From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Socialism is a range of
economic and
social systems characterised by
social ownership of the
means of production and
workers' self-management, as well as the political theories and movements associated with them. Social ownership can be
public,
collective or
cooperative ownership, or
citizen ownership of equity. There are many varieties of socialism and there is no single definition encapsulating all of them, with social ownership being the common element shared by its various forms.
Socialist systems are divided into non-market and
market forms. Non-market socialism involves the substitution of
factor markets and
money with engineering and technical criteria based on
calculation performed in-kind, thereby producing an economic mechanism that functions according to different
economic laws from those of
capitalism. Non-market socialism aims to circumvent the inefficiencies and
crises traditionally associated with
capital accumulation and the profit system. By contrast,
market socialism retains the use of monetary prices, factor markets and in some cases the
profit motive,
with respect to the operation of socially owned enterprises and the
allocation of capital goods between them. Profits generated by these
firms would be controlled directly by the workforce of each firm, or
accrue to society at large in the form of a
social dividend. The
socialist calculation debate concerns the feasibility and methods of resource allocation for a socialist system.
Socialist politics has been both internationalist and nationalist
in orientation; organised through political parties and opposed to
party politics; at times overlapping with trade unions, and at other
times independent and critical of unions; and present in both
industrialised and developing nations. Originating within the socialist movement,
social democracy has embraced a
mixed economy with a market that includes substantial state intervention in the form of
income redistribution,
regulation, and a
welfare state.
Economic democracy
proposes a sort of market socialism where there is more decentralized
control of companies, currencies, investments, and natural resources.
The socialist
political movement
includes a set of political philosophies that originated in the
revolutionary movements of the mid-to-late 18th century and out of
concern for the social problems that were associated with capitalism. By the late 19th century, after the work of
Karl Marx and his collaborator
Friedrich Engels, socialism had come to signify opposition to capitalism and advocacy for a
post-capitalist system based on some form of social ownership of the means of production. By the 1920s,
social democracy and
communism had become the two dominant political tendencies within the international socialist movement.
By this time, socialism emerged as "the most influential secular
movement of the twentieth century, worldwide. It is a political ideology
(or world view), a wide and divided political movement" and while the emergence of the Soviet Union as the world's first nominally
socialist state led to socialism's widespread association with the
Soviet economic model, some economists and intellectuals argued that in practice the model functioned as a form of
state capitalism or a non-planned administrative or
command economy.
Socialist parties
and ideas remain a political force with varying degrees of power and
influence on all continents, heading national governments in many
countries around the world. Today, some socialists have also adopted the
causes of other social movements, such as
environmentalism,
feminism and
progressivism. In 21st century
America, the term
socialism, without clear definition, has become a pejorative used by
conservatives to taint
liberal and
progressive policies, proposals, and public figures.
Etymology
For Andrew Vincent, "[t]he word ‘socialism’ finds its root in the Latin sociare, which means to combine or to share. The related, more technical term in Roman and then medieval law was societas.
This latter word could mean companionship and fellowship as well as the
more legalistic idea of a consensual contract between freemen".
The term "socialism" was created by
Henri de Saint-Simon, one of the founders of what would later be labelled "
utopian socialism". Simon coined the term as a contrast to the
liberal doctrine of "
individualism", which stressed that people act or should act as if they are in isolation from one another.
The original "utopian" socialists condemned liberal individualism for
failing to address social concerns during the industrial revolution,
including poverty, social oppression and gross inequalities in wealth,
thus viewing liberal individualism as degenerating society into
supporting selfish
egoism that harmed community life through promoting a society based on competition.
They presented socialism as an alternative to liberal individualism
based on the shared ownership of resources, although their proposals for
socialism differed significantly. Saint-Simon proposed economic
planning, scientific administration and the application of modern
scientific advancements to the organisation of society. By contrast,
Robert Owen proposed the organisation of production and ownership in cooperatives.
The modern definition and usage of "socialism" settled by the
1860s, becoming the predominant term among the group of words
"co-operative", "mutualist" and "associationist", which had previously
been used as synonyms. The term "communism" also fell out of use during
this period, despite earlier distinctions between socialism and
communism from the 1840s.
An early distinction between socialism and communism was that the
former aimed to only socialise production while the latter aimed to
socialise both production and consumption (in the form of free access to
final goods).
However, Marxists employed the term "socialism" in place of "communism"
by 1888, which had come to be considered an old-fashion synonym for
socialism. It was not until 1917 after the
Bolshevik Revolution that "socialism" came to refer to a distinct stage between capitalism and communism, introduced by
Vladimir Lenin as a means to defend the Bolshevik seizure of power against traditional Marxist criticisms that Russia's
productive forces were not sufficiently developed for socialist revolution.
A distinction between "communist" and "socialist" as descriptors
of political ideologies arose in 1918 after the Russian
Social-Democratic Labour Party renamed itself to the All-Russian
Communist Party, where communist came to specifically mean socialists
who supported the politics and theories of
Leninism, Bolshevism and later
Marxism–Leninism, although communist parties continued to describe themselves as socialists dedicated to socialism.
The words "socialism" and "communism" eventually accorded with
the adherents' and opponents' cultural attitude towards religion. In
Christian Europe, communism was believed to be the
atheist way of life. In Protestant England, the word "communism" was too culturally and aurally close to the Roman Catholic
communion rite, hence English atheists denoted themselves socialists.
Friedrich Engels argued that in 1848, at the time when
The Communist Manifesto was published, that "socialism was respectable on the continent, while communism was not". The
Owenites in England and the
Fourierists
in France were considered "respectable" socialists, while working-class
movements that "proclaimed the necessity of total social change"
denoted themselves communists. This latter branch of socialism produced
the communist work of
Étienne Cabet in France and
Wilhelm Weitling in Germany. The British
moral philosopher John Stuart Mill also came to advocate a form of economic socialism within a liberal context. In later editions of his
Principles of Political Economy
(1848), Mill would argue that "as far as economic theory was concerned,
there is nothing in principle in economic theory that precludes an
economic order based on socialist policies". While democrats looked to the
Revolutions of 1848
as a democratic revolution, which in the long run ensured liberty,
equality and fraternity, Marxists denounced 1848 as a betrayal of
working-class ideals by a bourgeoisie indifferent to the legitimate
demands of the proletariat.
History
Early socialism
Socialist models and ideas espousing common or public ownership have
existed since antiquity. It has been claimed—though controversially—that
there were elements of socialist thought in the politics of classical
Greek philosophers
Plato and
Aristotle.
Mazdak the Younger (died c. 524 or 528 CE), a Persian communal proto-socialist, instituted communal possessions and advocated the public good.
Abū Dharr al-Ghifārī, a
Companion of Prophet Muhammad, is credited by many as a principal antecedent of
Islamic socialism. The teachings of Jesus the messiah of the Christian religion are frequently highlighted as socialist in nature. Christian socialism was one of the founding threads of the UK
Labour Party and is said to be a tradition going back 600 years to the uprising of
Wat Tyler and
John Ball. In the period right after the
French Revolution, activists and theorists like
François-Noël Babeuf,
Étienne-Gabriel Morelly,
Philippe Buonarroti and
Auguste Blanqui influenced the early French labour and socialist movements. In Britain,
Thomas Paine proposed a detailed plan to tax property owners to pay for the needs of the poor in
Agrarian Justice while
Charles Hall wrote
The Effects of Civilization on the People in European States, denouncing capitalism's effects on the poor of his time which influenced the utopian schemes of
Thomas Spence.
The first "self-conscious socialist movements developed in the 1820s and 1830s.
The Owenites,
Saint-Simonians and
Fourierists
provided a series of coherent analyses and interpretations of society.
They also, especially in the case of the Owenites, overlapped with a
number of other working-class movements like the
Chartists in the United Kingdom".
The Chartists gathered significant numbers around the People's Charter
of 1838, which demanded the extension of suffrage to all male adults.
Leaders in the movement also called for a more equitable distribution of
income and better living conditions for the working classes. The very
first trade unions and consumers' cooperative societies also emerged in
the hinterland of the Chartist movement as a way of bolstering the fight
for these demands. A later important socialist thinker in France was
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, who proposed his philosophy of
mutualism
in which "everyone had an equal claim, either alone or as part of a
small cooperative, to possess and use land and other resources as needed
to make a living". There were also currents inspired by dissident Christianity of
Christian socialism "often in Britain and then usually coming out of left liberal politics and a romantic anti-industrialism" which produced theorists such as
Edward Bellamy,
Frederick Denison Maurice and
Charles Kingsley.
The first advocates of socialism favoured social levelling in order to create a
meritocratic or
technocratic society based on individual talent. Count
Henri de Saint-Simon is regarded as the first individual to coin the term "socialism".
Saint-Simon was fascinated by the enormous potential of science and
technology and advocated a socialist society that would eliminate the
disorderly aspects of capitalism and would be based on equal
opportunities.
He advocated the creation of a society in which each person was ranked
according to his or her capacities and rewarded according to his or her
work.
The key focus of Saint-Simon's socialism was on administrative
efficiency and industrialism and a belief that science was the key to
progress.
This was accompanied by a desire to implement a rationally organised
economy based on planning and geared towards large-scale scientific and
material progress, thus embodied a desire for a more directed or
planned economy. Other early socialist thinkers, such as
Thomas Hodgkin and Charles Hall, based their ideas on
David Ricardo's
economic theories. They reasoned that the equilibrium value of
commodities approximated prices charged by the producer when those
commodities were in elastic supply and that these producer prices
corresponded to the embodied labour—the cost of the labour (essentially
the wages paid) that was required to produce the commodities. The
Ricardian socialists viewed profit, interest and rent as deductions from this exchange-value.
