What is socialism?
However, apart from the fact that defining socialism (only) as the collective ownership of the means of production can lead to absurdities, it does not do justice to the rich vein of thinking and ideas that are associated with socialism as an ideology and social movement. Socialism, like all ideologies, offers an interpretation of social reality as well as a range of principles and ideas for the kind of changes (if any) that are considered to be necessary or desirable to create or move towards a better society or world. However, also like most ideologies, socialism is a very diverse school of thought and there are many varieties of socialism.
Socialism emerged largely in response to the problems brought about by capitalism. In the 18th and 19th centuries, a range of political thinkers came forward, including Charles Fourier and Henri de Saint-Simon in France, and Robert Owen in England, who are sometimes, following a label used by Marx and Engels, referred to as utopian socialists.[1] They shared indignation about the extreme poverty and social misery caused by unbridled capitalism and advocated the collectivisation of the means of production, especially in small communities and cooperatives, as a means of transforming societies.[2] While sharing their indignation about the plight of the working class, Marx considered their ideas utopian as they were not grounded on what he considered to be a scientific analysis of capitalism and developments in the sphere of production, an approach he referred to as historical materialism.[3] In his view, socialism was the inevitable next stage in this development as capitalism was fraught with contradictions that would lead to its demise, with the coup-de-grace being administered by the working class (the proletariat) via a revolution.[4]
However, there are many streams within socialism, including utopian socialism, the Marxist school of thought, revolutionary socialism or communism, Leninism, Stalinism, Trotskyism, Maoism, Socialist Anarchism, Syndicalism, Feminist Socialism, Market Socialism, Eco-Socialism, Democratic Socialism and Socialism for the 21st Century, among other. In part, this variety reflects the different trajectories of socialism in actual socialist systems, but much of the diversity originates from the fractious nature of the socialist movement(s) and differences in interpretations of the ideas and writings of socialist thinkers, in particular Marx.
Main principles of socialism
At the risk of over-simplification, I here identify three tenets or principles that I think most if not all self-proclaimed socialists share. These are:
First, anti-capitalism. Socialism was born out of the socio-economic conditions created by capitalism and the resentment these caused against the capitalist class and practices. Capitalism was, and is still, seen as responsible for the exploitation of workers, inhumane working and living conditions, extreme inequality and poverty, the destruction of families and the disintegration of communities and society, the cultivation of individualism and greed, for being a source of anomie and alienation from society and nature, and last but not least the destruction of nature. A key element in socialist thinking is the rejection of the commodification of (wage) labour as the main means of human exploitation (profit-making from “surplus value”).[5] Eco-socialist theorists have added capitalism’s neglect and destruction of the ecological and resource basis on which it depends as another inherent contradiction.[6] Hence, capitalism is seen as the cause of many of the ills of modern societies, which originally led most socialists to take the view that, to address these ills, capitalism needed to be abolished.
Second, concomitant to the previous point, socialists advocate giving control over work and working conditions to the workers and, more broadly, creating economic democracy, more egalitarian societies, and good working and living conditions for all. These are seen as conditions that enable people to cultivate their creativity and the social side of human nature, and for stimulating cooperation instead of conflict. In this respect, socialism is rooted in the Enlightenment, notably the belief in progress and that humans are capable of creating better societies. Rather than accepting existing societies and conditions as God-given, unchangeable, or natural, socialism is based on the belief that societies can be improved and that people do not have to accept their plight and to be content with putting their hope and faith in a better life after death.[7] Such ideals were not only held by “utopian” socialists, but also by Marx and many other self-proclaimed socialists. For instance, Przeworksi argues that socialism was/is about the abolition of “wage slavery”, about collective deliberation and rational choice, and people acquiring control over their lives, free from want, so that they can develop their potential.[8] These arguments illustrate that socialism is about more than abolishing capitalism and that it is based on the belief that collectively people can create better societies, even though it is left to the people themselves to determine what this means as a diversity of views may exist on that front.
Third, socialism advocates the establishment of an economic system based on rationality and planning. Capitalism is seen as an irrational and anarchic system prone to crises and causing many problems that can be avoided by taking a rational, scientific and values-based approach to the production, distribution and consumption of goods and services. Capitalist economic theory and management (based on the free market ideology) only serve the interests of capitalists and capitalism at great costs to society. The abolition of private ownership of (most of) the means of production, and their socialisation, is seen as a necessary condition for orienting economic decisions about production and consumption towards goods and services for their use-values and towards collective needs and public goods rather than letting the profit-driven private owners of capital determine such matters, which leads to the exploitation of people and nature and the neglect of collective interests. The economy must be (re-) embedded into society and serve collective ends and needs rather than the interests of the few and/or the system.
However, socialists and actual socialist systems differ(ed) in their interpretations of these common tenets or principles and in the ways these can or should be put into practice. While revolutionary socialists have pursued the abolition of capitalism by forceful means, revisionist socialists adopted the view that socialist ends could be pursued gradually and via peaceful, parliamentary means. Socialist advocates and regimes have adopted different views about the kind of institutions by which socialist ideals and aspirations should or could be pursued, for instance, through small, decentralised communities, cooperative systems, national-level planning systems, workers’ councils, and democratic or authoritarian institutions. A major point of difference relates to the particular form in which collective ownership should or must be institutionalised, for instance, as state ownership (nationalisation), workers’ ownership, or social ownership by communities or newly created councils. Many of these points of difference relate to the political dimension of political-economic regimes. Some argue that to overcome the powerful opposition against socialism, power must be centralised and concentrated, whereas others put their faith in democracy as the best way to achieve and safeguard socialism.
