New Right-inspired Conservatives in the 1979 general election. By the mid-1990s, after four successive election defeats, it appeared that socialism, in both its evolutionary and revolutionary forms, might have become a political irrelevance.

Answer 11

First way: classical liberal free-market capitalism Second way: social democratic state-managed capitalism/society arrow down Third way: a synthesis of both traditions

Answer 12

Giddens rejected the ‘cybernetic model’ of socialism, whereby the state acts as the artificial brain that manipulates organic society and economy. He also dismissed Webb’s common ownership and Crosland’s Keynesian state management for a dynamic free market that maximised wealth creation. Giddens believed that market capitalism empowered society. Blair put these ideas into practice, rebranding his party as ‘New’ Labour, and he finally broke with the Webbs’ public ownership commitment by amending Clause IV of the Labour Party constitution (see page 55). For Giddens, globalisation significantly weakened the Keynesian-inspired economic solutions favoured by Crosland and reinforced the importance of the free market: ‘Globalisation “pulls away” from the nation state in the sense that some powers nations used to possess, including those that underlay Keynesian economic management, have been weakened.’ The third way retreated from the high levels of taxation favoured by social democracy (which reached 83% for high earners in 1974 under the Labour Party), recognising that such taxation limited economic growth. New Labour governments reduced business taxes and kept higher-rate income taxation to 40% (until 2010, when the latter rose to 50% in response to the financial crisis). Giddens argued that neo-liberal economies generated greater revenues than state- managed ones, which could fund public spending to help society’s poorest. New Labour followed Giddens’ ideas and the economy grew by 2.4% annually in the years Blair was in power, which was a period of higher consecutive economic growth than in the previous 50 years. This allowed public spending to grow from 39% of GDP in 1997 to 47% by 2010. Accepting the virtues of the free market meant that, for many, the ideas of the third way were not socialist at all. For Giddens, the Crosland argument of economic state management and Webb’s socialist state were both redundant and discredited. If social democracy was to renew itself, it had to embrace the global free market.

Answer 13

Giddens argued that the state needed to ‘promote investment in education and infrastructure’ to facilitate the competition state. New Labour’s commitment to infrastructure further demonstrated the marriage of neo-liberal and social democratic ideas. From 1997 to 2010 New Labour increased public spending to build what Giddens called ‘social capital’: schools, hospitals and public buildings, as well as Crossrail (which delivered the Elizabeth line on the London Underground) and the bid for the 2012 Olympic Games. However, rather than being state managed, New Labour commissioned the building work using the free market — via private finance initiative (PFI) and public–private partnerships (PPPs).

Answer 14

Giddens was critical of an atomistic society and advocated ‘communitarianism’, which coupled individualism with social responsibility. Unlike the top-down style of social democracy, Giddens believed government should help foster civic society (representing the needs of the local community). However, unlike social democrats, who argued for automatic welfare, Giddens argued ‘no rights without responsibilities’, meaning that ‘unemployment benefits … should carry the obligation to actively look for work, and it is up to governments to ensure that the welfare system does not discourage an active search’. If social democracy offered a ‘cradle to grave’ welfare state, the third way offered, to quote Tony Blair, ‘a hand-up not a hand-out’ and a very different vision of equality of welfare. Giddens saw no contradiction between self-reliance (a neo-liberal concept) and mutual dependence (a socialist one) and argued that they could coexist. Rather than a welfare state, Giddens imagined a ‘welfare society’ and ‘positive welfare’ where the state helped the socially marginalised ‘underclass’ (sometimes described as the ‘passive poor’). Webb, Crosland and Giddens had differing views on how large the state should be (Figure 11.3). Crosland preferred a mixed economy to Webb’s fully nationalised one. This meant a smaller state, although it still practised economic state management and ran an extensive welfare state. The third way accepted a free-market economy and preferred a less extensive welfare state than social democracy. Giddens offered opportunities for education and training so people might escape poverty. Interestingly, Webb’s position was more similar to that of Giddens than of Crosland, as she had been critical of the welfare aspects of the Beveridge Report that had inspired the welfare state, concluding: ‘The better you treat the unemployed in the way of means, without service, the worse the evil becomes; because it is better to do nothing than to work at low wages and conditions.’ Giddens was influenced by modern liberalism in his version of equality of opportunity and quotes extensively from early twentieth-century liberal L.T. Hobhouse, who had argued that government and state should not ‘feed, house or clothe’ the population, ‘but should secure conditions upon which its citizens are able to win by their own effort all that is necessary to a full civic efficiency’.

Answer 15

Democratic socialism: Webb Social democracy: Crosland The third way: Giddens

Answer 16

Giddens’ idea - Positive welfare New Labour policy : A national minimal wage Tax credits for workers 10% tax band for those on low incomes Educational maintenance grants for poorer students A ‘New Deal’ to help the unemployed find employment Giddens’ idea - Welfare society New Labour policy : Commitment to social justice in New Labour Party constitution Targeting areas that specifically affected the ‘underclass’, such as poverty, low educational attainment, drug addiction, poor housing and poor parenting, via the welfare-to-work programme Giddens’ idea - Education — Giddens called for a ‘redistribution for all’ New Labour policy : Introduction of academy schools in 2000: Blair argued it would ‘improve pupil performance and break the cycle of low expectations’ Schools were encouraged to compete with each other in league tables (a neo-liberal idea) to improve efficiency, and parents were free to choose which school their child attended (encouraging civic engagement) Blair’s pro-education policies increased university participation. In 1950 just 3.4% of the population attended university, in 1970 it was 19.3% and by 2017 it had reached 49% New Labour championed the Giddens belief of life-long learning so individuals could adapt to the ever-changing workplace of the twenty-first century: ‘Education needs to be redefined to focus on capabilities that individuals will be able to develop through life’ Giddens’ idea - Self-reliance (remodelling the welfare state) New Labour policy : Introduction of university tuition fees Welfare assistance conditional on individuals actively seeking work Giddens’ idea - Attitudes to crime New Labour policy : Justice system that was both authoritarian and reformist by being ‘tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime’ Giddens’ idea - Rejection of state management New Labour policy : Clause IV of the Labour Party constitution was amended, ending Labour’s commitment to public ownership Giddens’ idea - Benefits of the free market New Labour policy : Accepting the privatisations of national utilities by the Conservative governments of 1979–97 by not returning to a mixed economy Giddens’ idea - Principle of community New Labour policy : Devolution of Scotland and Wales and directly elected mayors

Answer 17

Tony Blair was Labour leader between 1994 and 2007 and was heavily influenced by the ideas of Anthony Giddens. Read some of Blair’s most famous quotations: ‘What modernisation to me is about is not dumping principle. It’s the opposite. It’s retrieving what the Labour Party is really about.’ ‘We are a party committed to social justice.’ ‘Ask me my three main priorities for government and I tell you: education, education, education.’ ‘Tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime.’ ‘Britain needs successful people in business who can become rich by their success, through the money they earn.’

socialism Flashcards

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