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VI. Socialism and Communism

Socialism & Communism

Socialism and communism are related, but by no means identicalideologies…

(Possibly this requires less emphasis here in SK; possibly it requires more)

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Origins & Precursors of Socialism

In some respects, like classical conservatism, socialist and communist ideologies can be understood as counter-reactions to the rise of liberalism.

In this respect, one name often associated with both ideologies is that of Karl Marx (1818-1883).

But the idea goes back much further…

Precursors

Plato, e.g., envisioned a kind of communism (common ownership) in his Republic:

Members of the Guardian class are to share nearly everything in common (including spouses and children).

Some early Christians (and, later, monastic orders) pooled their worldly possessions.

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St. Thomas More (1478–1535)

In his Utopia (1516), advocates communal ownership of goods and communal organization of labour.

His title is both a neologism and a pun:

eu-topos - “happy place”ou-topos - “no place”

More’s Communism

Competition, More argues, leads to sinful pride, envy, and greed: The souls of both the poor and the rich suffer.

So, in More’s Utopia, money and private property are outlawed; work is controlled and directed by the state; luxury consumption is outlawed.

Each household contributes goods and services to the community and draws what it needs from common stores.

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More’s Utopia was a literary construction. In the wake of the English Civil War (1642-9), various groups emerged which attempted to put similar schemes into actual practice.

The Diggers, led by Gerard Winstanley, argue that the earth was a “common treasury” given by God and that, therefore, private property ought to be forbidden.

The Levellers, a more moderate group led by John Lilburne, argue for egalitarian reform modeled on the ideas of the early Christians

Changes in Mode of Production

More, the Diggers, and the Levellers all based their communistic ideas on an essentially agrarian model of society.

Such models were rendered increasingly irrelevant with the emergence of the “dark satanic mills” of the industrial revolution…

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Child Labour, 18th Century

Child Labour, Early 19th Century

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The Industrial Revolution

In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, factory working conditions were, in a word, horrible.

Children, indeed, entire families, were required to work long hours, in unsafe conditions, for uncertain, minimal wages.

At the same time, the invention of industrial production equipment (e.g., the power loom, the spinning jenny) leads to a ‘de-skilling’ of labour.

These conditions lead to moral outrage and calls for reform…

Ethical Socialism

Calls for reform came from a several camps, several different ideological positions…

Welfare Liberalism emerges, in part, as a call for safer, cleaner working conditions.

“Ethical” Socialism seeks to go further: The capitalist system as it stands is fundamentallydysfunctional and must be rebuilt from the ground up. The system of profit and exploitation must give way to a socialist society of equals.

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“Utopian” Socialism

Other self-described socialists argued that society ought to be reorganized into small, self-sustaining egalitarian communities, somewhat along the lines proposed by More and the Diggers

Charles Fourier (1772-1837)

The “phalanstery”: A community of about 1600, based on the principle of “attractive labour.” In such a community, the evils of competitive society supposedly are checked.

Utopian Socialism II

Robert Owen (1771-1857): Capitalism rewards greed and selfishness, deforming character. This can be overcome through a new system of production and a new system of education.

New Lanark (1800): Model textile factory, clean, safe; humane work week; education for workers’ children at owner’s expense.

New Harmony (1842): Model cooperative community.

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“Pre-Scientific” Socialism

Claude-Henri de Saint-Simon(1760-1825):

Human history can be divided into successive stages, each of which can be characterized on the basis of the beliefs of its dominant class…

Saint-Simon’s Theory of History

Feudalism – Nobility and clergy articulate religious beliefs upon which social organization depends (e.g., “divine right of kings,” “the great chain of being”)

Industrial Society – Enlightenment rationalism undermines feudal beliefs, ushers in a new society based on scientific and technical knowledge.

Due to its complexity, this new form of society requires planning based on expert assessment of social needs: A planned socialist economy.

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Marx (1818-83)

All of these earlier visions of socialism (Fourier, Owen, Saint-Simon) are criticized by Karl Marx as “utopian.”

It is naïve and impractical, Marx asserts, to suppose that a genuinely socialist society will come about simply as a result of changing people’s beliefs…

A Common Misunderstanding of Marx

…But it is no less impractical, Marx says, to assume that a socialist society will emerge automatically or inevitablyas the necessary outcome of capitalism.

Assertion: Capitalism makes socialism (and eventually communism) possible, but not inevitable.

Yet the true socialist society can emerge only once capitalist society is overthrown. This overthrow awaits the right conditions…

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The Proletariat

The working class—the proletariat—must come to realize that their interests are opposed to and incompatible with those of the socio-economically dominant class—the bourgeoisie.

Workers, that is, must come to recognize their “real condition” in order to see how that condition might be changed.

Marx offers his theory of history as an aid (a “midwife”) to this project…

The Materialist Conception of History

The cornerstone of Marx’s political views

Draws on several sources: The political economy of Adam Smith and the Classical economists; G.W.F. Hegel’s philosophy of history, the ‘master/slave’ dialectic, etc..

How so “materialist”? Marx aims to distinguish his views from those of the utopian socialists: Social change involves not just changing people’s ideas, but changes in the material conditions of society.

