Politics Essay: Socialism

Socialists have disagreed about both the means and ends of socialism. Discuss

Two major issues have divided competing traditions and tendencies within socialism. The first is the goals or ends for which socialists should strive for and the second is the means they should use to achieve socialists ends. The two variations of socialism which focuses on the means are revolutionary and evolutionary socialism while the two that focus on the goals are fundamentalist and revisionist socialism.

Revolutionary socialists believed that socialism could only be introduced by a revolutionary overthrow of the existing political system which was, in most countries, capitalism. The first successful socialist revolution was the Bolshevik revolution in 1917, which served as a model for subsequent generations of revolutionary socialists. Revolutionary socialists seek a mass uprising of the working class to seize control of the economy and create an egalitarian society based on common ownership.

However as the 19^th century progressed, enthusiasm for popular revolt waned in advanced capitalist states such as western Europe. Capitalism had matured and the urban working class lost its revolutionary character. Wages had increased and the working class had more rights and better working conditions. Therefore, evolutionary socialism developed, which believed that socialism would develop naturally and peacefully out of liberal capitalism. The Fabian Society introduced parliamentary socialism in the UK and they believed that socialism could be introduced through political action and education. The political action would come from the creation of a socialist party to compete for power while elite groups could be converted to socialism through education. They believed socialism would occur through a gradual process of social reform and the working class would use the ballot box to introduce socialism, which would therefore develop as an evolutionary outgrowth of capitalism.

Fundamentalist socialism rejects capitalism completely and seeks to abolish and replace it. It sees the main flaw of capitalism as private property and so wants to establish socialism in the form of common ownership and equality of outcome. Revisionist socialism on the other hand only wants to reform or tame capitalism, rather than abolish it. It wants to establish socialism through social justice. This means narrowing economic and social inequalities through welfare and redistribution.

Each form of socialism has therefore subscribed to either revolutionary or evolutionary and fundamentalist or revisionist socialism. The revolutionary nature of revolutionary socialism has led to the pursuit of fundamentalist ends. As revolutionary socialists want to overthrow the existing political system, they disagree with the revisionist aim of reforming or taming capitalism. This means that there can only ever be a revolutionary fundamentalist socialist and never a revolutionary revisionist. The best example of revolutionary fundamentalism would be the communist tradition which envisaged a proletariat revolution leading to an egalitarian society and common ownership. However, revolutionary socialism was greatly undermined by the collapse of communism and the totalitarian implications. There can however be an evolutionary fundamentalist. A clear example of this can be seen in the Fabian Society who still sought to abolish capitalism but believed it would naturally develop as an evolutionary outgrowth of capitalism. Nonetheless there are far more evolutionary revisionists than evolutionary fundamentalists. The most obvious example of evolutionary revisionists is social democracy, more specifically New Labour, which aims to tame capitalism through social reform and nationalization while establishing socialism through increased social justice, using the welfare state and equality of opportunity.

The collapse of communism proved revolutionary fundamentalism to be unsuccessful as its totalitarian implications and often military style approaches to ruling mean people become even more fed up than they were with capitalism and have a counter revolution. The collapse has undermined revolutionary fundamentalism to such an extent that it is unlikely to find broad success again, although it does still survive in a few Eastern countries.

Evolutionary fundamentalism existed for quite a while in the form of the Labour party however the party’s failure to be elected caused them to tame their views and principles, most notably through the removal of Clause 4, and tuned them from evolutionary fundamentalists to evolutionary revisionists. Indeed it appears that evolutionary fundamentalism is the most successful combination as most western countries today show elements of social democracy. In the mid 20^th century the UK had a social democracy in the Attlee government who established the welfare state and developed the long boom of the 50s and 60s through Keynesian economics. Since the Labour party’s removal of Clause 4, however, it has been argued that they have departed greatly from social democratic principles.