West European social critics, including
Robert Owen,
Charles Fourier,
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon,
Louis Blanc,
Charles Hall, and
Saint-Simon were the first modern socialists who criticised the excessive poverty and inequality of the
Industrial Revolution.
They advocated reform, with some such as Robert Owen advocating the
transformation of society to small communities without private property.
Robert Owen's contribution to modern socialism was his understanding
that actions and characteristics of individuals were largely determined
by the social environment they were raised in and exposed to. On the other hand,
Charles Fourier advocated
phalansteres
which were communities that respected individual desires (including
sexual preferences), affinities and creativity and saw that work has to
be made enjoyable for people. The ideas of Owen and Fourier were tried in practice in numerous
intentional communities around Europe and the American continent in the mid-19th century.
Paris Commune
The celebration of the election of the Commune on 28 March 1871—the Paris Commune was a major early implementation of socialist ideas
The
Paris Commune
was a government that briefly ruled Paris from 18 March (more formally,
from 28 March) to 28 May 1871. The Commune was the result of an
uprising in Paris after France was defeated in the Franco-Prussian War.
The Commune elections held on 26 March elected a Commune council of 92
members, one member for each 20,000 residents.
Despite internal differences, the council began to organise the public
services essential for a city of two million residents. It also reached a
consensus on certain policies that tended towards a progressive,
secular and highly democratic
social democracy.
Because the Commune was only able to meet on fewer than 60 days
in all, only a few decrees were actually implemented. These included the
separation of church and state; the remission of rents owed for the entire period of the siege (during which payment had been suspended); the abolition of
night work in the hundreds of Paris
bakeries;
the granting of pensions to the unmarried companions and children of
National Guards killed on active service; and the free return, by the
city
pawnshops, of all workmen's tools and household items valued up to 20 francs, pledged during the siege.
The Commune was concerned that skilled workers had been forced to pawn
their tools during the war; the postponement of commercial
debt obligations and the abolition of interest on the debts; and the
right of employees to take over and run an enterprise if it were deserted by its owner. The Commune nonetheless recognised the previous owner's right to compensation.
First International
The
International Workingmen's Association
(IWA), often called the First International, was founded in London in
1864. The International Workingmen's Association united diverse
revolutionary currents including French followers of
Proudhon,
Blanquists,
Philadelphes, English trade unionists, socialists and
social democrats. The IWA held a preliminary conference in 1865 and had its first congress at
Geneva
in 1866. Due to the wide variety of philosophies present in the First
International, there was conflict from the start. The first objections
to Marx came from the
mutualists who opposed communism and
statism. However, shortly after
Mikhail Bakunin
and his followers (called collectivists while in the International)
joined in 1868, the First International became polarised into two camps
headed by Marx and Bakunin respectively.
The clearest differences between the groups emerged over their proposed
strategies for achieving their visions of socialism. The First
International became the first major international forum for the
promulgation of socialist ideas.
The followers of Bakunin were called
collectivist anarchists
and sought to collectivise ownership of the means of production while
retaining payment proportional to the amount and kind of labour of each
individual. Like Proudhonists, they asserted the right of each
individual to the product of his labour and to be remunerated for their
particular contribution to production. By contrast, anarcho-communists
sought collective ownership of both the means and the products of
labour. Errico Malatesta put it: "[I]nstead of running the risk of
making a confusion in trying to distinguish what you and I each do, let
us all work and put everything in common. In this way each will give to
society all that his strength permits until enough is produced for every
one; and each will take all that he needs, limiting his needs only in
those things of which there is not yet plenty for every one".
Anarcho-communism as a coherent, modern economic-political philosophy was first formulated in the Italian section of the First International by
Carlo Cafiero, Emilio Covelli,
Errico Malatesta,
Andrea Costa and other ex
Mazzinian republicans.
Out of respect for Mikhail Bakunin, they did not make their differences
with collectivist anarchism explicit until after Bakunin's death.
Syndicalism emerged in France inspired in part by the ideas of
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon and later by
Fernand Pelloutier and
Georges Sorel. It developed at the end of the 19th century out of the French trade-union movement (
syndicat
is the French word for trade union). It was a significant force in
Italy and Spain in the early 20th century until it was crushed by the
fascist regimes in those countries. In the United States, syndicalism
appeared in the guise of the
Industrial Workers of the World, or "Wobblies", founded in 1905. Syndicalism is an
economic system where industries are organised into
confederations (syndicates)
and the economy is managed by negotiation between specialists and
worker representatives of each field, comprising multiple
non-competitive categorised units. Syndicalism is thus a form of communism and economic
corporatism,
but also refers to the political movement and tactics used to bring
about this type of system. An influential anarchist movement based on
syndicalist ideas is
anarcho-syndicalism. The
International Workers Association is an international anarcho-syndicalist federation of various labour unions from different countries.
Guild socialism is a political movement advocating
workers' control of industry through the medium of trade-related
guilds "in an implied contractual relationship with the public".
It originated in the United Kingdom and was at its most influential in
the first quarter of the 20th century. Inspired by medieval guilds,
theorists such as
Samuel G. Hobson and
G. D. H. Cole
advocated the public ownership of industries and their organisation
into guilds, each of which would be under the democratic control of its
trade union. Guild socialists were less inclined than Fabians to invest
power in a state. At some point, like the American
Knights of Labor, guild socialism wanted to abolish the wage system.
Second International
As the ideas of Marx and Engels took on flesh, particularly in
central Europe, socialists sought to unite in an international
organisation. In 1889 (the centennial of the French Revolution of 1789),
the
Second International was founded, with 384 delegates from twenty countries representing about 300 labour and socialist organisations.
It was termed the Socialist International and Engels was elected
honorary president at the third congress in 1893. Anarchists were
ejected and not allowed in, mainly due to pressure from Marxists. It has been argued that at some point the Second International turned "into a battleground over the issue of
libertarian versus
authoritarian
socialism. Not only did they effectively present themselves as
champions of minority rights; they also provoked the German Marxists
into demonstrating a dictatorial intolerance which was a factor in
preventing the British labor movement from following the Marxist
direction indicated by such leaders as
H. M. Hyndman".
Reformism arose as an alternative to revolution.
Eduard Bernstein was a leading
social democrat in Germany who proposed the concept of evolutionary socialism. Revolutionary socialists quickly targeted reformism:
Rosa Luxemburg condemned Bernstein's
Evolutionary Socialism in her 1900 essay
Social Reform or Revolution?.
Revolutionary socialism encompasses multiple social and political
movements that may define "revolution" differently from one another. The
Social Democratic Party
(SPD) in Germany became the largest and most powerful socialist party
in Europe, despite working illegally until the anti-socialist laws were
dropped in 1890. In the 1893 elections, it gained 1,787,000 votes, a
quarter of the total votes cast, according to Engels. In 1895, the year
of his death, Engels emphasised the
Communist Manifesto's emphasis on winning, as a first step, the "battle of democracy".
Early 20th century
Russian Revolution
Lenin had published
essays on his analysis of
imperialism, the monopoly and
globalisation
phase of capitalism as predicted by Marx, as well as analyses on the
social conditions of his contemporary time. He observed that as
capitalism had further developed in Europe and America, the workers
remained unable to gain
class consciousness
so long as they were too busy working and concerned with how to make
ends meet. He therefore proposed that the social revolution would
require the leadership of a
vanguard party of class-conscious revolutionaries from the educated and politically active part of the population.
Upon arriving in
Petrograd, Lenin declared that the revolution in Russia was not over but had only begun, and that the next step was for the workers'
soviets to take full state authority. He issued a
thesis
outlining the Bolshevik's party programme, including rejection of any
legitimacy in the provisional government and advocacy for state power to
be given to the peasant and working class through the soviets. The
Bolsheviks became the most influential force in the soviets and on 7
November the
capitol of the provisional government was stormed by Bolshevik Red Guards in what afterwards known as the "
Great October Socialist Revolution". The rule of the provisional government was ended and the
Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic—the world's first constitutionally socialist state—was established. On 25 January 1918 at the
Petrograd Soviet, Lenin declared "Long live the world socialist revolution!"
and proposed an immediate armistice on all fronts and transferred the
land of the landed proprietors, the crown and the monasteries to the
peasant committees without compensation.
The day after assuming executive power on 25 January, Lenin wrote
Draft Regulations on Workers' Control,
which granted workers control of businesses with more than five workers
and office employees and access to all books, documents and stocks and
whose decisions were to be "binding upon the owners of the enterprises". Governing through the elected soviets and in alliance with the peasant-based
Left Socialist-Revolutionaries, the Bolshevik government began nationalising banks and industry; and disavowed the national debts of the deposed
Romanov royal régime. It
sued for peace, withdrawing from World War I and convoked a
Constituent Assembly in which the peasant
Socialist-Revolutionary Party (SR) won a majority.
The Constituent Assembly elected Socialist-Revolutionary leader
Victor Chernov
President of a Russian republic, but rejected the Bolshevik proposal
that it endorse the Soviet decrees on land, peace and workers' control
and acknowledge the power of the Soviets of Workers', Soldiers' and
Peasants' Deputies. The next day, the Bolsheviks declared that the
assembly was elected on outdated party lists and the
All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the Soviets dissolved it. In March 1919, world communist parties formed
Comintern (also known as the Third International) at a
meeting in Moscow.
