Marxism 101: What is Socialism?

Much has been said in the last 150 years about socialism, yet much confusion and obfuscation exist even today. The purpose here is to give more insight into the complex theoretical system of socialism. My hope is to clear some more of the misconceptions regarding socialism as a political and economic system and to further educate my readers about this fascinating alternative ideology.

First and foremost I should qualify my above statement regarding socialism as an ideology. I think that rendering it simply as an ideal is a bit short-sighted of what's really at stake. The best way to examine socialism (as a broader set of ideals) is to understand what it means in real-life application. That being said, socialism is best described as an economic system defined by public (rather than private) ownership of the means of production. Public, as opposed to communal ownership in communism, is rendered under the authority of the state. Now this brings up some important distinctions that fall under the broader terminology of socialism. As in Marxism, socialism is a necessary stage preceding the development of a communist society marked by the 'dictatorship of the proletariat' --- which I have written extensively throughout my articles here on Associated Content (to see more, view my Content Producer page).

How this economic system may be arranged in real-life situations can depend greatly. Often times, socialism may not accompany a working-class revolution similar to that which occurred in Russia in 1917 or other socialist states. It may resemble something more akin to the bourgeois socialism present in Sweden and other European nations that have strong and historical ties to state owned industries. Examples of state ownership do not necessarily imply a society is necessarily socialist. For instance, several industries are 'state owned' in the United States (such as the Post-Office), nevertheless this implies a mixed economic arrangement and not socialism.

For our purposes here, since after all this article is dedicated to the investigation of Marxism, I shall speak only of the socialism as Marx depicted in his theories and writings, and the respective developing theories that have occurred since his lifetime. This variety of socialism distances itself from participating in the mainstream electoral politics of bourgeois society and calls for revolution as a necessary step in the establishment of socialism.

It's important to note here that historically speaking socialism itself precedes Karl Marx and can be traced centuries before he ever authored (alongside Friedrich Engels) The Communist Manifesto (1848). Early indications of socialism can even be traced back to the ancient times, such as the works of the Persian social reformer Mazdak who initiated collective ownership and social welfare programs. France saw a development of socialism. Plato's Republic and the famous Utopia by Thomas Moore are also said to include many socialistic ideas, or proto-socialist notions. However, modern conceptions of socialism may be traced back to the 19^th century workers' movements that sought to respond and react to the drastic changes of the Industrial Revolution spreading across Europe. It was amongst this phenomenon that Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, witnessing the depravity industrialization wrought upon the destitute working peoples of Europe, that they put together a systematic ideology revolutionizing socialism into communism.

The most noted account of socialism (for Marxists) is found within the pages of The Communist Manifesto, where Marx and Engels specify the conditions of a socialist society. These include the abolition of private property and the legal concept of diverting profit from the land in the form of rent and payment; heavy progressive income taxes (to facilitate wealth redistribution); abolition to the right of inheritance (which was seen as a reactionary and wasteful maintenance of artificial class boundaries; confiscation of the property of emigrants and rebels; centralization of the credit of all banks of the state; centralization of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the state; extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the state, cultivation of waste-lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance to a common plan; equal obligation of all to work; combination of agricultural and industrial work, alongside the erasure of distinctions between town (city) and country (through equal distribution of the populace throughout the country); and finally free public education for all children and the end to child labor (also, education should be combined with productive knowledge) (Karl Marx, The Communist Manifesto Ch. 1 &2).

Marx understood of course that not every country would experience socialism the same, but as noted in his other works it would resemble a model similar to this especially in the most advanced countries - which were seen (according to Marx) as the necessary development of capitalism in order for proletarian revolution to begin with.

Socialism represents more than simple transitions in economic relations and arrangements, but also a social, political, and cultural transformation at the hands of the new system. In accordance with socialism in general, Marx says of the new state, "Between capitalist and communist society there lies the period of the revolutionary transformation of the one into the other. Corresponding to this is also a political transition period in which the state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat"(Karl Marx, Critique of the Gotha Program, Ch. 4 On Democracy).

Thus revolution is necessary for the replacement of the dominant class in capitalist society (the bourgeois) by the proletariat. Only then can this variety of socialism ever be established in the direction of an ultimate communist society.

Now there has been a lot of historical contention regarding what Marx meant by this 'dictatorship of the proletariat,' which I will mention here only briefly for I have covered it in more depth in some of my articles. Note that dictatorship in this sense does not imply the type of dystopian, tyrannical, or arbitrary oppression associated with the word in present-day understanding. The dictatorship implies the solitary control over the state by the working classes, as opposed to a diverse class-makeup of the ownership of the means of production. Even more the state itself is seen as a device of class-oppression in itself, so it follows that whomever controls the state is inherently issuing some means of oppression against one class or another (and in the case of socialism it is the extraction and abolition of capital from the properties classes that most defines the 'oppression').

The nature of this variety of socialism (as Marx envisioned it) is not necessarily the direct means for creating an equal and just society. The economic basis for relations under socialism follows a law distinct from private ownership. Each individual producer plays an essential role in society. Unlike in capitalism, the workers are not paid a wage in exchange for his labor for producing or providing a service for the creation of profit. Rather, it is based on the labor theory of value which holds that the worker himself, by producing commodities, is the source of value for all economic transactions. On this basis then, in socialism, according to the principle of distribution according to the amount of labor performed," the worker (after necessary deductions) is compensated not on the basis of a set wage but rather accordingly to what he has put in towards the collective output. The point here is not a system of production of commodities, but rather a system of collectivized production for the collective good; whereas each individual producer is not simplified into merely a mode of production but rather seen as an essential part of the overall output. Accordingly then, he is rewarded by exactly that which he has put into this collective effort and his needs are satisfied through this process.

In conclusion socialism itself is not aimed at producing a just and equitable society; rather, its purpose is to render a new society based on state-ownership of the means of production for one purpose: to make the system of exploitation as seen in capitalism all but impossible. For it is true (even according to Marx) that socialism will contain physical and material inequalities; nonetheless, abolition of private property is the most crucial step in working towards the achievement of a communist society which will be the focus of my next article in my Marxism 101 series.