Socialism

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Socialism
2
Reasons for socialism

• Socialism emerges as a reaction to social and
  economic conditions created by 19th Century
  industrial capitalism.
• Linked to the rise of a new class of industrial
  workers who experienced the poverty and
  degradation of early industrialisation.
• Socialism was a critique of liberal market
  society and capitalism.
• Early socialism offered a radical alternative to
  capitalism and aimed at its removal. Early
  socialist parties had a tendency therefore to
  advocate revolution.
• As the late 19th century approached there were
  improvements in working class living conditions
  and the advance of political democracy leading
  to the integration of the working class into
  society. In place of revolution, socialist
  parties increasingly adopted legal means to
  achieve power.. Hence the split between
  revolutionary and parliamentary socialists.
• Reformist socialists seeking to work within the
  system came to accept capitalism as the best
  means of generating wealth.
• In the 20th century socialism spread to Latin
  America, Asia and Africa where there had been
  little experience of industrialisation, there it
  became associated with anti and post colonial
  liberation movements.
• At the end of the 20th Century, socialism was
  best by crises- the fall of communism 1989 was a
  severe blow to the credibility of an ideology
  which placed emphasis on state planning.
  Sovcislist increasingly accepted the
  inevitability of the globalised economy which
  rendered state intervention to achieve broad
  social and economic goals reedundant.

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The core themes
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Community

• Cooperation has greater practical and moral value
  than individual self striving (collectivism).
• Humans are bound together by common bonds of
  sympathy and comradeship or fraternity.
• Humans are moulded by the society to which they
  belong and therefore owe obligations to it.
• Wealth is collectively produced and therefore
  should be shared.
• Individual self striving undermines the
  community.
• Collectivism- not exclusively socialist but based
  on belief that collective action has greater
  practical and moral worth than individual self
  striving.

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Cooperation

• Cooperation is natural as humans are social
  animals.
• Competition encourages selfishness and encourages
  them to deny their social nature.
• Humans can be motivated by moral as well as
  material incentives.
• Moral desire to work for common good encourages
  sympathy and empathy towards others thereby
  strengthening the community whereas individual
  self striving undermines this and produces
  conflict.

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Equality

• Commitment to equality is the defining aspect of
  socialism.
• Inequality in society is a reflection of unequal
  structure of non socialist societies.
• Inequality arises out of unequal treatment.
  Justice demands that people are treated equally.
• Common ownership rather equality of opportunity
  as the latter perpetuates social inequality.
• Equality strengthens community and
  reduces/removes divisions which undermine the
  community.
• Needs satisfaction- everyone has the same basic
  needs such as food and shelter and social
  justice is about satisfying the basic needs of
  all in society.

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Social Class

• Society is divided into classes defined by socio
  economic circumstances. This is the most
  important way in which humans identify themselves
  and nationalism is more artificial because it
  denies the significance of social class.
• Socialism is most identified with the working
  class and its struggle both political and
  economic for liberation. The aim however is to
  establish an egalitarian society and therefore
  divisions or classes will disappear.
• Socialists are divided on nature an importance of
  class, Marx saw the proletariat differences were
  irreconcilable. However reformist socialists
  aimed for amelioration of the differences between
  classes via social reform and unlike Marx
  therefore saw class and capitalism as a permanent
  feature of society.
• Socialist identification with the working class
  has declined- the durability of capitalism and
  the emergence of differences within the working
  class including the development of an aristocracy
  of labour means the working class is not solid.
  Also the shift from industrial to service sector
  economies has led to a sharp decline in the size
  of the manual working class in the west. The
  embourgeosiement of the working class with the
  adoption of middle class lifestyles based on car
  and home ownership.

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Common Ownership

• Competition and inequality the product of private
  ownership.
• Private property is morally corrupting as it
  produces greed and negates communal obligations.
• Private property leads to wealth inequality and
  class conflict.
• Socialists seek common ownership of productive
  wealth or capital- banks, land, industry.
• As wealth is collectively produced it is immoral
  that any one or group of individuals should be in
  exclusive possession of it.
• Private ownership means that productive wealth
  cannot be used for the benefit of the community
  and this leads to poverty, as the owners of
  productive wealth seek to maximise their profits.
• Marx wrote that the production of the means of
  subsistence ( that which is necessary too
  survive) was the most important of human
  activities and that people were defined by and
  achieved a sense of their self worth from their
  labour. However, private ownership means that
  workers were working not for themselves and the
  community but for the interests of the owner,
  hence they were alienated from their labour.
• Socialists disagree as to what common ownership
  means and the degree to which it should be
  implemented. Marx understood it to mean the
  community of workers collectively owning the
  means of productive wealth- cooperatives such as
  the Coop Movement started in Rochdale Lancs 1844.
  Socialist regimes such as Eastern Europe before
  the fall of communism interpreted it as state
  ownership. In the west e.g. UK post 1945 the
  commanding heights were taken under public
  ownership but the bulk of the economy remained in
  private hands (Social democracy)

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Why were early socialists attracted to the idea
of revolution?