International Working Union of Socialist Parties
Third International
The Bolshevik Russian Revolution of January 1918 engendered communist parties worldwide and their concomitant
revolutions of 1917–1923.
Few communists doubted that the Russian success of socialism depended
on successful, working-class socialist revolutions in developed
capitalist countries. In 1919, Lenin and Trotsky organised the world's communist parties into a new international association of workers—the
Communist International (Comintern), also called the Third International.
By 1920, the
Red Army under its commander Trotsky had largely defeated the royalist White Armies. In 1921,
War Communism was ended and under the
New Economic Policy
(NEP) private ownership was allowed for small and medium peasant
enterprises. While industry remained largely state-controlled, Lenin
acknowledged that the NEP was a necessary capitalist measure for a
country unripe for socialism. Profiteering returned in the form of "NEP
men" and rich peasants (
kulaks) gained power in the countryside.
Nevertheless, the role of Trotsky in this episode has been questioned
by other socialists, including ex Trotskyists. In the United States,
Dwight Macdonald broke with Trotsky and left the Trotskyist
Socialist Workers Party by raising the question of the
Kronstadt rebellion, which Trotsky as leader of the
Soviet Red Army and the other Bolsheviks had brutally repressed. He then moved towards
democratic socialism. and
anarchism.
A similar critique of Trotsky's role on the events around the Kronstadt rebellion was raised by the American anarchist
Emma Goldman.
In her essay "Trotsky Protests Too Much", she says: "I admit, the
dictatorship under Stalin's rule has become monstrous. That does not,
however, lessen the guilt of Leon Trotsky as one of the actors in the
revolutionary drama of which Kronstadt was one of the bloodiest scenes".
Fourth congress
In 1922, the fourth congress of the
Communist International took up the policy of the
United Front,
urging communists to work with rank and file Social Democrats while
remaining critical of their leaders, whom they criticised for betraying
the working class by supporting the war efforts of their respective
capitalist classes. For their part, the social democrats pointed to the
dislocation caused by revolution and later the growing authoritarianism
of the communist parties. When the
Communist Party of Great Britain applied to affiliate to the
Labour Party in 1920, it was turned down.
On seeing the Soviet State's growing coercive power in 1923, a
dying Lenin said Russia had reverted to "a bourgeois tsarist machine...
barely varnished with socialism". After Lenin's death in January 1924, the
Communist Party of the Soviet Union—then increasingly under the control of
Joseph Stalin—rejected the theory that socialism could not be built solely in the Soviet Union in favour of the concept of "
Socialism in One Country". Despite the marginalised
Left Opposition's demand for the restoration of Soviet democracy, Stalin developed a bureaucratic,
authoritarian
government that was condemned by democratic socialists, anarchists and
Trotskyists for undermining the initial socialist ideals of the
Bolshevik Russian Revolution.
Spanish Civil War
In Spain in 1936, the national
anarcho-syndicalist trade union
Confederación Nacional del Trabajo
(CNT) initially refused to join a popular front electoral alliance and
abstention by CNT supporters led to a right-wing election victory. In
1936, the CNT changed its policy and anarchist votes helped bring the
popular front back to power. Months later, the former ruling class
responded with an attempted coup, sparking the
Spanish Civil War (1936–1939).
Mid-20th century
Post-World War II
Leon Trotsky's
Fourth International was established in France in 1938 when
Trotskyists argued that the
Comintern or Third International had become irretrievably "lost to
Stalinism" and thus incapable of leading the international working class to political power. The rise of
Nazism and the start of
World War II
led to the dissolution of the LSI in 1940. After the War, the Socialist
International was formed in Frankfurt in July 1951 as a successor to
the LSI.
After World War II, social democratic governments introduced social reform and
wealth redistribution
via state welfare and taxation. Social democratic parties dominated
post-war politics in countries such as France, Italy, Czechoslovakia,
Belgium and Norway. At one point, France claimed to be the world's most
state-controlled capitalist country. The nationalised public utilities
included Charbonnages de France (CDF), Electricité de France (EDF), Gaz
de France (GDF), Air France, Banque de France and Régie Nationale des
Usines Renault.
In 1945, the British
Labour Party led by
Clement Attlee
was elected to office based on a radical socialist programme. The
Labour government nationalised major public utilities such as mines,
gas, coal, electricity, rail, iron, steel and the Bank of England.
British Petroleum was officially nationalised in 1951.
Anthony Crosland
said that in 1956 25% of British industry was nationalised and that
public employees, including those in nationalised industries,
constituted a similar proportion of the country's total employed
population. The Labour Governments of 1964–1970 and 1974–1979 intervened further.
It re-nationalised steel (1967, British Steel) after the Conservatives
had denationalised it and nationalised car production (1976, British
Leyland). The
National Health Service provided taxpayer-funded health care to everyone, free at the point of service. Working-class housing was provided in
council housing estates and university education became available via a school grant system.
Soviet Union and Eastern Europe
Economic planning was conducted through a series of
Five-Year Plans.
The emphasis was on fast development of heavy industry and the nation
became one of the world's top manufacturers of a large number of basic
and heavy industrial products, but it lagged in light industrial
production and consumer durables. Modernization brought about a general increase in the standard of living.
Third World
In the post-war years, socialism became increasingly influential throughout the so-called
Third World. Embracing a new
Third World socialism, countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America often nationalised industries held by foreign owners. The Chinese
Kuomintang Party,
the previous ruling party in Taiwan, was referred to as having a
socialist ideology since Kuomintang's revolutionary ideology in the
1920s incorporated unique Chinese socialism as part of its ideology. The Soviet Union trained Kuomintang revolutionaries in the
Moscow Sun Yat-sen University.
Movie theatres in the Soviet Union showed newsreels and clips of Chiang
at Moscow Sun Yat-sen University portraits of Chiang were hung on the
walls and in the Soviet May Day parades that year Chiang's portrait was
to be carried along with the portraits of Marx, Lenin, Stalin and other
socialist leaders.
New Left
The New Left was a term used mainly in the United Kingdom and United States in reference to
activists, educators,
agitators
and others in the 1960s and 1970s who sought to implement a broad range
of reforms on issues such as gay rights, abortion, gender roles and
drugs in contrast to earlier leftist or Marxist movements that had taken a more
vanguardist approach to social justice and focused mostly on
labour unionisation and questions of social class. The New Left rejected involvement with the
labour movement and
Marxism's historical theory of
class struggle.
In the United States, the New Left was associated with the
Hippie movement and anti-war college campus protest movements as well as the black liberation movements such as the Black Panther Party.
While initially formed in opposition to the "Old Left" Democratic
Party, groups composing the New Left gradually became central players in
the Democratic coalition.
Protests of 1968
The protests of 1968 represented a worldwide escalation of social
conflicts, predominantly characterised by popular rebellions against
military, capitalist and bureaucratic elites who responded with an
escalation of
political repression. These protests marked a turning point for the
civil rights movement in the United States, which produced revolutionary movements like the
Black Panther Party; the prominent civil rights leader
Martin Luther King Jr. organised the "
Poor People's Campaign" to address issues of economic justice, while personally showing sympathy with democratic socialism. In reaction to the
Tet Offensive, protests also sparked a broad movement in opposition to the
Vietnam War all over the United States and even into London, Paris, Berlin and Rome. In 1968 in Carrara, Italy, the
International of Anarchist Federations was founded during an international anarchist conference held there by the three existing European federations of
France, the
Italian and the
Iberian Anarchist Federation as well as the Bulgarian federation in French exile.
Mass socialist or communist movements grew not only in the United
States, but also in most European countries. The most spectacular
manifestation of this were the
May 1968 protests in France
in which students linked up with strikes of up to ten million workers
and for a few days the movement seemed capable of overthrowing the
government.
In the
Chinese Cultural Revolution, a social-political youth movement mobilised against "
bourgeois"
elements which were seen to be infiltrating the government and society
at large, aiming to restore capitalism. This movement motivated
Maoism-inspired movements around the world in the context of the
Sino-Soviet split.
Late 20th century
In Latin America in the 1960s, a socialist tendency within the catholic church appeared which was called
liberation theology which motivated even the Colombian priest
Camilo Torres to enter the
ELN guerrilla. In Chile,
Salvador Allende, a physician and candidate for the
Socialist Party of Chile,
was elected president through democratic elections in 1970. In 1973,
his government was ousted by the United States-backed military
dictatorship of
Augusto Pinochet, which lasted until the late 1980s. Pinochet's regime was a leader of
Operation Condor, a U.S.-backed campaign of repression and state terrorism carried out by the intelligence services of the
Southern Cone countries of Latin America to eliminate suspected Communist subversion. In Jamaica, the
democratic socialist Michael Manley served as the fourth
Prime Minister of Jamaica
from 1972 to 1980 and from 1989 to 1992. According to opinion polls, he
remains one of Jamaica's most popular Prime Ministers since
independence. The
Nicaraguan Revolution encompassed the rising opposition to the
Somoza dictatorship in the 1960s and 1970s, the campaign led by the
Sandinista National Liberation Front
(FSLN) to violently oust the dictatorship in 1978–1979, the subsequent
efforts of the FSLN to govern Nicaragua from 1979 until 1990 and the socialist measures which included widescale
agrarian reform and educational programs. The
People's Revolutionary Government was proclaimed on 13 March 1979 in
Grenada which was
overthrown by armed forces of the United States in 1983. The
Salvadoran Civil War (1979–1992) was a conflict between the military-led government of
El Salvador and the
Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front
(FMLN), a coalition or umbrella organisation of five socialist
guerrilla groups. A coup on 15 October 1979 led to the killings of
anti-coup protesters by the government as well as anti-disorder
protesters by the guerillas, and is widely seen as the tipping point
towards the civil war.
