The history of the governmental principle that everything should be owned and governed by the entire society is outlined in Socialism by Michael Newman. It covers how this ideology has affected the globe over the previous 200 years, how its initial goals have been lost, and potential future applications.
There has been a resurgence of the word “socialism” in recent years. Socialism would conjure up ideas of oppression and tyranny just a few decades ago. But recent occurrences like the Great Recession and Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign have resurrected the debate over socialism, leading many people to wonder: What is socialism, really?
Is it merely a means of oppressing people? Or may something positive come of it? Where did it originate?
Michael Newman’s Socialism: A Very Short Introduction provides the answers to all of your most pressing socialist problems. He demonstrates how the phrase has changed from its original usage over history. He examines the term’s potential for positive or ill application as well as how it might benefit us in the future using historical examples.
Socialism is a broad concept that can take on several shapes, but all of them have some traits in common.
What comes to mind when I say the word “socialism”? Is it the USSR and Joseph Stalin? Thankfully, that is only one type of socialism. Since its creation in the nineteenth century, history has witnessed numerous such examples.
Sweden and Cuba are two further examples from more recent times. Sweden is a parliamentary social democracy, whereas Cuba is a communist single-party state. Both countries have socialist-based systems of government, although they differ greatly from one another.
What unifies them both as socialists then? Every socialism has a few guiding principles that apply to all of its variations. The first is the objective of establishing equality in society. Governments differ on how to accomplish this, though.
They can all agree that capitalism is to blame for all social injustices, nevertheless. Because of this, all socialists, to varied degrees, work to eliminate the constraints that come with capitalism—especially the small elite group that controls the vast majority of the capital—so that everyone might live in equality.
Because they think that people are naturally cooperative rather than competing, socialists think that this is plausible. They think that for it to succeed, people will band together in unity. Thus, they must figure out a strategy to persuade others to want this change, which is where things might become challenging.
Two distinct schools of thought emerged from capitalism, which paved the path for the advent of socialism.
The Industrial Revolution in the early nineteenth century fundamentally altered how people worked and lived. They moved into crowded, poorly designed cities because of booming new factories and industries, a far cry from the friendly rural towns they left behind. Individuals endured appalling living and working circumstances. Also, the pitiful pay forced them to compete with one another.
A lot of people were incensed by the poverty and new injustice. These individuals designated themselves as “socialists.” Soon, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, two other socialists, formed the group socialists, which rapidly expanded.
Marx felt that capitalism created the bourgeoisie and the proletariat as two distinct social classes. The proletariat provided the labor for the bourgeoisie to run their businesses even though they owned the factories and all the capital. According to Marx, the proletariat was the only group the bourgeoisie could profit from.
The bourgeoisie aimed to maximise profit by forcing the proletariat to work long hours to more than make up their salary, which resulted in a perpetual fight between the two. Also, the proletariat was constantly calling for higher pay. He thought that their conflict would bring down capitalism.
Socialists agreed with Marx’s ideas after his death, with the exception of one crucial issue: how to put socialism into practice. He didn’t answer that. Two primary solutions surfaced very quickly.
The first was that it could be achieved by democratically reforming capitalism. Fundamentally, socialist parties might seize the initiative during elections and aid the proletariat. They are referred to as social democrats.
The second response was that revolution might be able to do it. Vladimir Lenin, the dictator of Russia, notoriously supported this strategy. He thought that in order for the proletariat to topple the bourgeoisie, leaders would need to spark a revolution among them. This was then labelled as communism.
If people are willing to learn from their previous errors, socialism may have a bright future.
Neoliberalism, a kind of capitalism that advocates market deregulation and privatisation, has grown over the past 30 years.
Why is the neoliberal movement taking place? Social democracy flourished in the decades that followed World War II as a result of rapid economic expansion. But as the economy’s expansion slowed in the 1970s, social democracy began to lose favour with the public.
Neoliberalism first appeared in this context. Neoliberalism was supported by politicians like Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, who suddenly made these ideas popular. As a result, perceptions towards welfare and government spending changed. Many people began to believe that individuals should be free from exorbitant taxes and capable of taking care of themselves.
The consequences of this are clear. In Western countries, inequality grew quickly between the 1970s and the 1990s. The UN noted a fall in the average income in 54 nations in the 1990s. When the book was published in 2005, 1% of the population owned as much wealth as 57% of the world’s poorest people. We are aware that since then, the gap has only widened.
What can a socialist do to counter this capitalist trend, then? The author believes that one of the most crucial things we can do is to examine and draw lessons from the failures of previous socialist initiatives.
One of the most obvious lessons we can draw from the past is that a socialist society has to be democratic at every level. There cannot be a return to the authoritarian authority of earlier socialist attempts.
While there are undoubtedly unanswered questions regarding socialism, one thing is certain: capitalism won’t be able to resolve the problems it causes. Because of this, socialism will never be obsolete.
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