(All Rights Reserved - James O.
Richards)
The
Shaping of the "Second Europe" by
Revolutions, 1750-1914
Socialism
Outline of Lecture
I. Introduction
II. Socialism as a Broad
Ideology
III. Utopian or Romantic Socialism
IV. Marxian Socialism
V. Karl Marx (1818-1883)
VI. Marx's Critique of
Capitalism
VII. Marx's Theory of History, Revolution, and the Aims of Marxian
Socialism
VIII. Socialism and the Second Europe
Introduction
In the last session we looked at the social and
economic effects of the Industrial Revolution which help explain why socialism
as an ideology or "ism" appeared when it did. The revolution, as we
saw, transformed or destroyed society, the economy, and traditional
relationships which had existed for centuries. Thousands of rural workers whose
families had been farming small holdings for generations were thrown off their
land and forced to find work as factory workers in the new industrial cities.
There they huddled in slum housing, crowded by the dozens into unsafe and
unsanitary tenements. Their working conditions were equally appalling: long
work days from sunup into the evening; repetitive, monotonous work on the
spinning machines and looms built without safety devices; factories which were
poorly constructed, badly lighted, and without any
sanitary arrangements. Crowded together in such numbers and conditions, their
conditions seemed worse than anything they had known in their former life.
Perhaps their lot really was not much different than it had been in the
countryside and they had really just exchanged rural squalor and misery for
urban squalor and misery, but it did not seem that way to
many of them and to social reformers. The concentration of people and poverty
called attention to the social evils of the time and helped bring about social
and political reform. We have examined some of this as we looked at Liberalism.
Another response to the Industrial Revolution and its impact on society was
Socialism, an ideology with a long history which gained widespread support in
the 19th century.
Socialism
as a Broad Ideology
Socialism is a credo whose goal is to change the existing capitalist order,
peacefully and gradually, or violently and suddenly, and to set up conditions
in which workers take all the wealth they produce. In all forms of socialism
private property disappears, although private housing and clothing may be
permitted by some socialists. But all believe that land and natural resources
belong to the workers.
Why does the socialist of whatever stripe take this view of property? Because of his view of human nature. He believes that man is
born naturally good but enslaved by evil conditions. Property and wealth are the root of those evil conditions. Capitalism permits
the few through property rights to gather wealth and oppress and degrade the
mass of society. If private property is abolished and wealth redistributed
equally to all, men will be freed of the evil which oppresses them and free to
develop as the naturally good beings they are. The socialist did not want to
destroy the industrial system. On the contrary, he believed that it had solved
the great problem men had faced since time began: how to provide enough goods
for everyone. The problem was that capitalism caused the unequal distribution
of wealth by permitting a few to concentrate most of it in their hands, and
thus deprive workers of what they had created. Wealth was created by workers;
their labor had produced it. They deserved what was theirs. Socialism would see
that they got it. Does the socialist view of human nature sound familiar? Like
the Romantic view? Perhaps like some of the Enlightenment view?
?
1. Does socialism sound like the Romantic or Enlightenment view of human
nature?
2. Compare the socialist view of human nature to the
Christian view? Is socialism a Christian
heresy?
In some respects socialism has an ancient
history. Think about the impulse of the early Christian church to share all
things in common. Or utopian schemes like that of Sir Thomas More whose work in
the 16th century by the name of Utopia laid out a society
where all property was held in common. But it is not these earlier forms which
interest us now. Instead we want to look at the two broad groups into which
almost all socialists can be put: (1) Utopian or Romantic Socialism and (2) Marxian
Socialism.
Utopian
or Romantic Socialism
Utopian or Romantic Socialists were the first to propose how to end
capitalism and redistribute the wealth it had created. The term
"utopian" was not theirs. It was used by their enemies to deride
their ideas as useless, idealistic, impractical--"utopian" in the
literal meaning of the Greek word for "nowhere." It is not a bad term
in that it sums up what many of them wanted to do. In the better sense of the
term, they wanted to create a new society as they believed it ought to be. And
some really did found, or want to found, utopian societies. The word
"Romantic" is also used to characterize these reformers. It too is a
good descriptive term in that these socialists had the Romantic outlook which we
looked at a few sessions ago. They believed in the ultimate worth of the
individual, the common, ordinary person, and in the brotherhood of man. They
were convinced that the enemy of man was economic competition. It crippled his
character and degraded human relationships. It made him fall short of his
potential as a human being. But if competition could be replaced by
cooperation, man would be freed to become all that he was capable of becoming.
