Socialism

By Dr Bruce Haddock. University of Wales Swansea

new perspective Vol. 1,  No.1

Socialism as a political movement was very much a response to the consequences of industrialisation. Liberalism and capitalism emerged in socialist argument as Janus-faced villains, defending a conception of political and economic freedom which effectively perpetuated the subordination of the working classes. Socialists might not agree about precisely what was wrong with the status quo; nor could they necessarily agree on a common programme for the future. But there was a general consensus in socialist circles that the ideals of the French Revolution liberty, equality, fraternity - could not be attained in a political system built upon an individualist foundation.

Industrialisation in the nineteenth century created both new possibilities for ordinary people and massive difficulties. It was widely held that complex problems of integration and control in the economy and society could not be left to individual initiative. In the early decades of the century arguments were being mooted urging a high degree of central control in economic planning. Robert Owen (1771-1858) and Saint-Simon (1760-1825), for example, contended that scientific and technical progress had created alternatives to capitalist production which were both more efficient and more humane. Problems which had in the past been treated as the ‘natural’ concomitants of human life - poverty, exploitation, crime - were, on this view, attributable to an outmoded social and economic system. Replace anarchic competition with rational planning, coercion in the factory with co-operation, and not only would productive capacity be increased but there would be no further need for the State to assume a repressive role.

Ideas of this kind were growing in popularity, especially among educated workers in London and Paris in the 1840s. They constituted a frame of reference in which substantive political, social and economic demands could be advanced - for universal male suffrage and annual parliaments among the Chartists, for a radical redistribution of property among the Paris workers. But, far-reaching though the practical implications of these demands might be, they were thoroughly reformist in tone. The contention was that by amending specific institutions and practices, wholesale benefits would accrue to working people. What transformed socialism into a deadly threat to the liberal order was the supposition that meaningful change could not be achieved within the confines of a capitalist system. Revolutionary socialists vested their hopes for the future in the dawning political awareness of the working class. In their view, capitalism had created, along with unparalleled wealth, an impoverished and brutalised industrial proletariat. As the logic of their class position became clear, however, the proletariat would undergo a metamorphosis. The passive victims of capitalist exploitation would assume the direction of a new era.

Karl Marx (1818-83) was the principal architect of a class-based socialism. In his early writings he targeted his criticism on the view, central to liberal theory, that moral and political principles have a universal validity. He argued, instead, that the view individuals form of their predicament (expressed in moral, political, philosophical, religious, aesthetic or whatever terms) was a product of their place in a complex of social and economic roles. Marx saw the ideological realm as a reflection of more fundamental conflicts and developments in the economy and society.

This shift of perspective involved a quite different conception of political argument. In The Communist Manifesto (1848) Marx sought to raise the revolutionary consciousness of the industrial proletariat by explaining the economic basis of their new-found political strength. In later, more systematic works, he went on to argue that the internal contradictions of capitalism would precipitate its collapse. In Capital (1867) Marx broke new ground in economic history by charting in detail the development and prospective demise of capitalism. But his researches were always guided by a political goal: the demonstration of the inevitability of the triumph of the proletariat.

Marx’s specific predictions were not, of course, to be realised. The revolution which he had confidently expected in 1848 receded in his later writings to a more distant prospect. Nor can it be said that the states which have proclaimed themselves to be ‘Marxist’ in the twentieth century emerged in quite the way Marx had anticipated. But the fact remains that Marxism signally extended the range of political debate, furnishing a theoretical framework which facilitated the emergence of an organised labour movement.

The impact of Marxism is best measured in terms of the breadth of its appeal. Groups which would not describe themselves as Marxist could profit from the new emphasis on the politics of labour. Nor was Marx’s direct legacy uniformly revolutionary. Soon after his death in 1883, leading intellectuals (Labriola and Croce in Italy, Sorel in France, Bernstein and Lassalle in Germany) were debating the practical implications of Marx’s theories. It became evident that, when due attention was given to particular political contexts, Marxism could be used to justify an evolutionary as well as a revolutionary road to socialism. What had originally been presented as the doctrine of a small revolutionary sect could, by the 1890s, function as the theoretical foundation for a broad-based ideology, embracing a multitude of diverse groups and associations.

A plethora of socialisms has emerged in the twentieth century, some of them directly repudiating the Marxist heritage. Indeed the classic divide between communists and social democrats sets socialists in opposed political camps. What socialists share, however, is a rejection of a narrowly political view of freedom, contending instead that the eradication of wider economic and social constraints is a necessary condition for human fulfilment and wellbeing.