Social liberalism

Social liberalism (German: Sozialliberalismus, Spanish: socioliberalismo), also known as new liberalism in the United Kingdom, modern liberalism in the United States, left liberalism (German: Linksliberalismus) in Germany and progressive liberalism (Spanish: Liberalismo progresista) in Spanish-speaking countries, is a political philosophy and variety of liberalism that endorses a social market economy within an individualist economy and the expansion of civil and political rights. Under social liberalism, the common good is viewed as harmonious with the freedom of the individual.

Social liberal policies have been widely adopted in much of the world. Social liberal ideas and parties tend to be considered centrist or centre-left. A social liberal government is expected to address economic and social issues such as poverty, welfare, infrastructure, health care, education and the climate using government intervention whilst also emphasizing the rights and autonomy of the individual.

In the United States, the term social liberalism may sometimes refer to progressive stances on sociocultural issues such as reproductive rights and same-sex marriage (in contrast with social conservatism). Because cultural liberalism expresses the social dimension of liberalism, it is often referred to as social liberalism, although it is not the same as the broader political ideology known as social liberalism. An American social liberal in this sense may hold either conservative (economic liberal) or modern liberal (economic progressive) views on fiscal policy.

Origins

Main article: History of liberalism

United Kingdom

Leonard Hobhouse, one of the originators of social liberalism, notably through his book Liberalism, published in 1911.

By the end of the 19th century, the principles of classical liberalism were challenged by downturns in economic growth, a growing awareness of poverty and unemployment present within modern industrial cities and also by the agitation of organised labour. A major political reaction against the changes introduced by industrialisation and laissez-faire capitalism came from one-nation conservatives concerned about social balance and the introduction of the famous Education Act 1870, although socialism later became a more important force for change and reform. Some Victorian writers—including Charles Dickens, Thomas Carlyle and Matthew Arnold—became early influential critics of social injustice.

John Stuart Mill contributed enormously to liberal thought by combining elements of classical liberalism with what eventually became known as the new liberalism. The new liberals tried to adapt the old language of liberalism to confront these difficult circumstances, which they believed could only be resolved through a broader and more interventionist conception of the state. An equal right to liberty could not be established merely by ensuring that individuals did not physically interfere with each other or merely by having laws that were impartially formulated and applied, as more positive and proactive measures were required to ensure that every individual would have an equal opportunity of success.

New Liberals

Thomas Hill Green

In the late 19th century and early 20th century, a group of British thinkers known as the New Liberals made a case against laissez-faire classical liberalism and argued in favor of state intervention in social, economic and cultural life. What they proposed is now called social liberalism. The New Liberals, including intellectuals like Thomas Hill Green, Leonard Hobhouse and John A. Hobson, saw individual liberty as something achievable only under favorable social and economic circumstances. In their view, the poverty, squalor and ignorance in which many people lived made it impossible for freedom and individuality to flourish. New Liberals believed that these conditions could be ameliorated only through collective action coordinated by a strong, welfare-oriented and interventionist state.

The Liberal governments of Henry Campbell-Bannerman and H. H. Asquith, especially thanks to Chancellor of the Exchequer and later Prime Minister David Lloyd George, established the foundations of the welfare state in the United Kingdom before World War I. The comprehensive welfare state built in the United Kingdom after World War II, although largely accomplished by the Labour Party's Attlee ministry, was significantly designed by two Liberals, namely John Maynard Keynes (who laid the foundations in economics with the Keynesian Revolution) and William Beveridge (whose Beveridge Report was used to design the welfare system).

Historian Peter Weiler has argued:

Although still partially informed by older Liberal concerns for character, self-reliance, and the capitalist market, this legislation nevertheless marked a significant shift in Liberal approaches to the state and social reform, approaches that later governments would slowly expand and that would grow into the welfare state after the Second World War. What was new in these reforms was the underlying assumption that the state could be a positive force, that the measure of individual freedom [...] was not how much the state left people alone, but whether he gave them the capacity to fill themselves as individuals.

Germany

In 1860s Germany, left-liberal politicians like Max Hirsch, Franz Duncker and Hermann Schulze-Delitzsch established trade unions—modeled on their British counterparts—in order to help workers improve working and economic conditions by means of reconciliation of interests and cooperation with their employers rather than class struggle. Schulze-Delitzsch is also known as the founding father of the German cooperative movement and is credited as the organiser of the world's first credit unions. Some liberal economists, such as Lujo Brentano or Gerhart von Schulze-Gävernitz, established the Verein für Socialpolitik (German Economic Association) in 1873 to promote social reform based on the historical school of economics and therefore rejecting classical economics, proposing a third way between Manchester Liberalism and socialist revolution in the 1871-founded German Empire.

However, the German left-liberal movement fragmented itself into wings and new parties over the 19th century. The main objectives of the left-liberal parties—the German Progress Party and its successors—were free speech, freedom of assembly, representative government, secret and equal but obligation tied suffrage, protection of private property while they were strongly opposed to the creation of a welfare state, which they called state socialism. The main differences between the left-liberal parties were the national ambitions, the different substate people's goals, free trade against Schutzzollpolitik, and the building of the national economy.

The term "social liberalism" (German: Sozialliberalismus) was used first in 1891 by Austrian economist and journalist Theodor Hertzka. Subsequently, in 1893, the historian and social reformer Ignaz Jastrow also used this term, and joined the German Economic Association. He published the socialist democratic manifesto "Social-liberal: Tasks for Liberalism in Prussia" to create an "action group" for general people's welfare in the Social Democratic Party of Germany, which they rejected.

Friedrich Naumann

The National-Social Association founded by the Protestant pastor Friedrich Naumann also maintained contacts with the left-liberals. He tried to draw workers away from Marxism by proposing a mix of nationalism and a Protestant-Christian-value-inflected social liberalism to overcome class antagonisms by non-revolutionary means. Naumann called this a "proletarian-bourgeois integral liberalism". Although the party was unable to win any seats and soon dissolved, he remained influential in theoretical German left liberalism.

