Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site gargoyle.UChicago.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ihnp4!crsp!gargoyle!carnes
From: carnes@gargoyle.UChicago.UUCP (Richard Carnes)
Newsgroups: net.politics,net.politics.theory
Subject: Re: What is socialism?
Message-ID: <325@gargoyle.UChicago.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 6-Feb-85 11:37:47 EST
Article-I.D.: gargoyle.325
Posted: Wed Feb  6 11:37:47 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 7-Feb-85 03:59:07 EST
Organization: U. Chicago - Computer Science
Lines: 125
Xref: watmath net.politics:7397 net.politics.theory:16

[IQ test for readers of net.politics:  Prove that your IQ is at least 45 by
posting followups to this article to net.politics.theory, where discussions
on the nature of socialism belong.]

Libertarians have claimed that "socialism" implies sacrificing the
individual for the sake of the collectivity, again illustrating their
disinclination to study socialist theory and learn something about what they
are talking about.  Having learned all about socialism from Ayn Rand, they
need not bother reading socialist writings.  I have news for JoSH and
others:  the ideals of democratic socialism, and of Marx and Engels, do not
include trampling on the individual for the sake of society.  If I thought
that was the case, I would repudiate socialism.  As a sample of socialist
writing I have appended a passage by Henry Pachter below to save you the
trouble of looking it up.  I have no illusions that this article will do
much good:  arguing with libertarians is an exercise in futility, like
arguing with children.  I have so far counted exactly two libertarians out
of the many on net.politics who show a capacity for rational thought:  D. K.
Mc Kiernan and Laura Creighton; the rest retreat to dogmatism.  From Pachter:

"Socialism strives to abolish exploitation and inequality.  It seeks a
society where merit and character are the only marks of distinction; where
economic resources are controlled by public agencies, themselves under
public scrutiny; where production is geared to the human needs of all and
the product is distributed equitably; a society, finally, where man is no
longer utilized as a means for purposes alien to him.

"In practice, however, socialism has usually come to be identified with
"collectivism," and two of its best known features are public ownership of
the means of production and a comprehensive "plan" of production and
distribution.

"These are indeed characteristic of states that now call themselves
"socialist," but a moment's reflection will show that they are inadequate to
define socialism.  Nationalization is not socialization, and a plan must
have a purpose:  it may be designed to enhance the development of man's
potentialities or it may be the instrument of national ambitions.  The Inca
state and Egypt of the Pharaohs featured both public ownership and a plan,
but paired with servitude and exploitation.  Spartan communism subjected all
citizens to equal political repression.  Bismarck nationalized the railroads
and the health service; Hitler's war machine was powered by a planned
"command economy."  Some modern states have adopted a rapid
industrialization plan which -- though praiseworthy in its intention --
ruthlessly subordinates the desires of the citizens to the needs of the
state.  Others have abolished the market for political reasons without,
however, freeing the production units from the tyranny of profit
calculations that continue to keep the workers under the yoke of
exploitation.

"To call this "socialism" is to misuse a good word.  Socialism is not a
technocratic scheme designed to run the capitalist economy more efficiently,
nor is it an economy that has merely been rid of capitalistic parasites.
Socialists hope to emancipate people from serving goals that have been
imposed on them either by arbitrary masters or by abstract laws of economic
development.  They aim to make people responsible for their own destiny and
to give everybody a chance to fulfill his or her aspirations as a person.
This dream has been expressed in the socialist literature of all times.  I
shall cite one source that, because it may not be guessed easily, is
especially significant:

	In place of the old bourgeois society, with its classes and
	antagonisms, we shall have an association in which the free
	development of each is the condition for the free development of
	all.

"In most anthologies this sentence is the conclusion of the *Communist
Manifesto* for it is indeed the end of its theoretical exposition.  It must
be assumed that Marx and Engels worded this ending with special care, and it
is therefore noteworthy that they said "association" instead of "state," and
that they did not consider the development of the whole a condition for the
development of each, but on the contrary "THE DEVELOPMENT OF EACH THE
CONDITION FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF ALL."

"I do not consider Marx and Engels oracles, but it is significant that these
alleged "collectivists" placed the individual ahead of the collective.
True, they proposed to abolish "private property," but not to put state
property in its place.  Their "association" was supposed to abolish the
relationship of property between capital and worker, between dead and living
labor; it was to substitute a direct, human relationship of cooperation for
the mediated, material relationship of property and profitability.

"Socialism has inherited this emancipatory dream from a long tradition of
democratic revolutionary thinkers; as is well known, their revolutions were
side-tracked and ended in capitalism -- with individualism frozen in the
property relationship and opportunity confined to the class of owners.
Socialism continues the movement of emancipation that was started in the
eighteenth century, and it wants to spread individualism to all, removing
the fetters that capitalism has clasped on the fulfillment of many human
aspirations.  Freedom is not a luxury to be enjoyed only by the members of a
ruling elite, but a basic human aspiration that was brought to flower only
in the unique development of Western civilization, and it is still waiting
for full and generalized realization.  Civil rights and human rights are
still expanding, and their wider scope is on the agenda of socialism.  FAR
FROM SUBDUING THE INDIVIDUAL, SOCIALISM IS THE HIGHEST STAGE OF
INDIVIDUALISM -- ITS FRUITION FOR ALL.

"As an association of people, the socialist society certainly must reflect
the democratic structure and behavior of its origin -- the socialist
movement.  Readers interested in political theory may have noticed that in
the passage I cited Marx and Engels fell into the language of Rousseau,
although on other occasions they were highly critical of theories that
attribute the founding of the state to a "contract"; but when they wrote the
*Manifesto* they still saw the socialist revolution as the direct outgrowth
of the democratic spirit of that revolution, they saw "the association" as
the means to mediate between the demands of society and the rights of the
individual.  They could not conceive of a society (much less a state) that
would set itself goals other than those that the citizens themselves had
made their own.

"But socialism begins with the insight that the whole is more than the sum of
its parts.  The association can envisage goals that unassociated individuals
might not even be able to conceive.  This is an opportunity as well as a
danger.  In the following pages I shall discuss problems that have arisen
for socialism out of the conflict between the will of the whole and the will
of the parts:  how much freedom may smaller associations (the shop, the
region, the profession, the ethnic or religious fraternity) reserve
vis-a-vis the big association (the nation, an international authority)?  How
much discipline or obedience can the larger community expect from the
smaller and from the individual?  When does the public ethos prevail over
the private conscience?"
[Henry Pachter]

And if you want to know Pachter's answers you will have to read the rest
of his article, in *Beyond the Welfare State*, ed. I. Howe.

Richard Carnes, ihnp4!gargoyle!carnes