In the late 1970s and in the 1980s, the Socialist International
(SI) had extensive contacts and discussion with the two powers of the
Cold War,
the United States and the Soviet Union, about East-West relations and
arms control. Since then, the SI has admitted as member parties the
Nicaraguan
FSLN, the left-wing
Puerto Rican Independence Party, as well as former communist parties such as the
Democratic Party of the Left of Italy and the
Front for the Liberation of Mozambique (FRELIMO). The SI aided social democratic parties in re-establishing themselves when dictatorship gave way to democracy in
Portugal (1974) and
Spain (1975). Until its 1976 Geneva Congress, the SI had few members outside Europe and no formal involvement with Latin America.
After Mao's death in 1976 and the arrest of the faction known as the
Gang of Four, who were blamed for the excesses of the Cultural Revolution,
Deng Xiaoping took power and led the People's Republic of China to
significant economic reforms. The Communist Party of China loosened governmental control over citizens' personal lives and the
communes were disbanded in favour of private land leases, thus China's transition from a planned economy to a mixed economy named as "
socialism with Chinese characteristics"
which maintained state ownership rights over land, state or cooperative
ownership of much of the heavy industrial and manufacturing sectors and
state influence in the banking and financial sectors. China adopted its
current
constitution on 4 December 1982.
President Jiang Zemin and
Premier Zhu Rongji
led the nation in the 1990s. Under their administration, China's
economic performance pulled an estimated 150 million peasants out of
poverty and sustained an average annual
gross domestic product growth rate of 11.2%. At the
Sixth National Congress of the
Communist Party of Vietnam in December 1986, reformist politicians replaced the "old guard" government with new leadership. The reformers were led by 71-year-old
Nguyen Van Linh, who became the party's new general secretary. Linh and the reformers implemented a series of
free market reforms—known as
Đổi Mới ("Renovation")—which carefully managed the transition from a
planned economy to a "
socialist-oriented market economy".
Mikhail Gorbachev wished to move the Soviet Union towards of Nordic-style social democracy, calling it "a socialist beacon for all mankind". Prior to its dissolution in 1991, the Soviet Union had
the second largest economy in the world after the United States.
With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the economic integration of the
Soviet republics was dissolved and overall industrial activity declined
substantially.
A lasting legacy remains in the physical infrastructure created during
decades of combined industrial production practices, and widespread
environmental destruction. The transition to capitalism in the former Soviet Union and
Eastern bloc, which was accompanied by
Washington Consensus-inspired "
shock therapy", resulted in a steep fall in the standard of living. The region experienced rising economic inequality and poverty a surge in excess mortality and a decline in life expectancy, which was accompanied by the entrenchment of a
newly established business oligarchy in the former. The average post-communist country had returned to 1989 levels of per-capita GDP by 2005, although some are still far behind that. These developments led to increased nationalist sentiment and
nostalgia for the Communist era.
Many social democratic parties, particularly after the Cold War, adopted
neoliberal market policies including
privatisation,
deregulation and
financialisation. They abandoned their pursuit of moderate socialism in favour of
market liberalism. By the 1980s, with the rise of conservative neoliberal politicians such as
Ronald Reagan in the United States,
Margaret Thatcher in Britain,
Brian Mulroney in Canada and
Augusto Pinochet in Chile, the Western
welfare state was attacked from within, but state support for the corporate sector was maintained.
Monetarists and neoliberals attacked social welfare systems as impediments to private entrepreneurship. In the United Kingdom,
Labour Party leader
Neil Kinnock made a public attack against the
entryist group
Militant
at the 1985 Labour Party conference. The Labour Party ruled that
Militant was ineligible for affiliation with the Labour Party, and the
party gradually expelled Militant supporters. The Kinnock leadership had
refused to support the
1984–1985 miner's strike over pit closures, a decision that the party's left wing and the
National Union of Mineworkers
blamed for the strike's eventual defeat. In 1989 at Stockholm, the 18th
Congress of the Socialist International adopted a new Declaration of
Principles, saying:
Democratic socialism is an
international movement for freedom, social justice, and solidarity. Its
goal is to achieve a peaceful world where these basic values can be
enhanced and where each individual can live a meaningful life with the
full development of his or her personality and talents, and with the
guarantee of human and civil rights in a democratic framework of
society.
In the 1990s, the British Labour Party under
Tony Blair enacted policies based on the free market economy to deliver public services via the
private finance initiative. Influential in these policies was the idea of a "
Third Way" which called for a re-evalutation of welfare state policies. In 1995, the Labour Party re-defined its stance on socialism by re-wording
Clause IV
of its constitution, effectively rejecting socialism by removing all
references to public, direct worker or municipal ownership of the means
of production. The Labour Party stated: "The Labour Party is a
democratic socialist party. It believes that, by the strength of our
common endeavour we achieve more than we achieve alone, so as to create,
for each of us, the means to realise our true potential, and, for all
of us, a community in which power, wealth, and opportunity are in the
hands of the many, not the few".
Contemporary socialist politics
Africa
African socialism has been and continues to be a major ideology around the continent.
Julius Nyerere was inspired by
Fabian socialist ideals. He was a firm believer in rural Africans and their traditions and
ujamaa,
a system of collectivisation that according to Nyerere was present
before European imperialism. Essentially he believed Africans were
already socialists. Other African socialists include
Jomo Kenyatta,
Kenneth Kaunda,
Nelson Mandela and
Kwame Nkrumah.
Fela Kuti was inspired by socialism and called for a democratic African republic. In South Africa the
African National Congress
(ANC) abandoned its partial socialist allegiances after taking power
and followed a standard neoliberal route. From 2005 through to 2007, the
country was wracked by many thousands of protests from poor
communities. One of these gave rise to a mass movement of shack
dwellers,
Abahlali baseMjondolo
that despite major police suppression continues to work for popular
people's planning and against the creation of a market economy in land
and housing.
Asia
In Asia, states with socialist economies—such as the People's
Republic of China, North Korea, Laos and Vietnam—have largely moved away
from centralised economic planning in the 21st century, placing a
greater emphasis on markets. Forms include the Chinese
socialist market economy and the Vietnamese
socialist-oriented market economy. They utilise
state-owned corporate
management models as opposed to modelling socialist enterprise on
traditional management styles employed by government agencies. In China
living standards continued to improve rapidly despite the
late-2000s recession, but centralised political control remained tight.
Brian Reynolds Myers in his book
The Cleanest Race, later supported by other academics, dismisses the idea that
Juche
is North Korea's leading ideology, regarding its public exaltation as
designed to deceive foreigners and that it exists to be praised and not
actually read, pointing out that
North Korea's constitution of 2009 omits all mention of communism.
Though the authority of the state remained unchallenged under
Đổi Mới,
the government of Vietnam encourages private ownership of farms and
factories, economic deregulation and foreign investment, while
maintaining control over strategic industries.
The Vietnamese economy subsequently achieved strong growth in
agricultural and industrial production, construction, exports and
foreign investment. However, these reforms have also caused a rise in
income inequality and gender disparities.
Elsewhere in Asia, some elected socialist parties and communist
parties remain prominent, particularly in India and Nepal. The Communist
Party of Nepal in particular calls for multi-party democracy, social equality and economic prosperity. In Singapore, a majority of the GDP is still generated from the state sector comprising government-linked companies. In Japan, there has been a resurgent interest in the
Japanese Communist Party among workers and youth. In Malaysia, the
Socialist Party of Malaysia got its first Member of Parliament,
Dr. Jeyakumar Devaraj, after the
2008 general election. In 2010, there were 270
kibbutzim in Israel. Their factories and
farms account for 9% of Israel's industrial output, worth US$8 billion and 40% of its agricultural output, worth over $1.7 billion.
Some Kibbutzim had also developed substantial high-tech and military
industries. Also in 2010, Kibbutz Sasa, containing some 200 members,
generated $850 million in annual revenue from its military-plastics
industry.
Europe
The United Nations
World Happiness Report 2013 shows that the happiest nations are concentrated in Northern Europe, where the
Nordic model of social democracy
is employed, with Denmark topping the list. This is at times attributed
to the success of the Nordic model in the region. The Nordic countries
ranked highest on the metrics of real GDP per capita, healthy life
expectancy, having someone to count on, perceived
freedom to make life choices, generosity and freedom from corruption. Indeed, the indicators of
Freedom in the World have listed Scandinavian countries as ranking high on indicators such as press and economic freedom.
The objectives of the
Party of European Socialists,
the European Parliament's socialist and social democratic bloc, are now
"to pursue international aims in respect of the principles on which the
European Union is based, namely principles of freedom, equality,
solidarity, democracy, respect of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms,
and respect for the Rule of Law". As a result, today the rallying cry
of the French Revolution—
Liberté, égalité, fraternité—is promoted as essential socialist values. To the left of the PES at the European level is the
Party of the European Left (PEL), also commonly abbreviated "European Left"), which is a
political party at the European level and an association of
democratic socialist, socialist and communist political parties in the
European Union and other European countries. It was formed in January 2004 for the purposes of running in the
2004 European Parliament elections. PEL was founded on 8–9 May 2004 in Rome. Elected
MEPs from member parties of the European Left sit in the
European United Left–Nordic Green Left (GUE/NGL) group in the
European parliament.