In the Weimar Republic, the German Democratic Party was founded and came into an inheritance of the left-liberal past and had a leftist social wing, and a rightist economic wing but heavily favored the democratic constitution over a monarchist one. Its ideas of a socially balanced economy with solidarity, duty and rights among all workers struggled due to the economic sanctions of the Treaty of Versailles, but it influenced local cooperative enterprises.

After 1945, the Free Democrats included most of the social liberals while others joined the Christian Democratic Union of Germany. Until the 1960s, post-war ordoliberalism was the model for Germany. It had theoretical influence of social liberalism based on duty and rights. As the Free Democrats discarded social liberal ideas in favour of more conservative and economical liberal approach in 1982, some members left the party and formed the social liberal Liberal Democrats.

France

In France, social-liberal theory was developed in the Third Republic by solidarist thinkers, including Alfred Fouillée and Émile Durkheim, who were inspired by sociology and influenced radical politicians like Léon Bourgeois. They explained that a greater division of labor caused greater opportunity and individualism, but it also inspired a more complex interdependence. They argued that the individual had a debt to society, promoting progressive taxation to support public works and welfare schemes. However, they wanted the state to coordinate rather than to manage and they encouraged cooperative insurance schemes among individuals. Their main objective was to remove barriers to social mobility rather than create a welfare state.

Franklin D. Roosevelt, the 32nd President of the United States, whose New Deal domestic policies defined American liberalism for the middle third of the 20th century

United States

Main article: Modern liberalism in the United States

In the United States, the term social liberalism was used to differentiate it from classical liberalism or laissez-faire, which dominated political and economic thought for a number of years until the term branched off from it around the Great Depression and the New Deal. In the 1870s and the 1880s, the American economists Richard Ely, John Bates Clark and Henry Carter Adams—influenced both by socialism and the Evangelical Protestant movement—castigated the conditions caused by industrial factories and expressed sympathy towards labor unions. However, none developed a systematic political philosophy and they later abandoned their flirtations with socialist thinking. In 1883, Lester Frank Ward published the two-volume Dynamic Sociology and formalized the basic tenets of social liberalism while at the same time attacking the laissez-faire policies advocated by Herbert Spencer and William Graham Sumner. The historian Henry Steele Commager ranked Ward alongside William James, John Dewey and Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. and called him the father of the modern welfare state. Writing from 1884 until the 1930s, John Dewey—an educator influenced by Hobhouse, Green and Ward—advocated socialist methods to achieve liberal goals. Some social liberal ideas were later incorporated into the New Deal, which developed as a response to the Great Depression when Franklin D. Roosevelt came into office.

Implementation

David Lloyd George, who became closely associated with this new liberalism and vigorously supported expanding social welfare

The welfare state grew gradually and unevenly from the late 19th century, but became fully developed following World War II along with the mixed market economy. Also called embedded liberalism, social liberal policies gained broad support across the political spectrum, because they reduced the disruptive and polarizing tendencies in society, without challenging the capitalist economic system. Business accepted social liberalism in the face of widespread dissatisfaction with the boom and bust cycle of the earlier economic system as it seemed to them to be a lesser evil than more left-wing modes of government. Social liberalism was characterized by cooperation between big business, government and labor unions. Government was able to assume a strong role because its power had been strengthened by the wartime economy, but the extent to which this occurred varied considerably among Western democracies.

United Kingdom

British leaflet from the Liberal Party expressing support for the National Health Insurance Act of 1911 and the legislation provided benefits to sick and unemployed workers, marking a major milestone in the development of social welfare

The first notable implementation of social liberal policies occurred under the Liberal Party in Britain from 1906 until 1914. These initiatives became known as the Liberal welfare reforms. The main elements included pensions for poor elderly people, health, sickness and unemployment insurance. These changes were accompanied by progressive taxation, particularly in the People's Budget of 1909. The old system of charity relying on the Poor Laws and supplemented by private charity, public co-operatives and private insurance companies was in crisis, giving the state added impetus for reform. The Liberal Party caucus elected in 1906 also contained more professionals, including academics and journalists, sympathetic to social liberalism. The large business owners had mostly deserted the Liberals for the Conservatives, the latter becoming the favorite party for commercial interests. The reforms were regularly opposed by both business interests and trade unions. Liberals most identified with these reforms were Prime Minister H. H. Asquith, John Maynard Keynes, David Lloyd George (especially as Chancellor of the Exchequer) and Winston Churchill (as President of the Board of Trade) in addition to the civil servant (and later Liberal MP) William Beveridge.

Most of the social democratic parties in Europe (notably including the British Labour Party) have taken on strong influences of social liberal ideology. Despite Britain's two major parties coming from the traditions of socialism and conservatism, most substantive political and economic debates of recent times were between social liberal and classical liberal concepts.

Germany

Alexander Rüstow

Alexander Rüstow, a German economist, first proposed the German variant of economic social liberalism. In 1932, he applied the label neoliberalism to this kind of social liberalism while speaking at the Social Policy Association, although that term now carries a meaning different from the one proposed by Rüstow. Rüstow wanted an alternative to socialism and to the classical liberal economics developed in the German Empire. In 1938, Rüstow met with a variety of economic thinkers—including the likes of Ludwig Mises, Friedrich Hayek and Wilhelm Röpke—to determine how liberalism could be renewed. Rüstow advocated a strong state to enforce free markets and state intervention to correct market failures. However, Mises argued that monopolies and cartels operated because of state intervention and protectionism and claimed that the only legitimate role for the state was to abolish barriers to market entry. He viewed Rüstow's proposals as negating market freedom and saw them as similar to socialism.

Following World War II, Rüstow's neoliberalism, now usually called ordoliberalism or the social market economy, was adopted by the West German government under Ludwig Erhard, who was the Minister of Economics and later became Chancellor. Price controls were lifted and free markets were introduced. While these policies are credited with Germany's post-war economic recovery, the welfare state—which had been established under Bismarck—became increasingly costly.

