Socialism & Communism

Socialism & Communism Getting there

Overview • The Goal • The Two Roads to Reaching It • Evolutionary (Democratic) Socialism • Bernstein • Revolutionary Socialism • Lenin • Trotsky • Mao

The Goal “The bourgeoisie, during its rule of scarce one hundred years, has created more massive and more colossal productive forces than have all preceding generations together. Subjection of nature’s forces to man, machinery, application of chemistry to industry and agriculture, steam-navigation, railways, electric telegraphs, clearing of ground -- what earlier century had even a presentiment that such productive forces slumbered in the lap of social labour?” -- Communist Manifesto

The Goal • Because capitalism has generated these enormous productive forces, we can envision a world where we can use that social production for social welfare.

LaborTime Leisure Time

The Goals • The Communist Manifesto includes a variety of goals -- long and short term -- of the communist movement • Long term goals include: • Abolition of Private Property • Community of women • “True” Freedom & Democracy

The Goals • It also includes some short term goals, including: • graduated income tax • abolition of inheritance • centralized credit, communication • free education for children • abolition of child labor laws

The Roads to Socialism • Marx and Engels helped unify the socialist movement in Europe • With their death, and the resolute failure of capitalism to collapse as expected, leadership of the worker’s movement looks for ways to hasten the advent of socialism

Roads to Socialism • In their writings, Marx and Engels sometimes support democratic change, and sometimes the need for violent revolution • Various wings of the socialist movement look to ground their policies in the writings of Marx and Engels • Why?

Roads to Socialism • The key is the claim to have developed a “scientific” socialism • What’s special about “science”?

Roads to Socialism • You can’t dispute the law of gravity • You can’t argue withscience • So, the socialists afterMarx attempt to use the method to supporttheir policy prescriptions

Evolutionary Socialism • One road to socialism that eventually becomes social democracy argues that the change from capitalism to socialism will be a protracted affair and that we need to use democratic means to achieve a democratic society

Evolutionary Socialism • Eduard Bernstein(1850-1932) • German social democrat • Best known for “revisionist” theory of Marx (as opposed to Lenin’s “orthodox” Marxism

Evolutionary Socialism • Bernstein argues that a really “scientific” approach would take new evidence and modify the theory to conform to the science • Points out that capitalism has not developed in the manner predicted by Marx • Argues for the need to re-examine Marx’s presuppositions and modify (or revise) the theory to accommodate the new reality

Evolutionary Socialism “That the number of the wealthy increases and does not diminish is not an invention of bourgeois ‘harmony economists,’ but a fact established by the boards of assessment for taxes, often to the chagrin of those concerned, a fact which can no longer be disputed…”

Evolutionary Socialism “One has not overcome Utopianism if one assumes that there is in the present, or ascribes to the present, what is to be in the future. We have to take working men as they are. And they are neither so universally pauperised as was set out in the Communist Manifesto, nor so free from prejudices and weaknesses as their courtiers wish to make us believe. They have the virtues and failings of the economic and social conditions under which they live. And neither those conditions nor their effects can be put on one side from one day to another.”

Evolutionary Socialism • In other words, we need, as Marx and Engels suggested, to take people as they actually are, not as we want them to be and work with the real materials we have • Most workers, as it turns out, have more to lose than their chains and may be unwilling to make the leaps to socialism that we would like

Evolutionary Socialism • That means we need to slow things down, and work to improve the conditions now and set the stage for bigger changes to come

Evolutionary Socialism “Law, or the path of legislative reform, is the slower way, and revolutionary force the quicker and more radical. But that only is true in a restricted sense. Whether the legislative or the revolutionary method is the more promising depends entirely on the nature of the measures and on their relation to different classes and customs of the people…”

Evolutionary Socialism “In general, one may say here that the revolutionary way (always in the sense of revolution by violence) does quicker work as far as it deals with removal of obstacles which a privileged minority places in the path of social progress: that its strength lies on its negative side…”

Evolutionary Socialism “Constitutional legislation…is stronger than the revolution scheme where prejudice and the limited horizon of the great mass of the people appear as hindrances to social progress, and it offers greater advantages where it is a question of the creation of permanent economic arrangements capable of lasting; in other words, it is best adapted to positive social political work.”

Evolutionary Socialism • In other words, we may be on a long and winding road to socialism, freedom, and democracy

Revolutionary Socialism The other road to socialism may be considerably shorter, and that’s by violent revolution

Revolutionary Socialism • V.I. Lenin(1870-1924) • Leader of the Russian revolution of 1917, the first successful Marxist revolution in the world

Revolutionary Socialism • Argued no need to “revise” the theory of scientific Marxism to conform to new facts • Rather, we need to use the theory to explain new facts • Marx and Engels saw communism as a global struggle, and Lenin sought to apply their analysis to global capitalism

Revolutionary Socialism • Capitalism has morphed into Imperialism, as Marx and Engels predicted it would • It has survived because it has managed to “buy off” its own worker class at the expense of the poorer countries in the world

Revolutionary Socialism “Monopolies, oligarchy, the striving for domination and not for freedom, the exploitation of an increasing number of small or weak nations by a handful of the richest or most powerful nations-- all these have given birth to those distinctive characteristics of imperialism which compel us to define it as a parasitic or decaying capitalism.” -- “Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism

Revolutionary Socialism • It’s the “decaying” stage, in the sense that imperialism can only work for so long • The Bourgeoisie will quickly run out of poor countries to exploit • When the world is fully divided up, the contradictions of capitalism buried by imperial conquest will return to the forefront

Revolutionary Socialism • When the world is divided up, the richest countries will either have to fight each other for control and to conquer the poorer areas Or...

Revolutionary Socialism • The class struggle will play out first as national struggles in the poorer countries • Loss of the colonies will then mean return of the class struggle at home in the capitalist countries

Revolutionary Socialism

Socialism & Communism