Although there is much variety within both socialism and capitalism, there is a significant difference in the extent to which this variety has (had) its counterparts in really existing political-economic regimes. While the varieties of capitalism manifest themselves mostly in existing systems and less at the ideological level only, many varieties of socialism have (had) no counterparts in reality or much less enduringly so. While capitalism has been the dominant economic system around much of the world before and after the existence of the Soviet Union, really existing national-level socialist systems have been much less numerous. Apart from the Soviet Union and the countries that were more or less under its control, socialist systems (as defined above) have been relatively rare, with China, Vietnam, Laos, Cuba, and a handful of African states (including Tanzania, Angola, Zimbabwe, and Ethiopia) having been self-proclaimed socialist states.
In this context, the three tenets or principles of socialism described above can provide some guidance as to which states might (still), should or deserve to be labelled socialist. By itself, public ownership of most of the means of production is not, in my view, a sufficient criterion. Applying this as the only criterion would lead to misleading or even absurd assessments, as in the case of Saudi Arabia and several other Middle East countries whose economies are dominated by government-owned oil companies, apart from the fact that the governments of these countries do not profess a commitment to socialism. In the late 1970s, after Mao’s death, China began to introduce a form of (state) capitalism in which private and semi-private ownership is combined with predominantly state ownership of strategic sectors, and in which market forces and the state make economic decisions, although the latter is generally thought to have retained ultimate control. But although the Chinese state has retained formal ownership of a wide range of businesses, the economy now operates based on capitalist principles in a (global) market environment in which profit, competition and economic growth have become the main drivers. This mix of features makes it debatable whether or to what extent China should still be regarded as having a socialist economic system or be considered as a kind of mixed or hybrid system. Arguably, the Chinese regime is no longer anti-capitalist and has allowed significant inequality to arise, thereby no longer adhering to two of the principles referred to above. And although the CCP still retains ultimate control over economic decisions, production is no longer subject to central, detailed planning. Yet, Chinese capitalism is unlike that which prevails in liberal-democratic countries and is often referred to as “capitalism with Chinese characteristics”.[9] Hence, I classify the Chinese political-economic system until the late 1970s (Mao’s death) as an authoritarian-socialist system, and the system that evolved since that time as an authoritarian-hybrid system while recognising that there is scope for different interpretations.
Economic systems develop in interaction with political systems, creating different political-economic systems in which economics is more or less embedded within the political system or vice versa, the political system is held more or less in the grip of economic actors based on the economic power (and other forms of power) that they have accumulated. Socialist systems are, almost by definition, systems that are embedded within states that exercise control over economic institutions, policies and the systems of production and consumption. In principle, the states that shape and control socialist economic systems can be more or less democratic. However, in practice, really existing socialist economic systems have virtually all been governed by more or less authoritarian states, making authoritarian-socialist political-economic systems the prevalent type of system under which socialism has been shaped and developed. This does not necessarily mean, however, that creating a democratic socialist system is impossible.
References
[1] Engels, Friedrich (1892, 1970), “Socialism: Utopian and Scientific”, in Marx/Engels Selected Works. Volume 3. Moscow: Progress Publishers.
[2] Wikipedia (2019), Socialism, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism (Accessed: 15 April 2019); Engels, Friedrich, “Socialism: Utopian and Scientific”.
[3] Engels, Friedrich, “Socialism: Utopian and Scientific”, Part III.
[4] Marx, Karl and Friedrich Engels (1848; 2006), The Communist Manifesto, Socialist Labor Party of America. http://www.slp.org.
[5] It has been argued that the rejection of “wage slavery” and its replacement by the “free association of producers” was, in Marx’s view, the keystone of socialism, more so than the collective ownership of the means of production. Kovel, Joel (2002), The Enemy of Nature: The End of Capitalism or the End of the World? New York: Zed Books, 200; Hutchinson, Frances, et al. (2002), The Politics of Money. Towards Sustainability and Economic Democracy. London: Pluto Press, 100-103.
[6] O’Connor, James (1994), “Is Sustainable Capitalism Possible?”, in M. O’Connor (ed.) Is Capitalism Sustainable? Political Economy and the Politics of Ecology. New York and London: Guilford Press, 152-175; O’Connor, James (ed.) Natural Causes: Essays in Ecological Marxism. New York: Guilford Press; Kovel, Joel (2014), “Ecosocialism as a Human Phenomenon”, Capitalism Nature Socialism, Vol.25, No.1, pp.10-23; Pepper, David, Eco-Socialism. From Deep Ecology to Social Justice. London and New York: Routledge; Sarkar, Saral, Eco-Socialism or Eco-Capitalism? A Critical Analysis of Humanity’s Fundamental Choices. London and New York: Zed Books.
[7] This tenet of socialism can be found in the earliest streams of “utopian” communism and socialism, in particular the ideas of Robert Owen, de Saint-Simon, and Charles Fourier. See Hobsbawm, Eric (2011), How to Change the World. Reflections on Marx and Marxism. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, Chapter 2.
[8] Przeworski, Adam (1985), Capitalism and Social Democracy. Cambridge and Paris: Cambridge University Press, Editions de la Maison des Science de l’Homme, Postscript.
[9] Cai, Meina (2012), “Yasheng Huang, Capitalism with Chinese Characteristics: Entrepreneurship and the State”, Journal of Chinese Political Science, Vol.17, No.2, 215-216; Shih, Victor (2010), “Review Of: Capitalism with Chinese Characteristics: Entrepreneurship and the State. By Yasheng Huang. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008”, The Journal of Asian Studies, Vol.69, No.2, 554-556.
Humanity on Trial 