Turkey

Main article: Kemalism

Kemalist Economic Model was designed by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, founder of the Republic of Turkey. His economic model can be summarized as "solidarist liberal economy". Atatürk put the principle of "statism" in his Six Arrows and explained this principle as follows:

"State can't take the place of individuals, but, it must take into consideration the individuals to make them improve and develop theirselves. Etatism includes the work that individuals won't do because they can't make profit or the work which are necessary for national interests. Just as it is the duty of the state to protect the freedom and independence of the country and to regulate internal affairs, the state must take care of the education and health of its citizens. The state must take care of the roads, railways, telegraphs, telephones, animals of the country, all kinds of vehicles and the general wealth of the nation to protect the peace and security of the country. During the administration and protection of the country, the things we just counted are more important than cannons, rifles and all kinds of weapons. (...) Private interests are generally the opposite of the general interests. Also, private interests are based on rivalries. But, you can't create a stable economy only with this. People who think like that are delusional and they will be a failure. (...) And, work of an individual must stay as the main basis of economic growth. Not preventing an individual's work and not obstructing the individual's freedom and enterprise with the state's own activities is the main basis of the principle of democracy."

Moreover, Atatürk said this at his opening speech in November 1, 1937: "Unless there is an absolute necessity, the markets can't be intervened; also, no markets can be completely free."

Also he said that the principle of statism is a special economic system for Turkey, and said that it's different from socialism, communism and collectivism.

As we can understand from his words, Atatürk's statism is a social liberal economic system.

Rest of Europe

The post-war governments of other countries in Western Europe also followed social liberal policies. These policies were implemented primarily by Christian democrats and social democrats as liberal parties in Europe declined in strength from their peak in the 19th century.

United States

Main article: Modern liberalism in the United States

American political discourse resisted this social turn in European liberalism. While the economic policies of the New Deal appeared Keynesian, there was no revision of liberal theory in favor of greater state initiative. Even though the United States lacked an effective socialist movement, New Deal policies often appeared radical and were attacked by the right. The separate development of modern liberalism in the United States is often attributed to American exceptionalism, which kept mainstream American ideology within a narrow range.

John Rawls' principal work A Theory of Justice (1971) can be considered a flagship exposition of social liberal thinking, advocating the combination of individual freedom and a fairer distribution of resources. According to Rawls, every individual should be allowed to choose and pursue his or her own conception of what is desirable in life, while a socially just distribution of goods must be maintained. Rawls argued that differences in material wealth are tolerable if general economic growth and wealth also benefit the poorest. A Theory of Justice countered utilitarian thinking in the tradition of Jeremy Bentham, instead following the Kantian concept of a social contract, picturing society as a mutual agreement between rational citizens, producing rights and duties as well as establishing and defining roles and tasks of the state. Rawls put the equal liberty principle in the first place, providing every person with equal access to the same set of fundamental liberties, followed by the fair equality of opportunity and difference principle, thus allowing social and economic inequalities under the precondition that privileged positions are accessible to everyone, that everyone has equal opportunities and that even the least advantaged members of society benefit from this framework. This was later restated in the equation of Justice as Fairness. Rawls proposed these principles not just to adherents of liberalism, but as a basis for all democratic politics, regardless of ideology. The work advanced social liberal ideas immensely within the 1970s political and philosophic academia. Rawls may therefore be seen as a "patron saint" of social liberalism.

Decline

Following economic problems in the 1970s, liberal thought underwent some transformation. Keynesian economic management was seen as interfering with the free market, while increased welfare spending that had been funded by higher taxes prompted fears of lower investment, lower consumer spending and the creation of a "dependency culture". Trade unions often caused high wages and industrial disruption while full employment was regarded as unsustainable. Writers such as Milton Friedman and Samuel Brittan, who were influenced by Friedrich Hayek, advocated a reversal of social liberalism. Their policies—which are often called neoliberalism—had a significant influence on Western politics, most notably on the governments of United Kingdom Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and the United States President Ronald Reagan, who pursued policies of deregulation of the economy and reduction in spending on social services.

Part of the reason for the collapse of the social liberal coalition was a challenge in the 1970s from financial interests that could operate independently of national governments. Another cause was the decline of organized labor which had formed part of the coalition but was also a support for left-wing ideologies challenging the liberal consensus. Related to this was the decline of working-class consciousness and the growth of the middle class. The push by the United States which had been least accepting of social liberalism for trade liberalization further eroded support.

Contemporary revival of social liberal thought

From the end of the 20^th century, at the same time that it was losing political influence, social liberalism experienced an intellectual revival with a number of important authors, including John Rawls (political philosophy), Amartya Sen (philosophy and economy), Ronald Dworkin (philosophy of law), Martha Nussbaum (philosophy), Bruce Ackerman (constitutional law), and others.

Parties and organisations

In Europe, social liberal parties tend to be small or medium-sized centrist and centre-left parties. Examples of successful European social liberal parties which have participated in government coalitions at national or regional levels include the Liberal Democrats in the United Kingdom, the Democrats 66 in the Netherlands, and the Danish Social Liberal Party. In continental European politics, social liberal parties are integrated in the Renew Europe group in the European Parliament which is the third biggest group at the parliament and includes social liberal parties, market liberal parties and centrist parties. Other groups such as the European People's Party, the Greens–European Free Alliance and the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats also house some political parties with social-liberal factions.

Giving an exhaustive list of social liberal parties worldwide is difficult, largely because political organisations are not always ideologically pure and party ideologies often change over time. However, the following parties and organisations are usually accepted by peers such as the Africa Liberal Network, the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe Party, the Council of Asian Liberals and Democrats, the European Liberal Forum, the Liberal International and the Liberal Network for Latin America or scholars as following social liberalism as a core ideology.

Liberal socialism

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_socialism 

 

This article is about the political philosophy that incorporates liberal principles to socialism. For the socialist anti-authoritarian, anti-statist and libertarian philosophy, see Libertarian socialism. For the variety of liberalism that endorses a regulated market economy and the expansion of civil and political rights, see Social liberalism.

Liberal socialism is a political philosophy that incorporates liberal principles to socialism. Liberal socialism has been compared to post-war social democracy as it supports a mixed economy that includes both private property and social ownership in capital goods. While social democracy is somewhat anti-capitalist insofar as criticism of capitalism is linked to the private ownership of the means of production, liberal socialism identifies artificial and legalistic monopolies to be the fault of capitalism and opposes an entirely unregulated market economy. It considers both liberty and equality to be compatible and mutually dependent on each other. Liberal socialism is a type of socialism that has been most prominent in the post-war period. For Ian Adams, post-war social democracy and socialist New Labour are examples of liberal socialism, in contrast to classical socialism. However, those two forms of liberal socialism are based on two different economic theories, namely Keynesianism and supply side, respectively. According to Christopher Pierson, "actually existing liberal democracy is, in substantial part, a product of socialist (social democratic) forces". According to Ian Hunt, liberal socialism is an alternative social ideal grounded in both socialist Karl Marx and liberal John Rawls.