Romantic Socialists wanted to rationalize the industrial system and make it
less wasteful of resources and human skills. They were not revolutionaries.
They believed that history was on their side and that the existing capitalist
system would be transformed in a gradual evolution toward a more rational
humane system. Like Romantics, they were optimistic that society would finally
see the worth of their cause and put an end to the harsh and cruel features of
the capitalist industrial system, its wastefulness and indifference to human
need. Toward that end they offered a variety of schemes.
?
1. Consider for a minute some of the socialist assumptions about human nature
and history. Do you agree with any of these assumptions? Disagree?
2. Paul Johnson
observed in Intellectuals, that saving the working classes from
themselves has been the ruinous ambition of middle- and upper-class
intellectuals for over two hundred years, and the result has in every case been
calamitous. For the poor, socialism is indeed "a ruinous creed." Do you agree?
One was put forward by Claude-Henri, Comte de
Saint-Simon (1760-1825), a French soldier who fought for the American and
later the French Revolution. In The
New Christianity (1825), Saint-Simon proposed a society planned and
directed by scientists and managers for the benefit of all. And bolstering the
planning was a proposal for a new secular religious faith to unite members in
acceptance of the work of these specialists. Another Romantic Socialist was Charles Fourier
(1772-1837) who suggested an ideal rural community which he called a "phalanstery" (from "phalanx", the word for the
tight military formation in which Greeks fought). Fourier in true Romantic
fashion believed that once one "phalanstery"
had been established, and proven its success, the whole world would copy it
(Ralph Waldo Emerson: the world will beat a path to the door of the man who
makes a better mouse-trap). Fourier's "phalanstery"
would be organized so that each individual could pursue interests he wanted to
pursue as long as he wanted to do them, would be largely self-sufficient, and
would pay its members according to what each brought to its success. Fourier
never founded a single phalanstery (he did sketch the
architecture for its buildings), but others took his idea and did found such
communities in a good many countries, including the United States.
A third socialist, who uttered perhaps the most famous line of Romantic
Socialism, was Pierre-Joseph
Proudhon(1809-1865), who dissented from others in
rejecting the industrial society. In What is Property? (1840), Proudhon answered his
question by saying: "Property is theft."
Fourth in our list was Robert
Owen (1771-1858) whose ideas had a wide following among social reformers.
Owen was that paradox of socialist reformers: a successful capitalist who made
a fortune and then put it to socialist schemes. After becoming manager and part-owner
of a textile mill in New Lanark, Scotland, Owen reorganized the
operation radically. Believing that bad working conditions were responsible for
the way his workers lived and the problems in the workplace, he took unheard of
steps to change conditions. He shortened the workday for children from 17 to 10
hours, provided decent housing for his workers, installed sewers, kept the
housing and his factory clean, and set up a nursery and school for the children
under the age of 10. He established a company-run store and used the profits to
fund his improvements. He set up a plan for pensions and disability to which
the workers contributed. Not trusting solely in human goodness and good
intentions, he began fining workers for moral offenses such as drunkenness and
sexual promiscuity. And paternalistic though his management was, New Lanark
worked. Production rose; profits increased. People came from far and near to
see the miracle of New Lanark. He came to America and built a community at New Harmony, Indiana. In a speech to Congress in 1825 he explained why
he thought his new community would work:
My conviction is, that from necessity and inclination, the
individual or old system of society would break up, and soon terminate; from
necessity, because the new societies would undersell all individual producers,
both of agricultural productions, and manufactured commodities. And from
inclination, because it is scarcely to be supposed that anyone would continue
to live under the miserable, anxious, individual system of opposition and
counteraction, when they could with ease form themselves into, or become
members of, one of these associations of union, intelligence, and kind feeling.