In the United Kingdom, the
National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers put forward a slate of candidates in the 2009 European Parliament elections under the banner of
No to EU – Yes to Democracy, a broad left-wing
alter-globalisation coalition involving socialist groups such as the
Socialist Party, aiming to offer an alternative to the "anti-foreigner" and pro-business policies of the
UK Independence Party. In the following May 2010 United Kingdom general election, the
Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition, launched in January 2010
and backed by Bob Crow, the leader of the National Union of Rail,
Maritime and Transport Workers union (RMT), other union leaders and the
Socialist Party among other socialist groups, stood against Labour in 40
constituencies. The
Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition contested the
2011 local elections, having gained the endorsement of the RMT June 2010 conference, but
gained no seats.
Left Unity was also founded in 2013 after the film director
Ken Loach appealed for a new party of the left to replace the
Labour Party, which he claimed had failed to oppose austerity and had shifted towards
neoliberalism. In 2015, following a defeat at the
2015 United Kingdom general election, self-described socialist
Jeremy Corbyn took over from
Ed Miliband as
leader of the Labour Party.
In France,
Olivier Besancenot, the
Revolutionary Communist League (LCR) candidate in the 2007 presidential election, received 1,498,581 votes, 4.08%, double that of the communist candidate. The LCR abolished itself in 2009 to initiate a broad anti-capitalist party, the
New Anticapitalist Party, whose stated aim is to "build a new socialist, democratic perspective for the twenty-first century".
On 25 May 2014, the Spanish left-wing party
Podemos entered candidates for the
2014 European parliamentary elections, some of which were unemployed. In a surprise result, it polled 7.98% of the vote and thus was awarded five seats out of 54 while the older
United Left was the third largest overall force obtaining 10.03% and 5 seats, 4 more than the previous elections.
North America
According to a 2013 article in
The Guardian, "[c]ontrary to popular belief, Americans don't have an innate allergy to socialism.
Milwaukee has had several socialist mayors (
Frank Zeidler,
Emil Seidel and
Daniel Hoan), and there is currently an independent socialist in the US Senate,
Bernie Sanders of Vermont". Sanders, once mayor of Vermont's largest city,
Burlington, has described himself as a
democratic socialist and has praised
Scandinavian-style social democracy.
In 2016, Sanders made a bid for the Democratic Party presidential
candidate, thereby gaining considerable popular support, particularly
among the younger generation, but lost the nomination to Hillary
Clinton.
Latin America and Caribbean
For the
Encyclopedia Britannica, "the attempt by
Salvador Allende
to unite Marxists and other reformers in a socialist reconstruction of
Chile is most representative of the direction that Latin American
socialists have taken since the late 20th century. [...] Several
socialist (or socialist-leaning) leaders have followed Allende's example
in winning election to office in Latin American countries". Venezuelan President
Hugo Chávez, Nicaraguan President
Daniel Ortega, Bolivian President
Evo Morales and Ecuadorian president
Rafael Correa refer to their political programmes as socialist and Chávez adopted the term "
socialism of the 21st century".
After winning re-election in December 2006, Chávez said: "Now more than
ever, I am obliged to move Venezuela's path towards socialism".
Chávez was also reelected in October 2012 for his third six-year term
as President, but he died in March 2013 from cancer. After Chávez's
death on 5 March 2013, Vice President from Chavez's party
Nicolás Maduro assumed the powers and responsibilities of the President. A
special election was held on 14 April of the same year to elect a new President, which Maduro won by a tight margin as the candidate of the
United Socialist Party of Venezuela and he was formally inaugurated on 19 April. "
Pink tide" is a term being used in contemporary 21st-century
political analysis in the media and elsewhere to describe the perception that
leftist ideology in general and
left-wing politics in particular are increasingly influential in Latin America.
Oceania
Australia saw an increase in interest of socialism in the early 21st century, especially amongst youth. It is strongest in
Victoria, where three socialist parties have merged into the
Victorian Socialists, who aim to address problems in housing and public transportation.
New Zealand has a small socialist scene, mainly dominated by Trotskyist groups. The current prime minister
Jacinda Ardern has publicly condemned capitalism but describes herself as a social democrat.
Melanesian Socialism developed in the 1980s, inspired by African
Socialism. It aims to achieve full independence from Britain and France
in Melanesian territories and creation of a Melanesian federal union. It
is very popular with the
New Caledonia independence movement.
International socialism
Social and political theory
The fundamental objective of socialism is to attain an advanced level
of material production and therefore greater productivity, efficiency
and rationality as compared to capitalism and all previous systems,
under the view that an expansion of human productive capability is the
basis for the extension of freedom and equality in society.
Many forms of socialist theory hold that human behaviour is largely
shaped by the social environment. In particular, socialism holds that
social
mores, values, cultural traits and economic practices are social creations and not the result of an immutable natural law.
The object of their critique is thus not human avarice or human
consciousness, but the material conditions and man-made social systems
(i.e. the economic structure of society) that gives rise to observed
social problems and inefficiencies.
Bertrand Russell,
often considered to be the father of analytic philosophy, identified as
a socialist. Russell opposed the class struggle aspects of Marxism,
viewing socialism solely as an adjustment of economic relations to
accommodate modern machine production to benefit all of humanity through
the progressive reduction of necessary work time.
Socialists view creativity as an essential aspect of human nature and
define freedom as a state of being where individuals are able to express
their creativity unhindered by constraints of both material scarcity
and coercive social institutions.
The socialist concept of individuality is thus intertwined with the
concept of individual creative expression. Karl Marx believed that
expansion of the productive forces and technology was the basis for the
expansion of human freedom and that socialism, being a system that is
consistent with modern developments in technology, would enable the
flourishing of "free individualities" through the progressive reduction
of necessary labour time. The reduction of necessary labour time to a
minimum would grant individuals the opportunity to pursue the
development of their true individuality and creativity.
Criticism of capitalism
Socialists argue that the accumulation of capital generates waste
through externalities that require costly corrective regulatory
measures. They also point out that this process generates wasteful
industries and practices that exist only to generate sufficient demand
for products to be sold at a profit (such as high-pressure
advertisement), thereby creating rather than satisfying economic demand.
Socialists argue that capitalism consists of irrational activity,
such as the purchasing of commodities only to sell at a later time when
their price appreciates, rather than for consumption, even if the
commodity cannot be sold at a profit to individuals in need and
therefore a crucial criticism often made by socialists is that "making
money", or accumulation of capital, does not correspond to the
satisfaction of demand (the production of
use-values).
The fundamental criterion for economic activity in capitalism is the
accumulation of capital for reinvestment in production, but this spurs
the development of new, non-productive industries that do not produce
use-value and only exist to keep the accumulation process afloat
(otherwise the system goes into crisis), such as the spread of the
financial industry, contributing to the formation of economic bubbles.
Socialists view
private property relations as limiting the potential of
productive forces
in the economy. According to socialists, private property becomes
obsolete when it concentrates into centralised, socialised institutions
based on private appropriation of revenue
—but based on cooperative work and internal planning in allocation of inputs
—until the role of the capitalist becomes redundant. With no need for
capital accumulation
and a class of owners, private property in the means of production is
perceived as being an outdated form of economic organisation that should
be replaced by a
free association of individuals based on public or
common ownership of these socialised assets.
Private ownership imposes constraints on planning, leading to
uncoordinated economic decisions that result in business fluctuations,
unemployment and a tremendous waste of material resources during crisis
of
overproduction.
Excessive disparities in income distribution lead to social
instability and require costly corrective measures in the form of
redistributive taxation, which incurs heavy administrative costs while
weakening the incentive to work, inviting dishonesty and increasing the
likelihood of tax evasion while (the corrective measures) reduce the
overall efficiency of the market economy. These corrective policies limit the incentive system of the market by providing things such as
minimum wages,
unemployment insurance,
taxing profits and reducing the reserve army of labour, resulting in
reduced incentives for capitalists to invest in more production. In
essence, social welfare policies cripple capitalism and its incentive
system and are thus unsustainable in the long-run. Marxists argue that the establishment of a
socialist mode of production is the only way to overcome these deficiencies. Socialists and specifically
Marxian socialists
argue that the inherent conflict of interests between the working class
and capital prevent optimal use of available human resources and leads
to contradictory interest groups (labour and business) striving to
influence the state to intervene in the economy in their favor at the
expense of overall economic efficiency.
Early socialists (
utopian socialists and
Ricardian socialists) criticised capitalism for concentrating
power and
wealth within a small segment of society. In addition, they complained that capitalism does not utilise available
technology and resources to their maximum potential in the interests of the public.
Marxism
At a certain stage of development,
the material productive forces of society come into conflict with the
existing relations of production or—this merely expresses the same thing
in legal terms – with the property relations within the framework of
which they have operated hitherto. Then begins an era of social
revolution. The changes in the economic foundation lead sooner or later
to the transformation of the whole immense superstructure.
Karl Marx and
Friedrich Engels
argued that socialism would emerge from historical necessity as
capitalism rendered itself obsolete and unsustainable from increasing
internal contradictions emerging from the development of the
productive forces and technology. It was these advances in the productive forces combined with the old
social relations of production of capitalism that would generate contradictions, leading to working-class consciousness.