Principles that can be described as liberal socialist are based on the works of liberal, left-liberal, radical and socialist economists and philosophers such as Roberto Ardigò, Eduard Bernstein, Henry Charles Carey, G. D. H. Cole, Jean Hippolyte Colins de Ham [fr], John Dewey, Eugen Dühring, Henry George, François Huet [fr], Peter Kropotkin, John Locke, John Stuart Mill, William Ogilvie of Pittensear, Thomas Paine, Karl Polanyi, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Carlo Rosselli, Adam Smith, Thomas Spence, Herbert Spencer and Léon Walras. Other important liberal socialist figures include Norberto Bobbio, Guido Calogero , Anthony Crosland, Piero Gobetti, Theodor Hertzka, Leonard Hobhouse, Oszkár Jászi, John Maynard Keynes, Josef Macek [cz], Chantal Mouffe, Franz Oppenheimer, John Rawls and R. H. Tawney. To Polanyi, liberal socialism's goal was overcoming exploitative aspects of capitalism by expropriation of landlords and opening to all the opportunity to own land. For Polanyi, it represented the culmination of a tradition initiated by the physiocrats, among others.

Liberal socialism has been particularly prominent in British and Italian politics. Its seminal ideas can be traced to John Stuart Mill, who theorised that capitalist societies should experience a gradual process of socialisation through worker-controlled enterprises, coexisting with private enterprises. Mill rejected centralised models of socialism that he thought might discourage competition and creativity, but he argued that representation is essential in a free government and democracy could not subsist if economic opportunities were not well distributed, therefore conceiving democracy not just as form of representative government, but as an entire social organisation. While socialists have been hostile to liberalism, accused of "providing an ideological cover for the depredation of capitalism", it has been pointed out that "the goals of liberalism are not so different from those of the socialists", although this similarity in goals has been described as being deceptive due to the different meanings liberalism and socialism give to liberty, equality and solidarity.

Argentina

Leandro N. Alem, founder of liberal socialism in Argentina's politics and head of the Revolution of the Park

During the National Autonomist Party governments, liberal socialism emerged in Argentina's politics as opposed to the Julio Argentino Roca's ruling conservative liberalism, though president Domingo Faustino Sarmiento had previously implemented an agenda influenced by John Stuart Mill's writings. The first spokesperson for the new trend was Leandro N. Alem, founder of the Radical Civil Union. Liberal socialists never governed in Argentina, but they constituted the main opposition from 1880 to 1914 and again from 1930 until the rise of Peronism. Adolfo Dickman [es], Enrique Dickmann [es], José Ingenieros, Juan B. Justo, Moisés Lebensohn [es], Alicia Moreau de Justo and Nicolás Repetto are among the representatives of the trend during the Década Infame in the 1930s as part of the Radical Civic Union or the Socialist Party.

Ingenieros' work has diffused all over Latin America. In the 2003 Argentine general election, Ricardo López Murphy (who has declared himself a liberal socialist in the tradition of Alem and Juan Bautista Alberdi) ended third with 16.3 per cent of the popular vote. Contemporary Argentine liberal socialists include Mario Bunge, Carlos Fayt and Juan José Sebreli.

Belgium

Chantal Mouffe is a prominent Belgian advocate of liberal socialism. She describes liberal socialism as follows:

To deepen and enrich the pluralist conquests of liberal democracy, the articulation between political liberalism and individualism must be broken, to make possible a new approach to individuality that restores its social nature without reducing it to a simple component of an organic whole. This is where the socialist tradition of thought might still have something to contribute to the democratic project and herein lies the promise of a liberal socialism.

Britain

John Stuart Mill

John Stuart Mill, influential 19th-century English thinker of liberalism who adopted some socialist views

The main liberal English thinker John Stuart Mill's early economic philosophy was one of free markets. However, he accepted interventions in the economy. He also accepted the principle of legislative intervention for the purpose of animal welfare. Mill originally believed that equality of taxation meant equality of sacrifice and that progressive taxation penalised those who worked harder and saved more and therefore was a "mild form of robbery".

Given an equal tax rate regardless of income, Mill agreed that inheritance should be taxed. A utilitarian society would agree that everyone should be equal one way or another. Therefore, receiving inheritance would put one ahead of society unless taxed on the inheritance. Those who donate should consider and choose carefully where their money goes—some charities are more deserving than others. Public charities boards such as a government (i.e. social welfare) will disburse the money equally. However, a private charity board like a church would disburse the monies fairly to those who are in more need than others.

Mill later altered his views toward a more socialist bent, adding chapters to his Principles of Political Economy in defence of a socialist outlook and defending some socialist causes. Within this revised work, he also made the radical proposal that the whole wage system be abolished in favour of a co-operative wage system. Nonetheless, some of his views on the idea of flat taxation remained, albeit altered in the third edition of the Principles of Political Economy to reflect a concern for differentiating restrictions on unearned incomes which he favoured; and those on earned incomes which he did not favour.

In the case of Oxford University, Mill's Principles of Political Economy, first published in 1848, was the standard text until 1919 when it was replaced by Alfred Marshall's Principles of Economics. As Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations had during an earlier period, Mill's Principles of Economy dominated economics teaching and was one of the most widely read of all books on economics in the period.

In later editions of Principles of Political Economy, 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". Mill also promoted substituting capitalist businesses with worker cooperatives, writing:

The form of association, however, which if mankind continue to improve, must be expected in the end to predominate, is not that which can exist between a capitalist as chief, and work-people without a voice in the management, but the association of the labourers themselves on terms of equality, collectively owning the capital with which they carry on their operations, and working under managers elected and removable by themselves.