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The Two-Fold Struggle

Human history, Marx says, is the story of a two-fold struggle:

1. The struggle to master nature for human purposes

2. The struggle between social classes

These struggles are related: In order to master nature, human beings must labour; in order for labour to be effective, people must relate to and work with one another.

This involves three things…

I. Material Forces of Production

Raw materials, resources, and the tools and technologies which are used to extract and utilize those resources.

These will vary from society to society and from one historical period to another…

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Sidebar: Technological Determinism

In fact, material forces of production partly determinewhat sort of society one finds:

“In acquiring new productive forces men change their mode of production, and in changing their mode of production they change their way of living—they change all their social relations. The hand-mill gives you the society of the feudal lord; the steam-mill, society with the industrial capitalist.”

(Marx, The Poverty of Philosophy, 1847)

II. Social Relations of Production

Are, in short, a society’s dominant mode of production and way of living.

The social division of labour that characterizes a particular society: Society with the feudal lord; society with the industrial capitalist

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Marx: Material production is a precondition for all life.

Before all else, human beings must first produce the means of their subsistence and reproduce the species.

In that respect, human beings are exactly like animals. But human beings are, in addition, uniquely rationalanimals.

We have a need to know why things are as they are –e.g., why some work and suffer while others lead a life of ease…

III. Ideological Superstructure

…So, in every society, Marx asserts, there exists a system of ideas and ideals through which the social relations of that society are explained, justified, and legitimized in the eyes of its members.

“…the ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas.”

E.g., People living in slave societies will be taught that some people are “natural slaves” (Aristotle) or that slavery is “God’s will.”

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In a capitalist society, by contrast, people will be conditioned to believe that the “laws of economics” dictate the status quo and that this is the only rational and workable arrangement.

Religion (the “opium of the people”) will also play its role in distracting people from the “open secret” that social relations are made by, and can be changed by, human beings.

False Consciousness

In short: The ideas of the dominant class are constantly portrayed as the only ideas worth taking seriously. In a capitalist society, Marx says, these will be the ideas of the bourgeoisie.

Alternative ideas (e.g., socialist ideas) will be portrayed—in classrooms, from pulpits, in the press dominated and controlled by the bourgeoisie—as silly, unworkable, absurd.

The proletariat will be prevented from forming a true understanding of its situation.

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Material Forces of Production(“productive forces”)

Social Relations of Production

Ideas, Ideals, Beliefs(morality, law, religion)

Base

Ideological Superstructure

Marx: Critical Aspects

Capitalism, for Marx, is not purely evil.

In fact, despite his use of words like “unjust,” “exploitation,” etc., Marx officially maintains that his objections to capitalism are not primarily moralobjections.

Capitalism was beneficial in helping to break down feudal society and in exposing the “illusions” upon which feudal society rested.

Moreover, capitalist productive forces have created the possibility of great abundance.

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Alienation

But capitalism, like feudalism, has now outlived its usefulness, Marx argues.

For one thing, the capitalist system of production is alienating:

• Workers are alienated from the product of their labour• Creativity is destroyed by forcing workers to serve the

machine, rather than the opposite• Workers become alienated from the ‘act of production’;

work becomes dull and meaningless• Workers are alienated from each other, competitors

rather than comrades

Although they are more comfortably off, the bourgeoisie too is alienated: As the worker is made into “an appendage of the machine,” the capitalist is made into “an appendage of capital.”

That is, the capitalist must do what the market tells her too, even if that means ignoring her conscience or her moral or aesthetic scruples.

Only the market is “free”— all others, workers and capitalists alike, are its slaves.

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Marx: Constructive Aspects

In contrast to the capitalist status quo, the only sort of society that is truly fit for human habitation is society in which people are free.

For the proletariat, to be free is to be free from class divisions, economic inequalities, and unequal life-chances.

And, in order to be free, they must recognize these inequalities, and thereby become free from “false consciousness.”

Determinism Redux?

The capitalist system, Marx says, is self-undermining and, in the long run, self-destructive. It has give rise to its own “grave diggers”—the “universal” proletariat.

Capitalism has created the proletariat through its relations of production.

Yet the capitalist class depends on the proletariat, thereby giving the proletariat a common interest, a common enemy, and, possibly, a glimpse of their enormous collective power.

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Revolution

Capitalism, Marx says, is self-undermining in other ways as well:

1. Periodic, ever-worsening crises will bring about…

2. Immiseration of the proletariat, which will lead to…

3. Revolutionary class consciousness, which will give the proletariat the will and determination to…

4. Overthrow the bourgeoisie and seize state power, leading to…

5. The dictatorship of the proletariat

and then…

6. The dictatorship of the proletariat will “wither away,” thereby making possible…

7. A classless communist society

About these last steps, Marx has remarkably little to say.

His few vague speculations suggest that the communist society will be democratic, the means of production will be publicly owned, there will be free public education for all, and that the principle of justice will be “from each according to his ability, to each according to his need.”

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“The kitchens of the future …”

Billions of people who have lived and who continue to live under regimes that claim to be inspired by Marx’s ideas—at least one third of humanity in the 20th

century—have paid a high price for Marx’s vagueness and reticence.

Labour camp cemetery, Vorkuta, Russia, 1955