• Early industrialisation C19 led to especially
  harsh new work practices especially exploitation.
  The expanding urban landscape created by
  industrialisation was especially bleak with
  massive social problems such as overcrowding in
  slums.
• There were limited alternatives for the working
  class as for much of the 19th century they were
  excluded from voting.
• Socialists viewed the state as oppressive
  designed to protect and promote the interests of
  the property owning class and to keep the masses
  down. Therefore many socialists peaceful
  methods as these would not remove the
  exploitative state.
• Revolution or armed struggle was also a
  convenient way in the Third World to mobilise
  populations against colonial rule by western
  powers. Franz Fanon in Wretched of the Earth
  argued that colonial rule had bred a sense of
  inferiority among Africans and that this could
  only be purged by the experience of armed
  struggle.
• Only through revolution and the overthrow of the
  state could society begin afresh and create a new
  socialist utopia.
• Marx believed that since each social class was
  governed by its own interests, the only way to
  establish socialism was to overthrow the
  capitalist state as the bourgeoisie capitalist
  class in whose interests it operated would never
  willingly or peacefully surrender power.
• To elaborate on Marx- classes were antagonistic-
  under capitalism, the mode of production was
  designed to produce goods/services for profit
  which were either transformed into further
  investment or used as income all for the benefit
  of the capitalist class. This was antagonistic
  because the workers served only the interests of
  the capitalist class whose interest was to keep
  wages as low as possible to maximise profit.
  Because classes were thus antagonistic, the only
  way for change was through revolution.
• Against those social democrats who argued for the
  peaceful parliamentary road towards socialism,
  Lenin wrote in State and Revolution 1917 to
  decide once every few years which member of the
  ruling class is to repress and crush the people
  through parliament- this is the real essence of
  bourgeois parliamentarianism, not only in
  parliamentary-constitutional monarchies but also
  in the most democratic republics.

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Agrarian (revolutionary) socialism

• Socialism developed not only as a critique of
  capitalism but also of urban industrial society.
  The socialist ideal was born in European
  countries in transition from traditional
  societies to modern ones. In this sense,
  socialism were focused backwards on what was
  thought to have been a communal cooperative
  fraternal way of life which had to be recreated.
  Populist (Narodnik- Narod is the Russian word for
  people) socialism which emerged in late C19
  Russia essentially opposed to industrialisation,
  urbanisation and individualism (seen as western
  imports) and sought to re-establish roots in a
  traditional agrarian collectivist society.
  Unlike Marxism and Leninism which are focused on
  teleological goals ( in some state of perfection
  in the future) it was reactionary often espousing
  a supposed ideal state in which the peasant had
  an exemplary relationship with nature.

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Why has revolutionary socialism tended towards
dictatorship?

• Marx believed that repression was a feature of
  the state whose sole purpose was to uphold the
  interests of the ruling elite. Although he
  argued that the need for a repressive state would
  disappear once class differences were removed,
  nevertheless he argued that once capitalism was
  overthrown it was necessary for the new
  proletarian order to establish a dictatorship of
  the proletariat in order to prevent counter
  revolution and to create the egalitarian society
  based on common ownership.
• Use of force to achieve power encouraged the new
  rulers to apply it as a method of rule- power
  grows out of the barrel of a gun Mao Zedong
• Revolutionary parties had necessarily adopted
  militaristic and hierarchical structures in order
  to plan revolution and continued to apply this to
  forging the new state.
• David Lane- The Rise and Fall of State Socialism
  on Stalinism it became a developmental ideology.
  Society was mobilised by the communist party and
  the advance to a communist mode of production was
  to be achieved through state ownership, control
  and coercion. This was a reflection of the
  failure of the world revolution envisaged by
  Lenin 1917 to materialise and the fact that
  Russia was in Marxist interpretation both
  socially and economically underdeveloped.

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What are the key features of Marxs theory of
History?

• The emphasis on materialism- the production of
  the means of subsistence is the most important of
  all human activity and therefore underpins the
  structure of society.. All other aspects-
  political, legal, cultural and religious are
  explained by reference to economic factors.
• Historical change was driven by dialectical
  materialism (phrase first used post Marx by
  Plekhanov)- basically inequality of access to
  resources creates conflict and leads to change.
  Capitalism depends on the existence of an
  exploited labouring class- proletariat which
  produces the wealth for the owners of the means
  of productive wealth. Capitalism therefore sowed
  the seeds of its own destruction as the
  proletarian class would eventually rise up and
  establish an egalitarian society based on common
  ownership.
• Marxs theory was teleological- it invested
  History with a purpose and that the triumph of
  socialism was inevitable. In this sense by
  producing a formula for history, he turned it
  into a science. This would only happen once
  society had evolved via a series of epochs-
  primitive communism, slavery, feudalism,
  capitalism In each case inequality of access a
  to the means of productive wealth led to
  conflict- dialectical materialism which led to a
  higher stage of social development. Marx
  therefore envisaged an end to history as with
  socialism there would be no competing classes or
  social groups.

