Prime Junta
RPGCodex' Little BRO
- Joined
- October 19, 2006
- Messages
- 8,540
The presidential campaign appears to have reached the stage where accusations of socialism are flying left and right, so I figured it'd be useful to dispel some of the fog that's being thrown around about it.
All flavors of socialism share one fundamental idea: a general preference for collective ownership of goods.
First, a spot of history.
Socialism started as a religious revival movement in Christianity. It's rooted in the Digger movement in 17th century England, and was later structured as the Christian Socialist movement. These movements modeled themselves on their idea of how Christ and the Disciples arranged their lives. The rationale was ethical, spiritual, and scriptural; not unrelated to older versions of Christian asceticism.
In the mid-19th century, a fellow called Karl Marx came along, and proceeded to write a description and critique of industrial society, and systematic philosophy of economy, history and society, known as dialectical materialism. He reached similar conclusions as the Christian Socialists, but from a radically different direction: his philosophy claimed to be scientific and universally valid in the same sense as chemistry or physics were scientific and universally valid. He did not simply advance a political program; he claimed to have deciphered the course of history and charted out its ultimate destination. Marxism as a political movement was simply the quickest way to get there.
Christian Socialism fairly quickly drifted into political irrelevance. Most of their social experiments failed; other Christian Socialists attempted to reconcile their philosophy with Marxist Socialism and were subsumed into the Marxist movements, and yet others rejected socialism largely due to the aggressive atheism and anti-clericalism propounded by most Marxist movements (and Marx himself, for that matter). The most politically important descendants of Christian Socialism lie in South American "liberation theology" -- and, perhaps, it echoes in the Rev. Jeremiah Wright's fiery sermons.
In the early to mid 20th century, first large-scale attempts were made to put Marxist policies into practice. The people making these attempts immediately ran into a raft of practical problems. This caused the Marxist movement to fragment. It also sparked a whole raft of movements among non-Marxist, non-Socialist political movements to address the problems that led to the political success of Marxist parties.
Among these movements the most significant ones are:
Marxism-Leninism. This is the scary revolutionary Socialism that the USA spent most of the last century fighting. It espouses subversion, violent revolution, forced nationalization of the means of production, and a "dictatorship of the proletariat" as necessary intermediate steps in taking the world from the exploitation of raw capitalism into the Communist paradise. It had some initial successes as it transformed Russia from a near-medieval agrarian country into a military-industrial giant capable of defeating the Wehrmacht and facing off the USA for fifty years (albeit at terrible human cost), but it just about disappeared as mainstream political movement in the West after the collapse of the USSR. The closest living descendants of Marxism-Leninism are the "Arab Socialist" countries of Syria and Egypt; they're organized on Bolshevik lines and practice something like Lenin's New Economic Policy.
Maoism. This is another scary revolutionary socialist movement; it is in many ways similar to Marxism-Leninism, but the crucial difference is that it emerged in a third-world country. Maoists organize downtrodden peasants into a guerrilla movement, with the goal of seizing power. Once in power, the Maoist program is similar to Stalinism -- forced-march industrialization rigidly directed by central power. Maoism is, for all practical purposes, dead in China, but it's highly attractive in many third-world countries with oppressed peasant majorities. Nepal just got a Maoist government, and India is grappling with Maoist insurgencies. The West never saw Maoism as much of an ideological threat, simply because it's not applicable to an industrialized country.
Revisionism, also known as "reformism." This movement appeared in Germany in the 1920's, when it became clear that a socialist revolution just wasn't on the cards. Revisionists retained the Marxist philosophy of history and the goal of Communism, but forswore revolutionary means in reaching it -- indeed, the doyen of the movement, Eduard Bernstein, said that the journey is more important than the destination. Revisionists opted for constant, gradual pressure to improve the lot of the proletariat immediately, rather than making sacrifices now for some utopian future. Most mainstream continental European Social Democratic (and, indeed, Communist) parties around today have their roots in Bernsteinian revisionism. The Eurocommunists still hold on to the Communist dream, whereas the mainstream Social Democratic parties have, by and large, quietly dropped it.
OK, so much for Marxism. What of the counter-movements?
National Socialism, aka Nazism of Fascism. This was an extreme right-wing reaction to Marxism. It's philosophically rather murky. The main differences between fascism and Marxism-Leninism are that fascism is nationalist, or in many cases racist, whereas Marxism is (theoretically anyway) internationalist, and rather than seizing the means of production from capitalists, fascism wants to absorb capitalists into the state through "corporatism." Mussolini started out as a revolutionary socialist; all it took to get from that to fascism was to inject a healthy dose of nationalism and militarism and decide to co-opt rather than overthrow Big Capital. While fascism is dead as a mainstream political movement, it is possible to see disturbing parallels between it and certain political directions in the USA over the past decade or three.