Marx and Engels held the view that the consciousness of those who earn a wage or salary (the
working class in the broadest Marxist sense) would be moulded by their conditions of
wage slavery, leading to a tendency to seek their freedom or
emancipation
by overthrowing ownership of the means of production by capitalists and
consequently, overthrowing the state that upheld this economic order.
For Marx and Engels, conditions determine consciousness and ending the
role of the capitalist class leads eventually to a
classless society in which the
state would wither away. The Marxist conception of socialism is that of a specific historical phase that would displace capitalism and precede
communism. The major characteristics of socialism (particularly as conceived by Marx and Engels after the
Paris Commune of 1871) are that the
proletariat would control the means of production through a
workers' state
erected by the workers in their interests. Economic activity would
still be organised through the use of incentive systems and social
classes would still exist, but to a lesser and diminishing extent than
under capitalism.
For orthodox Marxists, socialism is the lower stage of communism based on the principle of "from each according to his ability,
to each according to his contribution" while upper stage communism is based on the principle of "
from each according to his ability, to each according to his need",
the upper stage becoming possible only after the socialist stage
further develops economic efficiency and the automation of production
has led to a superabundance of goods and services.
Marx argued that the material productive forces (in industry and
commerce) brought into existence by capitalism predicated a cooperative
society since production had become a mass social, collective activity
of the working class to create commodities but with private ownership
(the relations of production or property relations). This conflict
between collective effort in large factories and private ownership would
bring about a conscious desire in the working class to establish
collective ownership commensurate with the collective efforts their
daily experience.
Role of the state
Socialists have taken different perspectives on the
state and the role it should play in revolutionary struggles, in constructing socialism and within an established socialist economy.
In the 19th century the philosophy of state socialism was first explicitly expounded by the German political philosopher
Ferdinand Lassalle.
In contrast to Karl Marx's perspective of the state, Lassalle rejected
the concept of the state as a class-based power structure whose main
function was to preserve existing class structures. Thus Lassalle also
rejected the Marxist view that the state was destined to "wither away".
Lassalle considered the state to be an entity independent of class
allegiances and an instrument of justice that would therefore be
essential for achieving socialism.
Preceding the Bolshevik-led revolution in Russia, many socialists including
reformists,
orthodox Marxist currents such as
council communism, anarchists and
libertarian socialists
criticised the idea of using the state to conduct central planning and
own the means of production as a way to establish socialism. Following
the victory of Leninism in Russia, the idea of "
state socialism" spread rapidly throughout the socialist movement and eventually state socialism came to be identified with the
Soviet economic model.
Joseph Schumpeter
rejected the association of socialism (and social ownership) with state
ownership over the means of production because the state as it exists
in its current form is a product of capitalist society and cannot be
transplanted to a different institutional framework. Schumpeter argued
that there would be different institutions within socialism than those
that exist within modern capitalism, just as
feudalism had its own distinct and unique institutional forms. The state, along with concepts like
property and
taxation,
were concepts exclusive to commercial society (capitalism) and
attempting to place them within the context of a future socialist
society would amount to a distortion of these concepts by using them out
of context.
Utopian versus scientific
Utopian socialism is a term used to define the first currents of modern socialist thought as exemplified by the work of
Henri de Saint-Simon,
Charles Fourier and
Robert Owen, which inspired
Karl Marx and other early socialists.
However, visions of imaginary ideal societies, which competed with
revolutionary social democratic movements, were viewed as not being
grounded in the material conditions of society and as reactionary.
Although it is technically possible for any set of ideas or any person
living at any time in history to be a utopian socialist, the term is
most often applied to those socialists who lived in the first quarter of
the 19th century who were ascribed the label "utopian" by later
socialists as a negative term in order to imply naivete and dismiss
their ideas as fanciful or unrealistic.
Religious sects whose members live communally such as the
Hutterites,
for example, are not usually called "utopian socialists", although
their way of living is a prime example. They have been categorised as
religious socialists by some. Likewise, modern
intentional communities based on socialist ideas could also be categorised as "utopian socialist".
For Marxists, the development of capitalism in Western Europe
provided a material basis for the possibility of bringing about
socialism because according to
The Communist Manifesto "[w]hat the bourgeoisie produces above all is its own grave diggers", namely the working class, which must become conscious of the historical objectives set it by society.
Reform versus revolution
Revolutionary socialists believe that a social revolution is
necessary to effect structural changes to the socioeconomic structure of
society. Among revolutionary socialists there are differences in
strategy, theory and the definition of "revolution". Orthodox Marxists
and left communists take an
impossibilist
stance, believing that revolution should be spontaneous as a result of
contradictions in society due to technological changes in the productive
forces. Lenin theorised that under capitalism the workers cannot
achieve class consciousness beyond organising into
unions and making demands of the capitalists. Therefore,
Leninists advocate that it is historically necessary for a
vanguard
of class conscious revolutionaries to take a central role in
coordinating the social revolution to overthrow the capitalist state and
eventually the institution of the state altogether. "Revolution" is not necessarily defined by revolutionary socialists as violent insurrection,
but as a complete dismantling and rapid transformation of all areas of
class society led by the majority of the masses: the working class.
Reformism is generally associated with
social democracy and
gradualist
democratic socialism. Reformism is the belief that socialists should
stand in parliamentary elections within capitalist society and if
elected utilise the
machinery of government to pass political and social reforms for the purposes of ameliorating the instabilities and inequities of capitalism.
Economics
Socialist
economics
starts from the premise that "individuals do not live or work in
isolation but live in cooperation with one another. Furthermore,
everything that people produce is in some sense a social product, and
everyone who contributes to the production of a good is entitled to a
share in it. Society as a whole, therefore, should own or at least
control property for the benefit of all its members".
The original conception of socialism was an economic system
whereby production was organised in a way to directly produce goods and
services for their utility (or use-value in
classical and
Marxian economics):
the direct allocation of resources in terms of physical units as
opposed to financial calculation and the economic laws of capitalism
(see
law of value), often entailing the end of capitalistic economic categories such as
rent,
interest,
profit and money.
In a fully developed socialist economy, production and balancing factor
inputs with outputs becomes a technical process to be undertaken by
engineers.
Market socialism
refers to an array of different economic theories and systems that
utilise the market mechanism to organise production and to allocate
factor inputs among socially owned enterprises, with the economic
surplus (profits) accruing to society in a
social dividend as opposed to private capital owners. Variations of market socialism include
libertarian proposals such as
mutualism, based on classical economics, and
neoclassical economic models such as the
Lange Model. However, some economists such as
Joseph Stiglitz,
Mancur Olson
and others not specifically advancing anti-socialists positions have
shown that prevailing economic models upon which such democratic or
market socialism models might be based have logical flaws or unworkable
presuppositions.
Management and control over the activities of enterprises are
based on self-management and self-governance, with equal power-relations
in the workplace to maximise occupational autonomy. A socialist form of
organisation would eliminate controlling hierarchies so that only a
hierarchy based on technical knowledge in the workplace remains. Every
member would have decision-making power in the firm and would be able to
participate in establishing its overall policy objectives. The
policies/goals would be carried out by the technical specialists that
form the coordinating hierarchy of the firm, who would establish plans
or directives for the work community to accomplish these goals.
The role and use of money in a hypothetical socialist economy is a contested issue. According to the
Austrian school economist
Ludwig von Mises, an economic system that does not use
money, financial calculation and
market pricing would be unable to effectively value
capital goods
and coordinate production and therefore these types of socialism are
impossible because they lack the necessary information to perform
economic calculation in the first place. Socialists including
Karl Marx,
Robert Owen,
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon and
John Stuart Mill advocated various forms of
labour vouchers
or labour credits, which like money would be used to acquire articles
of consumption, but unlike money they are unable to become
capital and would not be used to allocate resources within the production process. Bolshevik revolutionary
Leon Trotsky
argued that money could not be arbitrarily abolished following a
socialist revolution. Money had to exhaust its "historic mission",
meaning it would have to be used until its function became redundant,
eventually being transformed into bookkeeping receipts for statisticians
and only in the more distant future would money not be required for
even that role.
The economic anarchy of capitalist
society as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of the
evil... I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave
evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy,
accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward
social goals. In such an economy, the means of production are owned by
society itself and are utilised in a planned fashion. A planned economy,
which adjusts production to the needs of the community, would
distribute the work to be done among all those able to work and would
guarantee a livelihood to every man, woman, and child. The education of
the individual, in addition to promoting his own innate abilities, would
attempt to develop in him a sense of responsibility for his fellow men
in place of the glorification of power and success in our present
society.
Planned economy
A planned economy is a type of economy consisting of a mixture of
public ownership of the means of production and the coordination of
production and distribution through
economic planning. There are two major types of planning: decentralised-planning and centralised-planning.
Enrico Barone
provided a comprehensive theoretical framework for a planned socialist
economy. In his model, assuming perfect computation techniques,
simultaneous equations relating inputs and outputs to ratios of
equivalence would provide appropriate valuations in order to balance
supply and demand.
The most prominent example of a planned economy was the
economic system of the Soviet Union and as such the centralised-planned economic model is usually associated with the
communist states
of the 20th century, where it was combined with a single-party
political system. In a centrally planned economy, decisions regarding
the quantity of goods and services to be produced are planned in advance
by a planning agency. The economic systems of the Soviet Union and the
Eastern Bloc
are further classified as "command economies", which are defined as
systems where economic coordination is undertaken by commands,
directives and production targets.