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Why did Marx believe that capitalism was doomed?

• Humans are alienated. They are forced to work
  not for what they need but for the profit of the
  owner/manager. They are alienated from their
  work because they are forced to work under
  supervision and alienated from their fellow
  worker because they are encouraged to be self
  interested.
• Society would become progressively dominated by
  two competing classes- the bourgeoisie which
  owned and controlled the means of productive
  wealth and the proletariat. The relationship
  between classes must be antagonistic- the
  capitalist can only make a profit by paying the
  worker less than the value of their work (surplus
  value). The above means that economic
  exploitation is central to the effective working
  of the capitalist system.
• Capitalism was notoriously inefficient means of
  running the economy. There would be recurring
  bouts of overproduction and recession which
  worsened each time as rate of profit would fall.
  This would contribute to the immiseration of the
  proletariat and the concentration of ownership
  and therefore the expansion of the proletariat.
• The proletariat through its immiseration would
  develop class consciousness and realise the key
  to its liberation lay in the overthrow of the
  capitalist order. This could only be achieved by
  the realisation that the interest of the members
  of the proletariat lay in cooperation with each
  other. Eventually, a classless society based on
  common ownership would be established. There
  would be no exploitation and class antagonism
  and classes would disappear and the state would
  wither away.

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Capitalism- sowed the seeds of its own destruction

• Marx believed that capitalism created the
  proletariat- its antagonist and revolutionary
  successor- it would develop in size and strength
  and organisation and consciousness as capitalism
  itself developed. It would develop from a class
  in itself to a class for itself. A progressive
  simplification of class forces was underway as
  intermediate petty-bourgeois elements were
  swallowed up by the class polarization into the
  two great hostile camps of bourgeoisie and
  proletariat . The hostility would reach its
  decisive hour in conditions of capitalist crisis
  and proletarian pauperisation when the
  proletariat would emancipate itself through a
  revolution of the immense majority from the final
  form of class oppression and antagonism.

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Why did Marx believe that the dictatorship of the
proletariat was necessary?

• The proletarian revolution had not immediately
  led to the end of class antagonisms, there was
  the threat of bourgeois counter revolution and
  hence the need for a state.
• The need for the restructuring of society along
  egalitarian lines.
• Not all repressed groups achieved class
  consciousness simultaneously- Marx saw the
  industrial proletariat as gaining this first but
  what about the peasantry. Trotsky wrote that the
  liberation of the peasantry had to await the
  proletarian revolution.
• The dictatorship of the proletariat was a
  temporary state as once an egalitarian society
  was established repression which Marx saw as the
  purpose of any state would become unnecessary as
  there would no longer be competing classes.

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What are the criticisms of Marx?

• The belief that history was teleological left
  little scope for free will.
• Marx contradicted himself- On the one hand wrote
  about violent revolution as the model of social
  change Force is the midwife of every old society
  pregnant with a new one (Das Kapital). However,
  at other times, he advocated a peaceful
  transition- 1872 Amsterdam Speech he allowed the
  possibility of peaceful constitutionalism. This
  was also followed up by Engels who in 1895 wrote
  the mode of struggle of 1848 is today obsolete.
  Here he was reflecting on the electoral successes
  of the SPD in Germany. Harington (1928-1989) in
  Socialism Past and Future- In those societies
  where democratic rights were repressed he Marx
  and Engels insisted that the violent option had
  to be kept open. But in those countries like
  France, Britain and the United States Engels
  wrote in 1891 there was a real possibility of a
  peaceful and democratic transition to the new
  society
• Marxs predictions imbued in 20th century Marxist
  leaders an absolute certainty in their conviction
  in their views and inclined them towards
  dictatorship and the implementation of policies
  with scant regard for human consequences.
• Orthodox communism revised the ideas of Marx in
  significantly important ways. In What is to be
  done (1902) Lenin argued that left the
  proletariat were incapable of independently
  developing class consciousness. It required the
  formation of a vanguard revolutionary party to
  educate the workers that the key to their
  salvation lay not in pressure for better wages
  and conditions (trades unionism) but the
  overthrow of the capitalist state. Lenin wrote
  modern socialist consciousness can arise only on
  the base of profound scientific knowledgeThe
  vehicle of science is not the proletariat but the
  bourgeois intelligentsia it was in the minds of
  individual members of this stratum that modern
  socialism originated and it was they who
  communicated it to the more intellectually
  developed proletarians Latterly, communist
  parties when they achieved power were preoccupied
  with addressing issues of social and economic
  backwardness.
• The state far from withering away becomes the
  engine for social and economic change. A clear
  example of this was Stalin's Russia 1928-1953
  whereby the economy was transformed via a series
  of industrial five year plans. The state rather
  than the people themselves owned and controlled
  the means of productive wealth.
• Capitalism far from being on the verge of
  collapse, proved durable. Those states where
  Marx predicted revolution failed to succumb. In
  a more developed economy, capitalism diversified
  and the working class became more integrated.
  Into the rest of society.
• Modern Marxists have even questioned the
  emphasis on class struggle. Arguing for a need
  to address an increasingly pluralistic and
  individualistic society they have shifted focus
  onto a wider range of struggles in the new social
  movements such as the womens movement,
  ecological movement, gay and lesbian movement etc