Ethical socialism

Main article: Ethical socialism

 

R. H. Tawney, founder of ethical socialism

Liberal socialism has exercised influence in British politics, especially in the variant known as ethical socialism. A key component of ethical socialism is in its emphasis on moral and ethical critiques of capitalism and building a case for socialism on moral or spiritual grounds as opposed to rationalist and materialist grounds. Ethical socialists advocated a mixed economy that involves an acceptance of a role of both public enterprise as well as socially responsible private enterprise. Ethical socialism was founded by Christian socialist R. H. Tawney and its ideals were also connected to Fabian and guild-socialist values.

It emphasises the need for a morally conscious economy based upon the principles of service, cooperation and social justice while opposing possessive individualism. Ethical socialism is distinct in its focus on criticism of the ethics of capitalism and not merely criticism of material issues of capitalism. Tawney denounced the self-seeking amoral and immoral behaviour that he claimed is supported by capitalism. He opposed what he called the "acquisitive society" that causes private property to be used to transfer surplus profit to "functionless owners"—capitalist rentiers. However, Tawney did not denounce managers as a whole, believing that management and employees could join together in a political alliance for reform. He supported the pooling of surplus profit through means of progressive taxation to redistribute these funds to provide social welfare, including public health care, public education and public housing.

Tawney advocated nationalisation of strategic industries and services. He also advocated worker participation in the business of management in the economy as well as consumer, employee, employer and state cooperation in the economy. Though he supported a substantial role for public enterprise in the economy, Tawney stated that where private enterprise provided a service that was commensurate with its rewards that was functioning private property, then a business could be usefully and legitimately be left in private hands. Ethical socialist Thomas Hill Green supported the right of equal opportunity for all individuals to be able freely appropriate property, but he claimed that acquisition of wealth did not imply that an individual could do whatever they wanted to once that wealth was in their possession. Green opposed "property rights of the few" that were preventing the ownership of property by the many.

Ethical socialism is an important ideology of the Labour Party. Labour Prime Minister Clement Attlee supported the ideology, which played a large role in his party's policies during the postwar 1940s. Half a century after Attlee's tenure, Tony Blair, another Labour Prime Minister, also described himself as an adherent of ethical socialism, which for him embodies the values of "social justice, the equal worth of each citizen, equality of opportunity, community". Influenced by Attlee and John Macmurray (who himself was influenced by Green), Blair has defined the ideology in similar terms as earlier adherents—with an emphasis on the common good, rights and responsibilities as well as support of an organic society in which individuals flourish through cooperation. Blair argued that Labour ran into problems in the 1960s and 1970s when it abandoned ethical socialism and that its recovery required a return to the values promoted by the Attlee government. However, Blair's critics (both inside and outside Labour) have accused him of completely abandoning socialism in favour of capitalism.

France

Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, 19th-century socialist advocate of mutualism

While Pierre-Joseph Proudhon was a revolutionary, his social revolution did not mean civil war or violent upheaval, but rather the transformation of society. This transformation was essentially moral in nature and demanded the highest ethics from those who sought change. It was monetary reform, combined with organizing a credit bank and workers associations, that Proudhon proposed to use as a lever to bring about the organization of society along new lines. Proudhon's ethical socialism has been described as part of the liberal socialist tradition which is for egalitarianism and free markets, with Proudhon taking "a commitment to narrow down the sphere of activity of the state". James Boyle quoted Proudhon as stating that socialism is "every aspiration towards the amelioration of society" and then admitting that "we are all socialists" under this definition.

Proudhon was a supporter of both free markets and property, but he distinguished between the privileged private property that he opposed and the earned personal property that he supported. By free markets, Proudhon meant industrial democracy and workers' self-management. Mutualism involved free association by creating industrial democracy, a system where workplaces would be "handed over to democratically organised workers' associations. [...] We want these associations to be models for agriculture, industry and trade, the pioneering core of that vast federation of companies and societies woven into the common cloth of the democratic social Republic." Under mutualism, like in Mill's version of liberal socialism, workers would no longer sell their labour to a capitalist but rather work for themselves in cooperatives. Proudhon urged "workers to form themselves into democratic societies, with equal conditions for all members, on pain of a relapse into feudalism". This would result in "[c]apitalistic and proprietary exploitation, stopped everywhere, the wage system abolished, equal and just exchange guaranteed".

Robert Graham noted that "Proudhon's market socialism is indissolubly linked to his notions of industrial democracy and workers' self-management". In his in-depth analysis of this aspect of Proudhon's ideas, K. Steven Vincent noted that "Proudhon consistently advanced a program of industrial democracy which would return control and direction of the economy to the workers". For Proudhon, "strong workers' associations [...] would enable the workers to determine jointly by election how the enterprise was to be directed and operated on a day-to-day basis".

Germany

Willy Brandt, Chancellor of West Germany (1969–1974)

An early version of liberal socialism was developed in Germany by Franz Oppenheimer. Although he was committed to socialism, Oppenheimer's theories inspired the development of the social liberalism that was pursued by German Chancellor Ludwig Erhard, who said the following: "As long as I live, I will not forget Franz Oppenheimer! I will be as happy if the social market economy—as perfect or imperfect as it might be—continues to bear witness to the work, to the intellectual stance of the ideas and teachings of Franz Oppenheimer."

In the 1930s, the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), a reformist socialist political party that was up to then based upon revisionist Marxism, began a transition away from orthodox Marxism towards liberal socialism. After it was banned by the Nazi regime in 1933, the SPD acted in exile through the Sopade. In 1934, the Sopade began to publish material that indicated that the SPD was turning towards liberal socialism.

Curt Heyer [de], a prominent proponent of liberal socialism within the Sopade, declared that Sopade represented the tradition of Weimar Republic social democracy (a form of liberal democratic socialism) and declared that Sopade's held true to its mandate of traditional liberal principles combined with the political realism of socialism. After the restoration of democracy in West Germany, the SPD's Godesberg Program in 1959 eliminated the party's remaining Marxist policies. The SPD then became officially based upon liberal socialism (German: freiheitlicher Sozialismus). West German Chancellor Willy Brandt has been identified as a liberal socialist.