"Keynesianism." This is in quotes, because it's actually the unspoken underpinning for most mainstream European parties from left to right, and the Democratic party in the USA. Keynesianism emerged during the Great Depression and after World War 2. Keynesians did not set out to destroy capitalism, but to reform it. They were acutely aware of the social problems of the era, but believed that the system had "alternator trouble" -- that you could fix it by tinkering it rather than by throwing it out wholesale, as the Socialists (and Fascists) wanted. Keynesianism sees markets as imperfect and sees the state as a counterbalance and mechanic for them: its role is to prevent it from getting out of whack (e.g. by allowing wealth disparities to get too big, credit to balloon too much, or monopolies to abuse their market power), and fix it when it breaks (e.g. by rescuing banks and fiscal stimulus in recessions and tight monetary policy during booms).
The critical point here is that there are no socialists in the USA, and precious few in the rest of the developed world.
Not in the mainstream anyway.
The leftist parties we're dealing with today are Keynesian leftists, not socialist leftists.
So, for example, progressive taxation is a typically Keynesian-leftist approach to an economic problem: they have observed that, left to themselves, markets tend to concentrate wealth, which is unsustainable in the long run and carries a large social cost. The solution is a technical one -- redistribute wealth from the higher-earning parts of the population to the lower-earning ones through progressive taxation and by providing services that benefit everyone equally (and, therefore, the poor proportionately more).
Similarly, market regulation is a typically Keynesian tool. For example, Keynesians recognize that markets do not price in negative externalities: if a factory produces toxic waste, the cheapest solution is just to dump it in the ocean, which will eventually hurt everybody. Therefore, the Keynesian solution is to legislate against this, and require factories to clean up the messes they make.
Keynesian leftism is not socialism. The goals are different, the means are different, and the historical origins are different. And attempting to conflate the two is either ignorant or dishonest -- not to mention politically pernicious.
All flavors of socialism share one fundamental idea: a general preference for collective ownership of goods.
First, a spot of history.
Socialism started as a religious revival movement in Christianity. It's rooted in the Digger movement in 17th century England, and was later structured as the Christian Socialist movement. These movements modeled themselves on their idea of how Christ and the Disciples arranged their lives. The rationale was ethical, spiritual, and scriptural; not unrelated to older versions of Christian asceticism.
In the mid-19th century, a fellow called Karl Marx came along, and proceeded to write a description and critique of industrial society, and systematic philosophy of economy, history and society, known as dialectical materialism. He reached similar conclusions as the Christian Socialists, but from a radically different direction: his philosophy claimed to be scientific and universally valid in the same sense as chemistry or physics were scientific and universally valid. He did not simply advance a political program; he claimed to have deciphered the course of history and charted out its ultimate destination. Marxism as a political movement was simply the quickest way to get there.
Christian Socialism fairly quickly drifted into political irrelevance. Most of their social experiments failed; other Christian Socialists attempted to reconcile their philosophy with Marxist Socialism and were subsumed into the Marxist movements, and yet others rejected socialism largely due to the aggressive atheism and anti-clericalism propounded by most Marxist movements (and Marx himself, for that matter). The most politically important descendants of Christian Socialism lie in South American "liberation theology" -- and, perhaps, it echoes in the Rev. Jeremiah Wright's fiery sermons.
In the early to mid 20th century, first large-scale attempts were made to put Marxist policies into practice. The people making these attempts immediately ran into a raft of practical problems. This caused the Marxist movement to fragment. It also sparked a whole raft of movements among non-Marxist, non-Socialist political movements to address the problems that led to the political success of Marxist parties.
Among these movements the most significant ones are:
Marxism-Leninism. This is the scary revolutionary Socialism that the USA spent most of the last century fighting. It espouses subversion, violent revolution, forced nationalization of the means of production, and a "dictatorship of the proletariat" as necessary intermediate steps in taking the world from the exploitation of raw capitalism into the Communist paradise. It had some initial successes as it transformed Russia from a near-medieval agrarian country into a military-industrial giant capable of defeating the Wehrmacht and facing off the USA for fifty years (albeit at terrible human cost), but it just about disappeared as mainstream political movement in the West after the collapse of the USSR. The closest living descendants of Marxism-Leninism are the "Arab Socialist" countries of Syria and Egypt; they're organized on Bolshevik lines and practice something like Lenin's New Economic Policy.