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More on Lenin and the need for a revolutionary
vanguard party.

• What is to be Done (1902) The history of all
  countries shows the working class exclusively by
  their own efforts are able to develop only trades
  union consciousnesstrades unionism means the
  ideological enslavement of the workers by the
  bourgeoisie. Our task, the task of social
  democracy is to divert the working class movement
  from the spontaneous trade unionist striving and
  to bring it under the wing of revolutionary
  social democracy
• Writing in 1920, Lenin wrote the dictatorship of
  the proletariat cannot be exercised through the
  whole of that class because in all capitalist
  countries the proletariat is still so divided, so
  degraded and so corrupt in parts that an
  organisation taking on the whole proletariat
  cannot directly exercise proletariat
  dictatorship. It can be exercised only by a
  vanguard

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More on Lenin

• Lenin argued that imperialism had made capitalism
  global (Imperialism the Highest Stage of
  Capitalism). This meant that backward countries
  were subject to capital penetration by the more
  advanced. Lenin therefore argued that the first
  strike against capitalism would happen in its
  weakest link of the capitalist chain. As early
  as 1882, in their preface to the Russian edition
  of the Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels noted
  that revolution in Russia could be the spark for
  revolution in the West. Lenin now argued that
  since world capitalism was no longer able to
  contain itself (exported abroad) its survival
  depended on extract surplus from the periphery
  and when exploitation of that ended (revolution)
  the contradictions inherent in capitalism would
  inevitably lead to its collapse elsewhere.
• In the April Theses 1917 he wrote Any day may
  come the crash of European Imperialism. The
  Russian Revolution which you have carried out has
  laid the foundations for it and opened a new
  epoch. Long live the world wide socialist
  revolution.
• Letters on Tactics (1917) The bourgeois
  revolution (February 1917) is completed. April
  Theses- Russia is passing from the first stage of
  the revolution which owing to the insufficient
  class consciousness and organisation of the
  proletariat placed power in the hands of the
  bourgeoisie to the second stage which must place
  power in the hands of the proletariat and the
  poorest peasants
• In the summer of 1917 he wrote We stand on the
  threshold of a world wide proletarian revolution.
  If we come out now we shall have on our side all
  proletarian Europe

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Criticisms of Marx (contd)

• Nowhere in classical Marxism is there a developed
  account of socialist political systems. He
  leaves unanswered basic questions of the nature
  of representation, accountability, organisation
  of political compromise and opposition
• The reason for the above vacuum is Marxist belief
  that a distinct political machinery is only
  required in a divided society of classes. In
  State and Revolution (1917) written on eve of
  Bolshevik revolution, Lenin wrote that a Marxist
  revolution would destroy the state and then be
  followed by a system of popular self government
  on the commune model which would be a
  decentralised and participatory democracy all
  will govern in turn and will soon become
  accustomed to no one governing However in
  practice Leninism reflected a tradition (Marxist)
  which offered democracy without division since
  class divisions disappear What exactly did Marx
  mean when he wrote of the dictatorship of the
  proletariat? The actual characteristics of the
  revolutionary exercise of power by the
  proletariat as envisaged by Marx remained a
  source for dispute. Even Marx appears to have
  contradicted himself, in the March Address (1850)
  he wrote the task of the revolutionary party is
  to carry through the strictest centralisation.
  However later in 1871 in The Civil War In France
  he eulogised the decentralised democracy of the
  Paris Commune. Therefore, in Lenins Russia,
  behind the account of a self managing society
  there lurks the state power of the armed worker,
  authoritarianism, democratic centralism of rule
  by a single party and a repressive state
  bureaucracy. Where socialist revolutions have
  been successful a one party state has invariably
  emerged. At the beginning of the 20th Century,
  Marxism could present itself in terms of
  universal humanism at the end of century every
  Marxist state was a dictatorship.
• The dilemma for socialists concerns attempts to
  retain the working class as the key actor and
  the failure of the latter to act in a way
  expected of it. Feminism is the ideology which
  has identified the limited stereotype of
  socialisms traditional actor as male, manual and
  muscular.