Hungary

In 1919, the Hungarian politician Oszkár Jászi declared his support for what he termed "liberal socialism" while denouncing "communist socialism". Opposed to classical social democracy's prevalent focus on support from the working class, Jászi saw the middle class and smallholder peasants as essential to the development of socialism and spoke of the need of a "radical middle-class". His views were especially influenced by events in Hungary in 1919 involving the Bolshevik revolution during which he specifically denounced the Marxist worldview shortly after the collapse of the Hungarian Soviet Republic, calling his views "Anti-Marx". His criticism of orthodox Marxism was centered on its mechanical, value-free and amoral methodology. He argued that "[i]n no small measure, the present terrible, bewildering world crisis is a consequence of Marxism's mechanical Communism and amoral nihilism. New formulas of spirit, freedom and solidarity have to be found".

Jászi promoted a form of co-operative socialism that included liberal principles of freedom, voluntarism and decentralization. He counterpoised this ideal version of socialism with the then-existing political system in the Soviet Union, which he identified as based upon dictatorial and militarist perils, statism and a crippled economic order where competition and quality are disregarded.

Jászi's views on socialism and especially his works justifying the denouncement of Bolshevik communism came back into Hungarian public interest in the 1980s when copies of his manuscripts were discovered and were smuggled into Hungary that was then under communist party-rule.

Italy

Carlo Rosselli, Italian proponent of liberal socialism

Going back to Italian revolutionaries and socialists such as Giuseppe Garibaldi and Giuseppe Mazzini, Italian socialist Carlo Rosselli was inspired by the definition of socialism by the founder of social democracy, Eduard Bernstein, who defined socialism as "organised liberalism". Rosselli expanded on Bernstein's arguments by developing his notion of liberal socialism (Italian: socialismo liberale). In 1925, Rosselli defined the ideology in his work of the same name in which he supported the type of socialist economy defined by socialist economist Werner Sombart in Der modern Kapitalismus (1908) that envisaged a new modern mixed economy that included both public and private property, limited economic competition and increased economic cooperation.

While appreciating principles of liberalism as an ideology that emphasised liberation, Rosselli was deeply disappointed with liberalism as a system that he described as having been used by the bourgeoisie to support their privileges while neglecting the liberation components of liberalism as an ideology and thus viewed conventional liberalism as a system that had merely become an ideology of "bourgeois capitalism". At the same time, Rosselli appreciated socialism as an ideology, but he was also deeply disappointed with conventional socialism as a system.

In response to his disappointment with conventional socialism in practice, Roselli declared: "The recent experiences, all the experiences of the past thirty years, have hopelessly condemned the primitive programs of the socialists. State socialism especially—collectivist, centralising socialism—has been defeated". Rosselli's liberal socialism was partly based upon his study and admiration of British political themes of the Fabian Society and John Stuart Mill (he was able to read the English versions of Mill's work On Liberty prior to its availability in Italian that began in 1925). His admiration of British socialism increased after his visit to the United Kingdom in 1923 where he met George Drumgoole Coleman, R. H. Tawney and other members of the Fabian Society.

An important component of Italian liberal socialism developed by Rosselli was its anti-fascism. Rosselli opposed fascism and believed that fascism would only be defeated by a revival of socialism. Rosselli founded Giustizia e Libertà as a resistance movement founded in the 1930s in opposition to the Fascist regime in Italy. Ferruccio Parri—who later became Prime Minister of Italy—and Sandro Pertini—who later became President of Italy—were among Giustizia e Libertà's leaders. Giustizia e Libertà was committed to militant action to fight the Fascist regime and it saw Benito Mussolini as a ruthless murderer who himself deserved to be killed as punishment. Various early schemes were designed by the movement in the 1930s to assassinate Mussolini, including one dramatic plan of using an aircraft to drop a bomb on Piazza Venezia where Mussolini resided. Rosselli was also a prominent member of the liberal-socialist Action Party.

Sandro Pertini, President of Italy (1978–1985)

After Rosselli's death, liberal socialism was developed in Italian political thought by Guido Calogero. Unlike Rosselli, Calogero considered the ideology as a unique ideology called liberalsocialism (Italian: liberalsocialismo) that was separate from existing liberal and socialist ideologies. Calogero created the "First Manifesto of Liberalsocialism" in 1940 that stated the following:

At the basis of liberalsocialism stands the concept of the substantial unity and identity of ideal reason, which supports and justifies socialism in its demand for justice as much as it does liberalism in its demand for liberty. This ideal reason coincides with that same ethical principle to whose rule humanity and civilization, both past and future, must always measure up. This is the principle by which we recognize the personhood of others in contrast to our own person and assign to each of them a right to own their own.

After World War II, Ferruccio Parri of the liberal socialist Action Party briefly served as Prime Minister of Italy in 1945. In 1978, liberal socialist Sandro Pertini of the Italian Socialist Party was elected President of Italy in 1978 and served as President until 1985.

State socialism

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_socialism 

 

This article is about a political strategy for implementing socialism. For countries governed by Marxist–Leninist communist parties, see Communist state. For the social policies introduced by Otto von Bismarck in Germany, see State Socialism (Germany). For a list of self-proclaimed socialist states, see List of socialist states. For constitutional references to socialism in multi-party democracies, see Socialism in liberal democratic constitutions. For countries constitutionally committed to socialism, see Socialist state.

As a term, state socialism is often used interchangeably with state capitalism in reference to the economic systems of Marxist–Leninist states such as the Soviet Union to highlight the role of state planning in these economies, with the critics of said system referring to it more commonly as state capitalism. Democratic and libertarian socialists claim that these states had only a limited number of socialist characteristics. However, others maintain that workers in the Soviet Union and other Marxist–Leninist states had genuine control over the means of production through institutions such as trade unions. Academics, political commentators and other scholars tend to distinguish between authoritarian state socialism and democratic state socialism, with the first representing the Soviet Bloc and the latter representing Western Bloc countries which have been democratically governed by socialist parties such as Britain, France, Sweden and Western social-democracies in general, among others.

As a classification within the socialist movement, state socialism is held in contrast with libertarian socialism which rejects the view that socialism can be constructed by using existing state institutions or by governmental policies. By contrast, proponents of state socialism claim that the state—through practical considerations of governing—must play at least a temporary part in building socialism. It is possible to conceive of a democratic socialist state that owns the means of production and is internally organized in a participatory, cooperative fashion, thereby achieving both social ownership of productive property and workplace democracy. Today, state socialism is mainly advocated by Marxist–Leninists and other socialists supporting a socialist state.