Maoism. This is another scary revolutionary socialist movement; it is in many ways similar to Marxism-Leninism, but the crucial difference is that it emerged in a third-world country. Maoists organize downtrodden peasants into a guerrilla movement, with the goal of seizing power. Once in power, the Maoist program is similar to Stalinism -- forced-march industrialization rigidly directed by central power. Maoism is, for all practical purposes, dead in China, but it's highly attractive in many third-world countries with oppressed peasant majorities. Nepal just got a Maoist government, and India is grappling with Maoist insurgencies. The West never saw Maoism as much of an ideological threat, simply because it's not applicable to an industrialized country.
Revisionism, also known as "reformism." This movement appeared in Germany in the 1920's, when it became clear that a socialist revolution just wasn't on the cards. Revisionists retained the Marxist philosophy of history and the goal of Communism, but forswore revolutionary means in reaching it -- indeed, the doyen of the movement, Eduard Bernstein, said that the journey is more important than the destination. Revisionists opted for constant, gradual pressure to improve the lot of the proletariat immediately, rather than making sacrifices now for some utopian future. Most mainstream continental European Social Democratic (and, indeed, Communist) parties around today have their roots in Bernsteinian revisionism. The Eurocommunists still hold on to the Communist dream, whereas the mainstream Social Democratic parties have, by and large, quietly dropped it.
OK, so much for Marxism. What of the counter-movements?
National Socialism, aka Nazism of Fascism. This was an extreme right-wing reaction to Marxism. It's philosophically rather murky. The main differences between fascism and Marxism-Leninism are that fascism is nationalist, or in many cases racist, whereas Marxism is (theoretically anyway) internationalist, and rather than seizing the means of production from capitalists, fascism wants to absorb capitalists into the state through "corporatism." Mussolini started out as a revolutionary socialist; all it took to get from that to fascism was to inject a healthy dose of nationalism and militarism and decide to co-opt rather than overthrow Big Capital. While fascism is dead as a mainstream political movement, it is possible to see disturbing parallels between it and certain political directions in the USA over the past decade or three.
"Keynesianism." This is in quotes, because it's actually the unspoken underpinning for most mainstream European parties from left to right, and the Democratic party in the USA. Keynesianism emerged during the Great Depression and after World War 2. Keynesians did not set out to destroy capitalism, but to reform it. They were acutely aware of the social problems of the era, but believed that the system had "alternator trouble" -- that you could fix it by tinkering it rather than by throwing it out wholesale, as the Socialists (and Fascists) wanted. Keynesianism sees markets as imperfect and sees the state as a counterbalance and mechanic for them: its role is to prevent it from getting out of whack (e.g. by allowing wealth disparities to get too big, credit to balloon too much, or monopolies to abuse their market power), and fix it when it breaks (e.g. by rescuing banks and fiscal stimulus in recessions and tight monetary policy during booms).
The critical point here is that there are no socialists in the USA, and precious few in the rest of the developed world.
Not in the mainstream anyway.
The leftist parties we're dealing with today are Keynesian leftists, not socialist leftists.
- Socialists see collective ownership as good, private ownership as a sometimes necessary evil. For example, Lenin's NEP and Arab Socialism permit private enterprise in small businesses, but nationalize everything above that level (finance, heavy industry, import/export, etc.)
- Keynesian leftists see private ownership as good, and collective ownership a sometimes necessary evil. For example, the USA has collectively owned roads, defense, and courts; most of the rest of the industrialized world add health care on top of that.
- Socialists want to achieve equality of outcomes. Keynesian leftists want to achieve equality of opportunity.
- Socialists want to abolish the markets. Keynesians want to make them work better.
- Keynesian leftism emerged as a response to Marxist socialism, not as an offshoot of it.
- Marxist socialism is based on Marx's philosophy of dialectical materialism. Keynesianism is based on John Maynard Keynes's General Theory, which underlies all of today's mainstream economics, from Milton Friedman to Joseph Stiglitz.
So, for example, progressive taxation is a typically Keynesian-leftist approach to an economic problem: they have observed that, left to themselves, markets tend to concentrate wealth, which is unsustainable in the long run and carries a large social cost. The solution is a technical one -- redistribute wealth from the higher-earning parts of the population to the lower-earning ones through progressive taxation and by providing services that benefit everyone equally (and, therefore, the poor proportionately more).
Similarly, market regulation is a typically Keynesian tool. For example, Keynesians recognize that markets do not price in negative externalities: if a factory produces toxic waste, the cheapest solution is just to dump it in the ocean, which will eventually hurt everybody. Therefore, the Keynesian solution is to legislate against this, and require factories to clean up the messes they make.
Keynesian leftism is not socialism. The goals are different, the means are different, and the historical origins are different. And attempting to conflate the two is either ignorant or dishonest -- not to mention politically pernicious.
- Joined
- Oct 19, 2006
- Messages
- 8,540