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How socialists came to deviate over ways and means

• Pre 1914 English socialism which rejected Marxs
  analysis was an exception to the European
  socialist tradition.
• Pre 1917 in Europe there was an open orthodoxy
  socialists could support parliamentary or
  revolutionary means but could still be united
  under support for Marxist beliefs. European
  socialists could all call themselves social
  democrats. The 2nd International agreement that
  the socialist parties would oppose a European war
  however almost without exception they supported
  their governments 1914.
• The Bolsheviks in Russia did not and with the
  seizure of power 1917 Marxism became Marxist
  Leninism a closed orthodoxy with an official
  interpretation and backed by the apparatus of a
  totalitarian state.. Social Democracy became
  distinct from revolutionary socialism- indeed in
  1918, to signify his break from the former, Lenin
  renamed his party Communist. For Lenin, the
  term social democracy became a disparaged term an
  effective accommodation with capitalism.
• Indeed, 1914 and 1917 represented a schism, post
  war the left became divided into a reformist
  right (socialist) and revolutionary left
  (communist) At the 3rd International 1919,
  attending parties were required to adopt the
  label communist as opposed to social democrat
  and to declare war against the entire bourgeois
  world and its social democrat allies. Social
  Democracy became distinct from communism because
  it was committed to reformism in place of
  revolution
• After 1945, social democrat parties moved further
  towards reformism and a permanent accommodation
  with liberal capitalism ( Bad Godesberg programme
  of the West German SPD 1959). Post 1945,
  European social democratic parties out rightly
  abandoned the use of violence as a means to
  power, socialism was defended as a social ideal,
  inseparable from parliamentary democracy,
  abandonment of state property in the means of
  production in favour of a mixed economy and
  finally a total opposition to communism.

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Over what do socialists disagree?

• The importance and extent of public ownership
• Socialism is about equality but of what kind and
  how much?
• Industrialisation- Fourier favoured a return to a
  more organic community, the populist/social
  revolutionary tradition in C19 and late Tsarist
  Russia saw the peasant commune as the basis of
  socialism and rejected Max analysis of the need
  for industrialisation as the necessary
  foundations of socialism as necessitating the
  immiseration of the people and therefore immoral.
  However, Saint Simon was excited by the
  potential of industrialisation once released from
  its individualistic constraints.
• Is socialism about libertarian and self managing
  communities or the replacement of chaos and waste
  of unregulated capitalism with socialist
  planning. This tends to be statist and
  centralist. Socialist planning can be seen as
  part of the Enlightenment tradition with the
  triumph of reason over chaos. This very much
  encapsulates the Fabian view of elite management
  elite of unassuming experts (Beatrice Webb)
• Is socialism scientific ( a comprehensive and
  self contained method of social analysis yielding
  a body of truths) or is it utopian (ethical)

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Scientific versus Ethical socialism

• Scientific
• Socialism is immanent (predicated)
• Socialism builds down from the state- state
  socialism
• Organisational socialism of order, planning and
  bureaucracy
• Revolutionary rupture
• Marxism was a repudiation of socialism as a moral
  doctrine- it was a rigid doctrine of economic
  laws and historical determinism

• Ethical
• Socialism attached to human energy and will
• Socialism builds up from the community
• Libertarian and direct democracy
• Self management
• Reformist tradition of improvement and persuasion

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Why did ideas of evolutionary socialism develop?

• Rise in wages and living standards from late C19
  helped to deradicalise many of the working class.
• Integration of the working class into mainstream
  society via development trades unions etc which
  can campaign for better wages and conditions.
• Extension of the franchise.
• Revolutionary socialism therefore remains in
  politically and economically backward areas.
• Optimism that socialism was inevitable via the
  ballot box as working class became an ever larger
  of electorate.. This was based on the
  presumption that socialist parties were the
  natural home of the working class who in turn
  represented the largest group in the population.
  Once in power, socialist parties would be able to
  transform society alongside socialist lines.
• Ideas of evolutionary socialism were known as
  gradualism. This ballot box socialism found
  expression in the tactics of Eduard Bernstein in
  Evolutionary socialism (1898) who believed that
  the German socialist party- SPD would be able to
  move away from revolutionary tactics.
• Another form of gradualism was the Fabian Society
  founded in UK in 1884. It was elitist being
  based on middle class membership. It believed
  that the way to introduce socialism was by
  converting elite groups as socialism which
  emphasised planning was more rational than
  capitalism. Fabians rejected Marxs strategy of
  class revolution as wholly inappropriate to
  English conditions.
• Fabians offered a strategy of resolute
  constitutionalism (Shaw) based on an alternative
  historical analysis to that of Marx in that the
  state was being captured both locally and
  centrally for collectivist purposes. Sidney Webb
  in Fabian Essays No philosopher now looks for
  anything but the gradual evolution of the new
  order from the old, without break of continuity
  or abrupt change of the entire social tissue at
  any point during the process

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Why did gradualism fail?