New Harmony was a self-sufficient, rural and primarily
agrarian community. Workers ate together, raised their children communally, and
assumed varied tasks as they had interests. The plan called for educating
children until they were eight. Then until the age of 26 they did various jobs,
followed by 5 years of supervisory or administrative work. Finally as adults
they were permitted greater leisure for learning and for running the community.
New Harmony broke down in factionalism and
squabbling and most of Owen's investment was lost.
But his ideas, as stated in A
New View of Society, (1813-16) had a wide following both in the United States
and in Britain.
?
Do any of the ideas of these socialist theorists sound attractive to you? Why?
Marxian
Socialism
Quite different from Utopian or Romantic Socialism was the version
proposed by Karl Marx (1818-1883). His was a more hard-headed, if no less
idealistic kind of socialism. It was he and his followers who contemptuously
dismissed the earlier socialists as "utopian" because they failed to
see both the right theory and the right methods for achieving socialist goals.
Marxian Socialism believes that the goals of socialism will come in the sudden,
violent overthrow of capitalism and the capitalist class. It sees revolution,
not evolution, as the only means for inaugurating socialism. It is poles apart
from its Utopian Socialist cousin, united to it only in commitment to the
common goal of socialists, the ending of capitalism and a society in which
workers will possess all the wealth they have produced.
Marx's
Life (1818-1883)
Marx
was born in 1818 to a middle class German Jewish family which became Lutheran
in 1824. Marx received a good education at leading German universities, and was
caught up in the revolutionary agitation sweeping Germany in the 1830's and 40's. Too
radical for an academic career, he became a newspaper editor. His radicalism
got him in trouble with Prussian authorities and he, along with Friedrich
Engels, a life-long friend, collaborator, and benefactor, fled to Paris in 1843. In 1848
with Engels he wrote the Communist
Manifesto as the revolutions of 1848 were breaking out. Following the
failure of those revolutions, he fled to London
with Engels where he spent the rest of his life (1849-1883) in poverty, writing
and planning with others the communist revolution. Working daily in the British Museum, he spent years writing the major
works which made him the Father of Communism. First to appear was Critique
of Political Economy (1859). Then came the first
volume of Das Kapital (1867). By his death he had finished the
second and third volumes of Kapital (1885,
1894), edited by Engels. At his death he was buried in Highgate
Cemetery in London.
Ironically, he shares his last resting place with a philosophical opposite,
Herbert Spencer, who believed in rugged individualism and coined the phrase
"survival of the fittest". Spencer lies across the path from Marx.
Who do you think is rolling in his grave faster?
?
Would you like to read Friedrich Engel’s speech on the burial day of Marx in
1883? Click
here.
Marx's
Critique of Capitalism
In the Communist
Manifesto Marx summed up what was wrong with capitalism. Among the
specific evils he cited are the following in shortened form:
(1) [The bourgeoisie] has left no other nexus between man
and man than naked self-interest, than callous "cash payment".
(2) The bourgeoisie has stripped of its halo every occupation hitherto
honored and looked up to with reverent awe. It has converted the physician, the
lawyer, the priest, the poet, the man of science, into its paid wage laborers.
(3) The bourgeoisie has torn away from the family its sentimental veil, and
has reduced the family relation into a mere money relation
(4) All fixed, fast frozen relations, with their train of ancient and
venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones become
antiquated before they can ossify.
(5) It compels all nations, on pain of extinction, to adopt the bourgeois
mode of production; it compels them to introduce what it calls civilization
into their midst, i.e., to become bourgeois themselves. In one word, it creates
a world after its own image.
(6) The bourgeoisie has subjected the country to the rule of the towns.
(7) It has agglomerated population, centralized the means of production, and
has concentrated property in a few hands.
(8) ...the work of the proletarians has lost all individual character, and,
consequently, all charm for the workman. He becomes an appendage of the machine
(9) [It has made the proletariat] slaves of the bourgeois class, and of the
bourgeois state; they are daily and hourly enslaved by the machine, by the overlooker, and, above all, in the individual bourgeois
manufacturer himself.
