Socialism is a political and economic ideology that calls for the means of production, distribution and exchange (everything from raw materials and factories to transport infrastructure) to be owned and/or regulated by the whole of society. Seen as in opposition to capitalism, socialism aims to create more equitable societies by negating the influence of private wealth. The means of production includes all the facilities and resources for the production of goods and services.
Socialist-style models of government have been discussed for millennia. Some, for instance, cite Plato as espousing socialist ideals in Republic, with his call for an end to private families and limits on private property. In the 6th century CE, meanwhile, the Zoroastrian visionary Mazdak instituted systems of communal ownership and social welfare in the Persian Sasanian Empire. However, modern socialist thought did not develop until the 18th century, in part inspired by the French Revolution. Towards the end of the century, Thomas Paine – future American Founding Father – was in England, arguing for new taxes on property to fund the welfare of the poor. By the 1820s and 30s, the first organized labour movements – such as the Chartists in Britain – were emerging, alongside cooperative movements (associations set up to meet the common economic and social needs of its members).
The father of socialism
By the mid-19th century socialism had gained a foothold across Europe. Its single most important voice was the German-born Karl Marx, who – often in partnership with Friedrich Engels – wrote the great philosophical masterpieces of socialism and what Marx considered its logical conclusion: communism. Marx and Engels published The Communist Manifesto in 1848. It envisaged humanity’s fate as the culmination of economic and political factors played out over history. ‘The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles,’ he wrote. Marx traced a path from an ancient system of common ownership to one based on private property and slavery, which in turn led to feudalism, to be subsequently replaced by capitalism. Each system saw the domination of one social group by another until its own violent overthrow, and Marx predicted the next great transition – from capitalism to communism – was fast approaching.
Marx went on to argue that capitalism had seen wealth and privilege fall to a minority class of property owners (the bourgeoisie) at the expense of the mass of wage-labourers (the proletariat) as a result of exploitation. With technological advances and the further concentration of capital, he said, unemployment would swell the ranks of the disenchanted proletariat, precipitating inevitable revolution. Thus capitalism would bring about its own demise – another victim of the cycle of history. Moreover, he expected the resultant communist state to be the perfect realization of a society where everything is in common ownership, rendering crime and conflict redundant and government unnecessary. ‘Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains,’ concluded the Manifesto. ‘They have a world to win.’