History

The role of the state in socialism has divided the socialist movement. The philosophy of state socialism was first explicitly expounded by Ferdinand Lassalle. In contrast to Karl Marx's perspective, Lassalle rejected the concept of the state as a class-based power structure whose main function was to preserve existing class structures. 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 as an instrument of justice that would therefore be essential for the achievement of socialism.

Early concepts of state socialism were articulated by anarchist and libertarian philosophers who opposed the concept of the state. In Statism and Anarchy, Mikhail Bakunin identified a statist tendency within the Marxist movement which he contrasted to libertarian socialism and attributed to Marx's philosophy. Bakunin predicted that Marx's theory of transition from capitalism to socialism involving the working class seizing state power in a dictatorship of the proletariat would eventually lead to an usurpation of power by the state apparatus acting in its own self-interest, ushering in a new form of capitalism rather than establishing socialism.

As a political ideology, state socialism rose to prominence during the 20th century Bolshevik, Leninist and later Marxist–Leninist revolutions where single-party control over the state and by extension over the political and economic spheres of society was justified as a means to safeguard the revolution against counter-revolutionary insurrection and foreign invasion. The Stalinist theory of socialism in one country was an attempt to legitimize state-directed activity in an effort to accelerate the industrialization of the Soviet Union.

Description and theory

As a political ideology, state socialism is one of the major dividing lines in the broader socialist movement. It is often contrasted with non-state or anti-state forms of socialism such as those that advocate direct self-management adhocracy and direct cooperative ownership and management of the means of production. Political philosophies contrasted to state socialism include libertarian socialist philosophies such as anarchism, De Leonism, economic democracy, free-market socialism, libertarian Marxism and syndicalism. These forms of socialism are opposed to hierarchical technocratic socialism, scientific management and state-directed economic planning.

The modern concept of state socialism, when used in reference to Soviet-style economic and political systems, emerged from a deviation in Marxist theory starting with Vladimir Lenin. In Marxist theory, socialism is projected to emerge in the most developed capitalist economies where capitalism suffers the greatest amount of internal contradictions and class conflict. On the other hand, state socialism became a revolutionary theory for the poorest, often quasi-feudal, countries of the world.

In such systems, the state apparatus is used as an instrument of capital accumulation, forcibly extracting surplus from the working class and peasantry for the purposes of modernizing and industrializing poor countries. Such systems are described as state capitalism because the state engages in capital accumulation, mostly as part of the primitive accumulation of capital (see also the Soviet theory of the primitive socialist accumulation). The difference is that the state acts as a public entity and engages in this activity in order to achieve socialism by re-investing the accumulated capital into the society, whether be in more healthcare, education, employment or consumer goods, whereas in capitalist societies the surplus extracted from the working class is spent in whatever needs the owners of the means of production wants.

In the traditional view of socialism, thinkers such as Friedrich Engels and Henri de Saint-Simon took the position that the state will change in nature in a socialist society, with the function of the state changing from one of political rule over people into a scientific administration of the processes of production. Specifically, the state would become a coordinating economic entity consisting of interdependent inclusive associations rather than a mechanism of class and political control, in the process ceasing to be a state in the traditional definition.

Preceding the Bolshevik-led revolution in Russia, many socialist groups such as anarchists, orthodox Marxist currents such as council communism and the Mensheviks, reformists and other democratic and libertarian socialists criticized the idea of using the state to conduct central planning and nationalization of the means of production as a way to establish socialism.

Political perspectives

State socialism was traditionally advocated as a means for achieving public ownership of the means of production through nationalization of industry. This was intended to be a transitional phase in the process of building a socialist economy. The goals of nationalization were to dispossess large capitalists and consolidate industry so that profit would go toward public finance rather than private fortune. Nationalization would be the first step in a long-term process of socializing production, introducing employee management and reorganizing production to directly produce for use rather than profit.

The British Fabian Society included proponents of state socialism such as Sidney Webb. George Bernard Shaw referred to Fabians as "all Social Democrats, with a common confiction [sic] of the necessity of vesting the organization of industry and the material of production in a State identified with the whole people by complete Democracy". Nonetheless, Shaw also published the Report on Fabian Policy (1896), declaring: "The Fabian Society does not suggest that the State should monopolize industry as against private enterprise or individual initiative". Robert Blatchford, a member of the Fabian Society and the Independent Labour Party, wrote the work Merrie England (1894) that endorsed municipal socialism. In Merrie England, Blatchford distinguished two types of socialism, namely an ideal socialism and a practical socialism. Blatchford's practical socialism was a state socialism that identified existing state enterprise such as the Post Office run by the municipalities as a demonstration of practical socialism in action while claiming that practical socialism should involve the extension of state enterprise to the means of production as common property of the people. Although endorsing state socialism, Blatchford's Merrie England and his other writings were nonetheless influenced by anarcho-communist William Morris—as Blatchford himself attested to—and Morris' anarcho-communist themes are present in Merrie England.

Social democrats and other democratic socialists argue for a gradual, peaceful transition from capitalism to socialism. They wish to neutralize or to abolish capitalism, respectively, but through political reform rather than revolution. This method of gradualism implies utilization of the existing state apparatus and machinery of government to gradually move society toward socialism and is sometimes derided by other socialists as a form of socialism from above or political elitism for relying on electoral means to achieve socialism. In contrast, Marxism and revolutionary socialism holds that a proletarian revolution is the only practical way to implement fundamental changes in the structure of society. Socialists who advocate representative democracy believe that after a certain period of time under socialism the state will "wither away" because class distinctions cease to exist and representative democracy would be replaced by direct democracy in the remaining public associations comprising the former state. Political power would be decentralized and distributed evenly among the population, producing a communist society.