Studies by economists of various political persuasions on the actual
functioning of the Soviet economy indicate that it was not actually a
planned economy. Instead of conscious planning, the Soviet economy was
based on a process whereby the plan was modified by localised agents and
the original plans went largely unfulfilled. Planning agencies,
ministries and enterprises all adapted and bargained with each other
during the formulation of the plan as opposed to following a plan passed
down from a higher authority, leading some economists to suggest that
planning did not actually take place within the Soviet economy and that a
better description would be an "administered" or "managed" economy.
Although central planning was largely supported by
Marxist–Leninists, some factions within the Soviet Union before the rise of
Stalinism
held positions contrary to central planning. Leon Trotsky rejected
central planning in favour of decentralised planning. He argued that
central planners, regardless of their intellectual capacity, would be
unable to coordinate effectively all economic activity within an economy
because they operated without the input and tacit knowledge embodied by
the participation of the millions of people in the economy. As a
result, central planners would be unable to respond to local economic
conditions.
State socialism
is unfeasible in this view because information cannot be aggregated by a
central body and effectively used to formulate a plan for an entire
economy, because doing so would result in
distorted or absent price signals.
Self-managed economy
A self-managed, decentralised economy is based on autonomous
self-regulating economic units and a decentralised mechanism of resource
allocation and decision-making. This model has found support in notable
classical and neoclassical economists including
Alfred Marshall,
John Stuart Mill and
Jaroslav Vanek.
There are numerous variations of self-management, including
labour-managed firms and worker-managed firms. The goals of
self-management are to eliminate exploitation and reduce
alienation.
Guild socialism is a political movement advocating
workers' control of industry through the medium of trade-related
guilds "in an implied contractual relationship with the public". It originated in the United Kingdom and was at its most influential in the first quarter of the 20th century. It was strongly associated with
G. D. H. Cole and influenced by the ideas of
William Morris.
One such system is the cooperative economy, a largely free
market economy
in which workers manage the firms and democratically determine
remuneration levels and labour divisions. Productive resources would be
legally owned by the
cooperative and rented to the workers, who would enjoy
usufruct rights. Another form of decentralised planning is the use of
cybernetics, or the use of computers to manage the allocation of economic inputs. The socialist-run government of
Salvador Allende in Chile experimented with
Project Cybersyn, a real-time information bridge between the government, state enterprises and consumers. Another, more recent variant is
participatory economics,
wherein the economy is planned by decentralised councils of workers and
consumers. Workers would be remunerated solely according to effort and
sacrifice, so that those engaged in dangerous, uncomfortable and
strenuous work would receive the highest incomes and could thereby work
less. A contemporary model for a self-managed, non-market socialism is
Pat Devine's
model of negotiated coordination. Negotiated coordination is based upon
social ownership by those affected by the use of the assets involved,
with decisions made by those at the most localised level of production.
Michel Bauwens identifies the emergence of the open software movement and
peer-to-peer production as a new alternative
mode of production
to the capitalist economy and centrally planned economy that is based
on collaborative self-management, common ownership of resources and the
production of use-values through the free cooperation of producers who
have access to distributed capital.
The economy of the former
Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
established a system based on market-based allocation, social ownership
of the means of production and self-management within firms. This
system substituted Yugoslavia's Soviet-type central planning with a
decentralised, self-managed system after reforms in 1953.
The
Marxian economist Richard D. Wolff
argues that "re-organising production so that workers become
collectively self-directed at their work-sites" not only moves society
beyond both capitalism and
state socialism
of the last century, but would also mark another milestone in human
history, similar to earlier transitions out of slavery and feudalism. As an example, Wolff claims that
Mondragon is "a stunningly successful alternative to the capitalist organisation of production".
State-directed economy
State socialism can be used to classify any variety of socialist philosophies that advocates the ownership of the
means of production by the
state apparatus,
either as a transitional stage between capitalism and socialism, or as
an end-goal in itself. Typically it refers to a form of technocratic
management, whereby technical specialists administer or manage economic
enterprises on behalf of society (and the public interest) instead of
workers' councils or workplace democracy.
A state-directed economy may refer to a type of mixed economy
consisting of public ownership over large industries, as promoted by
various Social democratic political parties during the 20th century.
This ideology influenced the policies of the British Labour Party during
Clement Attlee's administration. In the biography of the 1945 United
Kingdom Labour Party Prime Minister
Clement Attlee, Francis Beckett states: "[T]he government... wanted what would become known as a mixed economy".
Market socialism
Market socialism consists of publicly owned or cooperatively owned enterprises operating in a
market economy. It is a system that utilises the market and
monetary prices for the allocation and accounting of the
means of production, thereby retaining the process of
capital accumulation.
The profit generated would be used to directly remunerate employees,
collectively sustain the enterprise or finance public institutions.
In state-oriented forms of market socialism, in which state enterprises
attempt to maximise profit, the profits can be used to fund government
programs and services through a
social dividend, eliminating or greatly diminishing the need for various forms of taxation that exist in capitalist systems.
Neoclassical economist Léon Walras
believed that a socialist economy based on state ownership of land and
natural resources would provide a means of public finance to make income
taxes unnecessary. Yugoslavia implemented a market socialist economy based on cooperatives and worker self-management.
Mutualism is an
economic theory and
anarchist school of thought that advocates a society where each person might possess a
means of production, either individually or collectively, with trade representing equivalent amounts of labour in the
free market.
Integral to the scheme was the establishment of a mutual-credit bank
that would lend to producers at a minimal interest rate, just high
enough to cover administration. Mutualism is based on a
labour theory of value
that holds that when labour or its product is sold, in exchange it
ought to receive goods or services embodying "the amount of labour
necessary to produce an article of exactly similar and equal utility".
The current economic system in China is formally referred to as a
socialist market economy with Chinese characteristics.
It combines a large state sector that comprises the commanding heights
of the economy, which are guaranteed their public ownership status by
law, with a private sector mainly engaged in commodity production and light industry responsible from anywhere between 33% to over 70% of GDP generated in 2005.
Although there has been a rapid expansion of private-sector activity
since the 1980s, privatisation of state assets was virtually halted and
were partially reversed in 2005. The current Chinese economy consists of 150
corporatised state-owned enterprises that report directly to China's central government. By 2008, these state-owned corporations had become increasingly dynamic and generated large increases in revenue for the state, resulting in a state-sector led recovery during the 2009 financial crises while accounting for most of China's economic growth.
However, the Chinese economic model is widely cited as a contemporary
form of state capitalism, the major difference between Western
capitalism and the Chinese model being the degree of state-ownership of
shares in publicly listed corporations.
The Socialist Republic of Vietnam has adopted a similar model after the
Doi Moi
economic renovation, but slightly differs from the Chinese model in
that the Vietnamese government retains firm control over the state
sector and strategic industries, but allows for private-sector activity
in commodity production.
Politics
The major socialist political movements are described below. Independent socialist theorists,
utopian socialist
authors and academic supporters of socialism may not be represented in
these movements. Some political groups have called themselves socialist
while holding views that some consider antithetical to socialism. The
term "socialist" has also been used by some politicians on the
political right
as an epithet against certain individuals who do not consider
themselves to be socialists and against policies that are not considered
socialist by their proponents.
There are many variations of socialism and as such there is no
single definition encapsulating all of socialism. However, there have
been common elements identified by scholars. In his
Dictionary of Socialism
(1924), Angelo S. Rappoport analysed forty definitions of socialism to
conclude that common elements of socialism include: general criticisms
of the social effects of
private ownership
and control of capital—as being the cause of poverty, low wages,
unemployment, economic and social inequality and a lack of economic
security; a general view that the solution to these problems is a form
of collective control over the
means of production,
distribution and
exchange
(the degree and means of control vary amongst socialist movements); an
agreement that the outcome of this collective control should be a
society based upon
social justice, including social equality, economic protection of people and should provide a more satisfying life for most people. In
The Concepts of Socialism (1975),
Bhikhu Parekh
identifies four core principles of socialism and particularly socialist
society: sociality, social responsibility, cooperation and planning. In his study
Ideologies and Political Theory (1996),
Michael Freeden
states that all socialists share five themes: the first is that
socialism posits that society is more than a mere collection of
individuals; second, that it considers human welfare a desirable
objective; third, that it considers humans by nature to be active and
productive; fourth, it holds the belief of human equality; and fifth,
that history is progressive and will create positive change on the
condition that humans work to achieve such change.
Anarchism
Democratic socialism
Modern democratic socialism is a broad political movement that seeks
to promote the ideals of socialism within the context of a democratic
system. Some democratic socialists support
social democracy
as a temporary measure to reform the current system while others reject
reformism in favour of more revolutionary methods. Modern social
democracy emphasises a program of gradual legislative modification of
capitalism in order to make it more equitable and humane, while the
theoretical end goal of building a socialist society is either
completely forgotten or redefined in a pro-capitalist way. The two
movements are widely similar both in terminology and in ideology,
although there are a few key differences.
The major difference between social democracy and democratic
socialism is the object of their politics: contemporary social democrats
support a
welfare state
and unemployment insurance as a means to "humanise" capitalism, whereas
democratic socialists seek to replace capitalism with a socialist
economic system, arguing that any attempt to "humanise" capitalism
through regulations and welfare policies would distort the market and
create economic contradictions.
Democratic socialism generally refers to any political movement that seeks to establish an economy based on
economic democracy
by and for the working class. Democratic socialism is difficult to
define and groups of scholars have radically different definitions for
the term. Some definitions simply refer to all forms of socialism that
follow an electoral,
reformist or evolutionary path to socialism rather than a revolutionary one.