(10) Differences of age and sex have no longer any distinctive social
validity for the working class. All are instruments of labor, more or less
expensive to use, according to their age and sex.
Borrowing from Kant the theory of the moral imperative, Marx
accused capitalism of treating human beings as means to an end, not ends
in themselves. It had made the human being a commodity to be bought and sold,
had exploited the home, made men appendages to machines, and used religion and
morality cynically to bolster its position. (It was in this context, in the Critique
of the Gotha Program, that Marx said, "Religion.
. .is the opium of the people") One feels when reading Marx's critique,
whether in the Manifesto or in other works, that one is hearing an Old
Testament prophet thundering out God's wrath on evil-doers.
?
Does Marx's critique sound quaint today?
Marx's
Theory of History, Revolution, and the Aims of Marxian Socialism
Marx's theory of socialist revolution is based on a theory of history which
he adapted from George
Frederick Hegel. Hegel first wrote about history as a struggle between
thesis and antithesis leading to a synthesis which became a new thesis, and so
on. History in other words is a dialectical process, a spiritual one, as ideas
become the means by which history unfolds itself. Marx adopted the dialectic,
but changed it from a spiritual, idealistic process to a material one. Dialectical
materialism is the name given to Marx's view of history.
For Marx, economics is the basis of society. Institutions and classes grow
from the means and modes of production. So do ideas and values, and all else
characteristic of any given society. The agrarian system of the Middle Ages produced the feudal system and the dominating
aristocracy. That system was the thesis against which an antithesis, the middle
class, sprang up. The synthesis was the middle class or bourgeois capitalist
system which then became a new thesis as history moved on. The working class,
or proletariat, was the new antithesis. And the clash between those two would
produce a new synthesis, the victory of the proletariat, the eradication of the
middle class and its values, and a classless society. In schematic form Marx's
dialectic looks like this:
Dialectical Materialism
Thesis - Antithesis
|
Synthesis - Antithesis
|
New Synthesis
Applied to European History
Feudalism - creates bourgeoisie
|
Capitalism
Capitalism - creates proletariat
|
Will create Socialism
(Drawn from the Modern History
Sourcebook on Socialism, Marxism, and Trade Unionism)
The final stage of the dialectic would be a violent revolution. This stage
would be the end of history because no other class would exist, or could exist.
The proletariat would establish a dictatorship with the purpose of (1) seizing the
means of production (i.e., the industrial system); (2) setting up an interim
state while all traces of the middle class and its control of the economy were
eradicated; (3) abolishing the exploitation of the industrial system; (4) and
establishing cultural totalitarianism to ensure the complete destruction of the
middle class and the unity of the proletariat. Eventually, Marx stated, the
state would wither away, unnecessary because there was no longer anyone to be
exploited.
In the classless society which ensued, Marx said, the slogan epitomizing the
new state of things would be "From each according to his ability; to each
according to his need." (He borrowed the wording from Louis Blanc, whom Marx
had contemptuously dismissed as a utopian Socialist) In the Communist Manifesto, he
sketched the outline of the society which would emerge. It bears quoting in
part, because it sounds quaint today. But in the 19th century these
were radical ideas indeed:
The Communist revolution is the most radical rupture with
traditional property relations; no wonder that its development involves the most
radical rupture with traditional ideas. But let us have done with the bourgeois
objections to Communism. We have seen above, that the first step in the
revolution by the working class, is to raise the
proletariat to the position of ruling as to win the battle of democracy. The
proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degrees, all capital
from the bourgeoisie, to centralize all instruments of production in the hands
of the State, i.e., of the proletariat organized as the ruling class; and to
increase the total of productive forces as rapidly as possible. Of course, in
the beginning, this cannot be effected except by means of despotic inroads on
the rights of property, and on the conditions of bourgeois production; by means
of measures, therefore, which appear economically insufficient and untenable,
but which, in the course of the movement, outstrip themselves, necessitate
further inroads upon the old social order, and are unavoidable as a means of
entirely revolutionizing the mode of production. These measures will, of
course, be different in different countries.