In 1888, the individualist anarchist Benjamin Tucker, who proclaimed himself to be an anarchistic socialist in opposition to state socialism, included the full text of a "Socialistic Letter" by Ernest Lesigne in his essay "State Socialism and Anarchism". According to Lesigne, there are two socialisms: "One is dictatorial, the other libertarian". Tucker's two socialisms were the state socialism which he associated to the Marxist school and the libertarian socialism that he advocated. Tucker noted that "the fact that State Socialism has overshadowed other forms of Socialism gives it no right to a monopoly of the Socialistic idea". According to Tucker, what those two schools of socialism had in common was the labor theory of value and the ends, by which anarchism pursued different means.

In communist states

Main article: Communist state

The economic model adopted in the former Soviet Union, Eastern Bloc and other communist states is often described as a form of state socialism. The ideological basis for this system was the Marxist–Leninist theory of socialism in one country. The system that emerged in the 1930s in the Soviet Union was based on state ownership of the means of production and centralized planning, along with bureaucratic management of the workplace by state officials that were ultimately subordinate to the all-encompassing communist party. Rather than the producers controlling and managing production, the party controlled both the government machinery which directed the national economy on behalf of the communist party and planned the production and distribution of capital goods.

Because of this development, classical and orthodox Marxists as well as Trotskyist groups denounced the communist states as being Stalinist and their economies as being state capitalist or representing deformed or degenerated workers' states, respectively. Within the socialist movement, there is criticism towards the use of the term socialist states in relation to countries such as China and previously of Soviet Union and Eastern and Central European states before what some term the "collapse of Stalinism" in 1989.

Trotskyism argues that the leadership of the communist states was corrupt and that it abandoned Marxism in all but name. In particular, some Trotskyist schools call those countries degenerated workers' states to contrast them with proper socialism (i.e. workers' states) while other Marxists and some Trotskyist schools call them state capitalist to emphasize the lack of true socialism and presence of defining capitalist characteristics (wage labor, commodity production and bureaucratic control over workers).

In Germany

Main article: State Socialism (Germany)

Otto von Bismarck implemented a set of social programs between 1883 and 1889 following his anti-socialist laws, partly as remedial measures to appease the working class and detract support for the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). Bismarck's biographer A. J. P. Taylor wrote: "It would be unfair to say that Bismarck took up social welfare solely to weaken the Social Democrats; he had had it in mind for a long time, and believed in it deeply. But as usual he acted on his beliefs at the exact moment when they served a practical need". When a reference was made to his friendship with Ferdinand Lassalle (a nationalist and state-oriented socialist), Bismarck said that he was a more practical socialist than the Social Democrats. These policies were informally referred to as State Socialism by liberal and conservative opponents and the term was later adopted by supporters of the programs in a further attempt to detract the working class from the SPD, with the goal of making the working class content with a nationalist-oriented capitalist welfare state.

Bismarck made the following statement as justification for his social welfare programs: "Whoever has pensions for his old age is far more easier to handle than one who has no such prospect. Look at the difference between a private servant in the chancellery or at court; the latter will put up with much more, because he has a pension to look forward to".

This did not prevent the Social Democrats to become the biggest party in parliament by 1912. According to historian Jonathan Steinberg, "[a]ll told, Bismarck's system was a massive success—except in one respect. His goal to keep the Social Democratic Party out of power utterly failed. The vote for the Social Democratic Party went up and by 1912 they were the biggest party in the Reichstag".

Analysis and reception

Many democratic and libertarian socialists, including anarchists, mutualists and syndicalists, criticize state socialism for advocating a workers' state instead of abolishing the bourgeois state apparatus outright. They use the term state socialism to contrast it with their own form of socialism which involves either collective ownership (in the form of worker cooperatives) or common ownership of the means of production without centralized state planning. Those socialists believe there is no need for a state in a socialist system because there would be no class to suppress and no need for an institution based on coercion and therefore regard the state being a remnant of capitalism. They hold that statism is antithetical to true socialism, the goal of which is the eyes of socialists such as William Morris, who wrote as follows in a Commonweal article: "State Socialism? — I don't agree with it; in fact I think the two words contradict one another, and that it is the business of Socialism to destroy the State and put Free Society in its place".

Classical and orthodox Marxists also view state socialism as an oxymoron, arguing that while an association for managing production and economic affairs would exist in socialism, it would no longer be a state in the Marxist definition which is based on domination by one class. Preceding the Bolshevik-led revolution in Russia, many socialist groups—including reformists, orthodox Marxist currents such as council communism and the Mensheviks as well as anarchists and other libertarian socialists—criticized the idea of using the state to conduct planning and nationalization of the means of production as a way to establish socialism. Lenin himself acknowledged his policies as state capitalism.

Some Trotskyists following on from Tony Cliff deny that it is socialism, calling it state capitalism. Other Trotskyists agree that these states could not be described as socialist, but deny that they were state capitalist. They support Leon Trotsky's analysis of pre-restoration Soviet Union as a workers' state that had degenerated into a bureaucratic dictatorship which rested on a largely nationalized industry run according to a production plan and claimed that the former Stalinist states of Central and Eastern Europe were deformed workers' states based on the same relations of production as the Soviet Union. Some Trotskyists such as the Committee for a Workers' International have at times included African, Asian and Middle Eastern constitutional socialist states when they have had a nationalized economy as deformed workers' states. Other socialists argued that the neo-Ba'athists promoted capitalists from within the party and outside their countries.

Those socialists who oppose any system of state control whatsoever believe in a more decentralized approach which puts the means of production directly into the hands of the workers rather than indirectly through state bureaucracies which they claim represent a new elite or class. This leads them to consider state socialism a form of state capitalism (an economy based on centralized management, capital accumulation and wage labor, but with the state owning the means of production) which Engels stated would be the final form of capitalism rather than socialism. Furthermore, nationalization and state ownership have nothing to do with socialism by itself, having been historically carried out for various different purposes under a wide variety of different political and economic systems.

State socialism is often referred to by right-wing detractors simply as socialism, including Austrian School economists such as Friedrich Hayek and Ludwig von Mises, who continually used the term socialism as a synonym for central planning and state socialism. This is notable in the United States, where socialism is a pejorative term to mean state socialism used by conservatives and libertarians to taint liberal and progressive policies, proposals and public figures. One criticism especially related to state socialism is the economic calculation problem, followed by the socialist calculation debate.