You can't talk about ending the
slums without first saying profit must be taken out of slums. You're
really tampering and getting on dangerous ground because you are messing
with folk then. You are messing with captains of industry. Now this
means that we are treading in difficult water, because it really means
that we are saying that something is wrong with capitalism. There must
be a better distribution of wealth, and maybe America must move toward a
democratic socialism.
Leninism and precedents
Libertarian socialism
Libertarian socialism (sometimes called
social anarchism,
left-libertarianism and socialist libertarianism) is a group of
anti-authoritarian political philosophies inside the
socialist movement that rejects socialism as centralised state ownership and control of the economy including criticism of
wage labour relationships within the workplace, as well as the state itself. It emphasises
workers' self-management of the workplace and
decentralised structures of political organisation, asserting that a society based on freedom and equality can be achieved through abolishing
authoritarian institutions that control certain
means of production and subordinate the majority to an owning class or political and economic
elite. Libertarian socialists generally place their hopes in
decentralised means of
direct democracy and
federal or
confederal associations such as
libertarian municipalism,
citizens' assemblies,
trade unions, and
workers' councils. Relatedly, anarcho-syndicalist
Gaston Leval
explained: "We therefore foresee a Society in which all activities will
be coordinated, a structure that has, at the same time, sufficient
flexibility to permit the greatest possible autonomy for social life, or
for the life of each enterprise, and enough cohesiveness to prevent all
disorder...In a well-organized society, all of these things must be
systematically accomplished by means of parallel federations, vertically
united at the highest levels, constituting one vast organism in which
all economic functions will be performed in solidarity with all others
and that will permanently preserve the necessary cohesion". All of this
is generally done within a general call for
libertarian and
voluntary human relationships through the identification, criticism and practical dismantling of illegitimate authority in all aspects of human life. As such, libertarian socialism within the larger socialist movement seeks to distinguish itself both from
Leninism/
Bolshevism and from
social democracy.
Religious socialism
Christian socialism is a broad concept involving an intertwining of the Christian religion with the politics and economic theories of socialism.
Social democracy and liberal socialism
Social democracy is a political ideology which "is derived from a
socialist tradition of political thought. Many social democrats refer to
themselves as socialists or democratic socialists, and some, for
example
Tony Blair, use or have used these terms interchangeably.
Others have opined that there are clear differences between the three
terms, and preferred to describe their own political beliefs by using
the term ‘social democracy’ only". There are two main directions, either to establish
democratic socialism,
or to build a welfare state within the framework of the capitalist
system. The first variant has officially its goal by establishing
democratic socialism through
reformist and
gradualist methods. In the second variant, social democracy becomes a policy regime involving a
welfare state,
collective bargaining schemes, support for publicly financed public services and a capitalist-based economy like a
mixed economy.
It is often used in this manner to refer to the social models and
economic policies prominent in Western and Northern Europe during the
later half of the 20th century. It has been described by
Jerry Mander
as "hybrid" economics, an active collaboration of capitalist and
socialist visions and while such systems are not perfect they tend to
provide high standards of living. Numerous studies and surveys indicate that people tend to live happier lives in
social democratic societies rather than
neoliberal ones.
Socialism and modern progressive social movements
Socialist feminism is a branch of
feminism that focuses upon both the public and private spheres of a woman's life and argues that
liberation can only be achieved by working to end both the economic and
cultural sources of women's
oppression.
Marxist feminism's foundation is laid by
Friedrich Engels in his analysis of gender oppression in
The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State (1884).
August Bebel's
Woman under Socialism (1879), the "single work dealing with sexuality most widely read by rank-and-file members of the
Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD)". In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, both
Clara Zetkin and
Eleanor Marx were against the
demonisation of men and supported a
proletariat revolution that would overcome as many male-female inequalities as possible. As their movement already had the most radical demands in women's equality, most Marxist leaders, including Clara Zetkin and
Alexandra Kollontai, counterposed Marxism against
liberal feminism rather than trying to combine them.
Anarcha-feminism began with late 19th and early 20th century authors and theorists such as anarchist feminists
Emma Goldman and
Voltairine de Cleyre In the
Spanish Civil War, an anarcha-feminist group,
Mujeres Libres ("Free Women") linked to the
Federación Anarquista Ibérica, organised to defend both anarchist and feminist ideas. In 1972, the
Chicago Women's Liberation Union
published "Socialist Feminism: A Strategy for the Women's Movement",
which is believed to be the first to use the term "socialist feminism"
in publication.
Many
socialists were early advocates for LGBT rights. For early socialist
Charles Fourier,
true freedom could only occur without suppressing passions, as the
suppression of passions is not only destructive to the individual, but
to society as a whole. Writing before the advent of the term
"homosexuality", Fourier recognised that both men and women have a wide
range of sexual needs and preferences which may change throughout their
lives, including same-sex sexuality and
androgénité. He argued
that all sexual expressions should be enjoyed as long as people are not
abused and that "affirming one's difference" can actually enhance social
integration. In
Oscar Wilde's
The Soul of Man Under Socialism, he passionately advocates for an
egalitarian society where wealth is shared by all, while warning of the dangers of social systems that crush individuality. Wilde's
libertarian socialist politics were shared by other figures who actively campaigned for homosexual emancipation in the late 19th century such as
Edward Carpenter.
The Intermediate Sex: A Study of Some Transitional Types of Men and Women was a book from 1908 and an early work arguing for
gay liberation written by
Edward Carpenter who was also an influential personality in the foundation of the
Fabian Society and the
Labour Party. After the
Russian Revolution under the leadership of
Vladimir Lenin and
Leon Trotsky, the
Soviet Union abolished previous laws against homosexuality.
Harry Hay was an early leader in the American
LGBT rights movement as well as a member of the
Communist Party USA. He is known for his roles in helping to found several gay organisations, including the
Mattachine Society, the first sustained gay rights group in the United States which in its early days had a strong marxist influence. The
Encyclopedia of Homosexuality
reports that "[a]s Marxists the founders of the group believed that the
injustice and oppression which they suffered stemmed from relationships
deeply embedded in the structure of American society". Also emerging from a number of events, such as the May 1968 insurrection in France, the
anti-Vietnam war movement in the United States and the
Stonewall riots
of 1969, militant gay liberation organisations began to spring up
around the world. Many saw their roots in left radicalism more than in
the established homophile groups of the time, though the
Gay Liberation Front took an
anti-capitalist stance and attacked the
nuclear family and traditional
gender roles.
Eco-socialism, green socialism or socialist ecology is a political position merging aspects of
Marxism, socialism and/or
libertarian socialism with that of
green politics, ecology and
alter-globalisation. Eco-socialists generally believe that the expansion of the capitalist system is the cause of
social exclusion, poverty, war and
environmental degradation through
globalisation and
imperialism, under the supervision of repressive
states and transnational structures. Contrary to the depiction of
Karl Marx by some environmentalists,
social ecologists and fellow socialists as a
productivist
who favoured the domination of nature, eco-socialists have revisited
Marx's writings and believe that he "was a main originator of the
ecological world-view". Eco-socialist authors, like
John Bellamy Foster and Paul Burkett,
point to Marx's discussion of a "metabolic rift" between man and
nature, his statement that "private ownership of the globe by single
individuals will appear quite absurd as private ownership of one man by
another" and his observation that a society must "hand it [the planet]
down to succeeding generations in an improved condition". The English socialist
William Morris is largely credited with developing key principles of what was later called eco-socialism. During the 1880s and 1890s, Morris promoted his eco-socialist ideas within the
Social Democratic Federation and
Socialist League.
Green anarchism, or ecoanarchism, is a
school of thought within
anarchism which puts a particular emphasis on
environmental issues. An important early influence was the thought of the American
anarchist Henry David Thoreau and his book
Walden and
Élisée Reclus.
In the late 19th century, there emerged
anarcho-naturism as the fusion of anarchism and
naturist philosophies within
individualist anarchist circles in France, Spain, Cuba and Portugal.
Social ecology is closely related to the work and ideas of
Murray Bookchin and influenced by anarchist
Peter Kropotkin. Bookchin's first book,
Our Synthetic Environment, was published under the pseudonym Lewis Herber in 1962, a few months before
Rachel Carson's
Silent Spring. His groundbreaking essay "Ecology and Revolutionary Thought" introduced ecology as a concept in radical politics. In the 1970s,
Barry Commoner, suggesting a left-wing response to the
Limits to Growth model that predicted catastrophic
resource depletion and spurred environmentalism, postulated that capitalist technologies were chiefly responsible for
environmental degradation as opposed to
population pressures. The 1990s saw the
socialist feminists Mary Mellor and
Ariel Salleh address environmental issues within an eco-socialist paradigm. With the rising profile of the
anti-globalisation movement in the
Global South, an "environmentalism of the poor" combining ecological awareness and
social justice has also become prominent. In 1994, David Pepper also released his important work,
Ecosocialism: From Deep Ecology to Social Justice, which critiques the current approach of many within
green politics, particularly
deep ecologists. Currently, many
green parties around the world, such as the
Dutch Green Left Party (GroenLinks), contain strong eco-socialist elements. Radical
red-green alliances have been formed in many countries by eco-socialists, radical greens and other radical left groups. In
Denmark, the
Red-Green Alliance was formed as a coalition of numerous radical parties. Within the
European Parliament, a number of far-left parties from Northern Europe have organised themselves into the
Nordic Green Left Alliance.
Syndicalism
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