Socialism - Part 7

Socialism

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Socialism and social and political theory

Doctrinally, Marxist and non-Marxist social theorists agree that Socialism developed in reaction to modern industrial capitalism, but disagree on the nature of their relationship. Émile Durkheim posits that socialism is rooted in the desire to bring the State closer to the realm of individual activity, in countering the anomie of a Capitalist society. In socialism, Max Weber saw acceleration of the rationalization started in Capitalism. As critic of Socialism, he warned that placing the economy entirely in the State's bureaucratic control would result in an iron cage of future bondage.

In the middle of the twentieth century, Socialist intellectuals retained much influence in European philosophy; Eros and Civilization (1955), by Herbert Marcuse, explicitly attempts merging Marxism with Freudianism; and the social science of Structuralism much influenced the socialist New Left in the 1960s and the 1970s.

Criticisms of socialism

Main article: Criticisms of socialism

Criticisms of socialism range from claims that socialist economic and political models are inefficient or incompatible with civil liberties to condemnation of specific socialist states. There is much focus on the economic performance and human rights records of Communist states, although some[who?] proponents of socialism reject the categorization of such states as socialist.

In the economic calculation debate, classical liberal Friedrich Hayek argued that a socialist command economy could not adequately transmit information about prices and productive quotas due to the lack of a price mechanism, and as a result it could not make rational economic decisions. Ludwig von Mises argued that a socialist economy was not possible at all. Hayek further argued that the social control over distribution of wealth and private property advocated by socialists cannot be achieved without reduced prosperity for the general populace, and a loss of political and economic freedoms.

Hayek's views were echoed by Winston Churchill in an electoral broadcast prior to the British general election of 1945:

. . . a socialist policy is abhorrent to the British ideas of freedom. Socialism is inseparably interwoven with totalitarianism and the object worship of the state. It will prescribe for every one where they are to work, what they are to work at, where they may go and what they may say. Socialism is an attack on the right to breathe freely. No socialist system can be established without a political police. They would have to fall back on some form of Gestapo, no doubt very humanely directed in the first instance.

It has been suggested in "The Downing Street Years" that Margaret Thatcher believed that there was no fairer trial for socialism than in Britain in the mid-20th century, and it has been conclusively proved to be a failure.

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I thought a few lessons on Socialism would be a good thing. The above is copied directly from the Wikipedia page on Socialism. I did remove the footnote indicators. The links provided on Wikipedia did not translate (of course), and there are a lot of them! So I elected to not spend an hour or more adding all the links. I suggest you go to Wikipedia (link provided) and read it yourself.