• To win elections in order to implement a
  socialist programme, democratic socialist parties
  had to broaden their appeal and therefore water
  down socialist policies.
• Working class has declined in developed post
  industrial societies. The working class is not
  monolithic. J.K. Galbraith in The Culture of
  Contentment argued that material affluence and
  economic security had inclined large sections of
  the electorate to be politically conservative.
• Realisation that capitalism is durable and the
  best means of producing wealth has led to
  socialist parties to advocating policies to make
  the market work more efficiently rather than to
  abolish it.
• Even in power, socialist parties confronted with
  entrenched vested interests which limit their
  power to implement change. Miliband referred to
  the state system meaning those in state
  institutions and from the same backgrounds as
  business people capable of blocking radical
  socialist parties.

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What are the main features of social democracy?

• Social democracy endorses liberal democratic
  principles believing in change via constitutional
  means. Social Democracy embraces liberal
  democratic values. In the majority of cases,
  communist regimes came to power not through
  popular risings- even then nor parliamentary and
  dictatorship folowed.but through establishment
  via outside force or in case of Cuba and Zimbabwe
  a populist leader announces Marxist/Leninist
  principles after assume power.
• Capitalism is accepted as the only viable means
  of producing wealth.
• Capitalism is morally defective as it is
  associated with inequality and poverty.
• Defects of capitalism can be rectified by the
  state through economic and social engineering.
• 1960-73 esp, the social democratic consensus
  centred on welfare state, advanced social policy,
  full employment. I.e. increase the real income
  of wage earners and a developed social security
  system.
• Keynesian ideas seemed to offer the rational
  economic foundations- it seemed to allow the
  state to simultaneously generate economic growth
  and to satisfy the aspirations for social
  justice. Indeed, Keynesianism the flagship of
  social democratic parties made possible the
  marrying/satisfying three contradictory interests
  ( sectional interests of the working class,
  interests of capital, interests of the national
  community in the general well being.
• A key feature of social democracy is equal
  participation of all members of society in the
  benefits of education and health (universalism).
  Principle behind the NHS free at the point of
  need.
• Improvement in the public infrastructure.
• Nation state is a meaningful unit of rule in that
  it has the capacity to regulate economic and
  social life within its borders.
• Why was the post war period (1945) favourable
  for the social democratic consensus?
• a. Laissez-faire capitalism had become
  discredited by the inter war Great
• Depression.
• b. There had been acclimatisation to the idea of
  an active and interventionist state in
• war time- note in GB sectors such as mining
  and transport were nationalised for
• the duration.
• c. The immense task of post war reconstruction
  favoured state investment.

26
Main features of Social Democracy (Contd)

• Post 1945, social democrats one after the other
  progressively and definitively abandoned their
  anti capitalist credo. The state was regarded
  less and less as an instrument of a transition to
  socialism and increasingly as an instrument for
  the regulation of capitalism and social
  protectionism. Common throughout the
  transformations of social democracy, throughout
  its History a common theme- the state and the
  promotion of the interests of disadvantaged
  groups.

27
Why did social democracy deviate from fundamental
socialism

• In place of Marxists who offered scientific and
  theoretical critique of capitalism, social
  democracy is influenced more by ethics. Humans
  are bound together by ties of empathy, compassion
  etcwhereas Marxists argued that behaviour
  determined by economic circumstances.
• Ethical socialism often influenced by religious
  teachings. The latter found a particular
  resonance in the development of British socialism
  in late C19 and C20. This is a significant
  deviation from Marxist and soviet style state
  communism which is secular based seeing religion
  as a tool by the ruling class to subjugate the
  proletariat.
• There is far less theoretical cohesion in
  revisionist socialism. Social democracy can mean
  extending equality and public ownership or it can
  mean accepting need for market efficiency and
  individual self reliance.
• Fundamental socialism believes that capitalism is
  irredeemable whereas revisionist socialism
  accepted that capitalism was the best means of
  generating wealth. Only a selected part of the
  economy was taken under state ownership, the
  focus was on Keynesian style regulation of
  largely capitalist economies in order to maintain
  growth and high employment. The focus was on
  welfarism as a means of reforming and humanising
  capitalism.
• Fundamental socialists see exploitation as
  central to capitalism whereas Crosland in The
  Future of Socialism (1956) argued that under
  modern capitalism the old style exploitative
  relationship owner/manager versus worker had been
  replaced by the development of the practice of
  scientific management- ownership was divorced
  from control and professional managers were more
  interested in efficient running of businesses
  than in exploitation.
• Social democracy or revisionist socialism by
  embracing liberal democracy is a reaction against
  the repressive statist regimes established in
  Eastern Europe where fundamentalist goals are
  implemented regardless of consequences for human
  rights.
• Crosland- The Future of Socialism- we stand in
  Britain on the threshold of mass abundanceif our
  present rate of economic growth continues,
  material want and poverty and deprivation of
  essential goods will gradually cease to be a
  problem
• Crosland attacked the very notion that the form
  of ownership was the decisive determinant of the
  workers alienated position in society. The
  argument was directed against those in the Labour
  Party who dogmatically asserted the inherent
  virtues of public as opposed to private
  ownership- by the mid fifties socialists
  certainly understood that a completely
  nationalised economy in the USSR did not give
  working people control over the means of
  production. Crosland accepted that recognised
  that someone other than the workers must
  ultimately make the production decisions.