Nevertheless in the most advanced countries, the following will be pretty
generally applicable.
1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to
public purposes.
2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
3. Abolition of all right of inheritance.
4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.
5. Centralization of credit in the hands of the State, by means of a
national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly.
6. Centralization of the means of communication and transport in the hands
of the State.
7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State;
the bringing into cultivation of waste-lands, and the improvement of the soil
generally in accordance with a common plan.
8. Equal liability of all to labor. Establishment of
industrial armies, especially for agriculture.
9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual
abolition of the distinction between town and country, by a more equable
distribution of the population over the country.
10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition
of children's factory labor in its present form. Combination
of education with industrial production, &c., &c.
The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare
that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing
social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution.
The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains.
They have a world to win.
WORKING MEN OF ALL COUNTRIES,
UNITE!
?
1. A progressive income tax? Free education? Your reactions to any or all of these communist aims?
2. Is Marxism discredited today? Why?
3. If you doubt the fundamental defect of socialism, its
understanding of human nature, let me propose an experiment. I could average the grades in this class on
the next test so that no one will fail and no one will make an A. After all, no one needs to make an A. And we certainly don’t want anyone to fail. Good so far?
Now, what will be the result when I do that on the test afterwards? Will those who made A’s try as hard? No? Why not?
Because they won’t get the fruit of their labors. Will not the class descend towards and past
its lowest level of effort? Will the
students who didn’t study before study even less and the ones who studied hard
decide that they want a free ride too so they study little? Will the second test average be even
lower? And what is the end of this
experiment? Eventually,
failure for all. Bickering, blame and name-calling. No one will study for the benefit of anyone
else. If reward for the individual is
not there, a great effort to succeed will not be there, leading to a lowering
of everyone’s effort. It’s a simple matter of human nature. Human nature as it really is, not as we would
like it to be. Am I right or wrong?
4. Marx sent a copy of the second edition of Das Kapital to Charles Darwin. Why do you think he did so?
(Hint: Marx said in 1860, upon the publication of Origin, "this is
a book which contains the basis of natural history for our views. "
Socialism
and the Second Europe
In the socialist view of human nature, of a proper basis for society, and of
the future we see clearly elements of the Enlightenment, and Romanticism as
well. Socialists of all variations believed in the dignity and natural goodness
of man. They did not use the phrase "natural rights" but they
believed that men possessed inherent rights, which capitalism was denying them.
Like the Enlightenment, socialists believed men needed freedom to choose and
were optimistic about the choices men would make if given their freedom. They
certainly believed in the right of men to change government. Since the
capitalist-dominated society was not securing human rights, they aimed to
change it. And they affirmed the Enlightenment optimism about the future.
Utopian Socialists believed a better future would come gradually and
peacefully. Marxian Socialists thought it would come violently and suddenly,
but it would usher in what Marx called the "Realm of Freedom." In
Marx's attempt to construct a scientific brand of socialism, there is an echo
of the Enlightenment stress on using reason, logic, and the scientific approach
to solving human problems.
There is, to be sure, at least in Marxian Socialism an element which is
difficult to harmonize with Enlightenment principles. Marx emphasized the
dignity of the working class, the group, when talking about man, not the
individual. He depicted human beings as governed by impersonal economic laws,
swept along by the tides of history. Historians call his view economic
determinism. In this view man is not the sum of his ideas, his values, his reason. He is ruled and overruled by economic forces. Is
this contrary to the Enlightenment emphasis on the force of logic and reason in
human affairs? Is it contrary to the dignity of the individual? Does it square
with the fondest hope of the philosophes that man by following reason
can usher in the bright new age? It raises questions about the Enlightenment
view of man, doesn't it? Then, too, Marx devalues anyone not in the
proletariat. The socialist future does not await everyone. Was cultural
totalitarianism comprehended by the Enlightenment? Think about it.
?
They didn't anticipate cultural totalitarianism did they?