28
What was the crisis of Social Democracy?

• Social Democracy depended on the ability of
  capitalism to generate continuous economic growth
  and therefore the resources to pay for welfare
  policies. With the onset of global recession
  1970s onwards, western governments were left with
  choices between policies which generated growth
  e.g. tax cuts or those which focused on meeting
  the needs of an expanded welfare budget generated
  by rising unemployment. Indeed where western
  governments met the crisis by traditional
  Keynesian policies to stimulate demand-
  reflationary policies to create more investment
  and jobs the effect was capital flight and
  inflation. Indeed, the failure of reflationary
  policies in various western states meant G.
  Moschonas In the Wake of Social Democracy the
  parties of reform previously hegemonic found
  themselves without guidebook or compass
• Social Democracy was also affected by the
  declining electoral viability of socialism with
  the shrinkage of the traditional working class
  throughout 1980s ad 90s. Post 1945 the tide of
  democracy flowed with progressive politics but
  since 1980s with what JK Galbraith referred to as
  the contented majority.
• The rise of globalisation and the integration of
  world economy meant that the ability of the state
  to manage the economy was reduced. Capital was
  fluid and excessive state controls could see it
  flowing to more congenial environments.
• The collapse of communism in Eastern Europe and
  market reforms in the remaining socialist states
  meant that there was no alternative to
  capitalism. This led to the decline in
  confidence in the cybernetic model of the state.

29
Reasons for collapse of state socialism in
Eastern Europe

• Economic decline- esp from 1975 falling rates of
  growth compared with the west, leads to public
  dissatisfaction with standard of living a major
  impetus for reform.
• Decline in regime loyalty- By 1960 Russia mainly
  urban and a rising professional middle class
  dependent on rising levels of educational
  attainment since 1959 leads to a larger
  proportion of the population more receptive to
  the move to a market economy.
• Decline in regime support- the professional
  classes increasingly disenchanted with their
  lowly status in a regime which triumphed the
  workers. Stalins regime peasant based,
  Khrushchev the unskilled workers.
• Failure of economic resource management and
  weakening of political support led to public
  dissatisfaction and a serious undermining of the
  ideological justification for the regime.
• A crisis of legitimacy- under Gorbachev economic
  reforms entailing the growth of markets
  undermined the leading role of the party and the
  system of command planning. According to David
  Lane The Rise and Fall of State Socialism-
  Marxist-Leninist ideology was broken by the
  political leadership under Gorbachev.
• External- Communist state falling behind the
  west- cultural contamination from the west TV,
  car, rock music sex.

30
What are the key elements of the Third Way?

• Top down state intervention of the old socialist
  models is no longer viable. The acceptance of
  the market over the state and a realisation of
  the implications of globalisation.
• There is an acceptance that capitalism has
  mutated into an information society or
  knowledge economy which places a premium on IT,
  individual skills, labour and market flexibility.
  It aims to build on rather than reverse the neo
  liberal revolution 1980s/90s away from Keynesian
  demand management.
• Emphasis on community and moral responsibility.
  Here it rejects absolute individualism but is
  closer to communitarian liberalism of the New
  Liberalism of the later C19. Cornerstone belief
  of which is that rights and responsibilities are
  inextricably linked.
• Third Way has a consensus view of society over
  class differences that bind members of society.
• Emphasis is on social inclusion over commitment
  to equality. There is far greater stress
  therefore on equality of access over
  egalitarianism. Welfare should be targeted to
  socially excluded and should follow the modern
  liberal approach of helping people to help
  themselves or a hand up not a hand out (Bill
  Clinton).
• An enabling state- one which concentrates on
  investing in infrastructure of the economy and
  strengthening skills and knowledge of the
  workforce. The government seeks to shape peoples
  attitudes, values and skills rather than carry
  out a programme of social engineering.

31
G Moschonas on New Labour

• Consistency with left wing social reform
• Measures of social democratic inspiration to
  reduce feelings of insecurity, renew contact
  party and the electorate
• E.G
• Minimum Wage
• One off tax windfall profits privatised utilities
  to finance unemployment programmes including
  welfare to work
• Several New deals e.g. counter youth unemployment
  and to counter social exclusion
• Increase spending on health and education
• Family tax credit
• Legalisation of recognisation of the right to
  unionise

• Consistency with neo liberal macro economic
  policy
• Priority given to fight against inflation
• Independence given to the Bank of England e.g. to
  set interest rates
• Accept previous Conservative government budget
  controls
• Selective withdrawal of the state from economic
  and social affairs
• Complete absence of an industrial policy
• Deregulation and labour market flexibility

32
Is socialism dead?

• Marx predicted the fall of capitalism however,
  the state ruled by a socialist party- China
  underpins the west by providing consumer goods
  cheaply for western markets and bankrolls US
  debt. The domination of capitalism globally
  depends on the existence of a ruling Chinese
  communist party that gives de-localised
  capitalist enterprises cheap labour lower prices
  and deprives workers of the right to unionise.
• Moschonas In the Wake of Social Democracy the
  pursuit of the policies of deregulation and
  competitive rigour by social democracy has for
  the first time in its history directly challenged
  what was most clear, hallowed and enduring in all
  its ideological and political traditions, the
  socially and economically active role of the
  state and the interests of the most disadvantaged
  groups in the population.
• In its conscious and explicit adhesion to a
  moderately but clearly neo liberal mode of
  regulation, social democracy has made the
  decisive ideological leap for the first time so
  openly and systematically it has elevated the
  market and devalued the utility of the
  economically active state

33
Is Socialism Dead? Contd

• In the race for competitive disinflation and
  reform, the governmental left has departed in
  practice from defence of the interests of wage
  earners and particularly the poorest of the poor.
  Social Democracy has thus been transformed from
  a political force for the moderate promotion of
  equality within a socio economic system that is
  by definition inegalitarian into a force for the
  moderate promotion of inequality. In other
  words, it has been transformed from a force that
  has long since renounced its anti-capitalist
  vocation into a force that today is even
  abandoning its moderately anti-plutocratic
  vocation.
• Today more than ever social democracy depends on
  the quality of its political appeal, leadership
  candidates, tactical compromises, programme and
  record in government.
• It is an electorally unstable force and capable
  of flexible strategic responses. Contemporary
  Social Democracy is slight therefore it lacks
  the ambition, the vision and the solid bases
  (support electoral) to seriously challenge the
  established structures of power and influence
  both national and international.

34
Is socialism dead?

• However, what about the capitalist crisis with
  the credit crunch and global recession? Sales of
  Das Kapital and the Communist Manifesto have
  soared since 2008. In 2008 a Reuters report
  showed that 52 of East Germans believed the free
  market was unsuitable and 43 wanted socialism
  back.
• The Marxist historian, Eric Hobsbawm has written
  that the destabilising effects of capitalism
  would, at some point, lead to a development which
  can no longer be described as capitalism, but
  very different from the traditional models of
  socialism of the soviet era, instead involving a
  shift from private appropriation to social
  management on a global scale. Note rise of new
  employment practices such as zero hours contracts
  where people have jobs but wait to be called in
  by employers.
• Moschonas- modern social democracy a widely neo
  liberalised social democracy seeks modestly to
  mitigate the most extreme effects of neo
  liberalism the social counterpart to liberal
  macro economic policies would be less easy to
  conceive and apply without social democracys
  popular and reformist tradition and without its
  rootedness in popular classes and the trades
  unions. Various aspects of contemporary social
  democracy are more than a mere left wing tint.
  Social measures, a more consultative approach to
  economic policy, some consideration of trades
  union interests, a more environmentally friendly
  policy, a greater openness to cultural
  liberalism
• Moschonas I therefore find it difficult to
  accept as has been said of New Labour that the
  new social democracy has no substance and
  represents nothing but submission to the right

35
Marcuse/Harrington and the New Left?

• Reflecting on post WW Marcuse wrote
• We are struggling against a society that has
  succeeded in eliminating poverty and suffering to
  a degree that the previous stages of capitalism
  never attained
• Harrington Socialism Past and Future The people
  are held enthralled by golden chains, by the
  satisfaction of false, manufactured needs they
  are victimised by a technology that manipulates
  them every moment of the night and day they have
  become visionless, conformist, pragmatic. At the
  same time, there are the less subtle more
  old-fashioned forms of repression turned against
  the external politics in the third world and the
  internal lumpen proletariat of minorities in the
  ghettoes
• Harrington- Since society has become controlled
  and one dimensional, how would the liberation
  come about? Who would accomplish it? Marcuse
  peoples from the opposite ends of the social
  spectrum, the privileges- the students, the
  middle class hippies, the revolutionary and
  highly educated working class of technicians-
  would rebel against a domination that suppressed
  their interests and the outcasts, the lumpen
  would join in the attacks against simpler and
  more brutal forms of exploitation. The Third
  World was where the new proletariat which would
  finally accomplish the Marxist purpose was being
  born