Socialism

Socialism is the system of social organization in which private property and the distribution of income are subject to social control; it also refers to the political movements aimed at putting that system into practice.

Origins

The origins of socialism as a political movement lie in the Industrial Revolution. Its intellectual roots, however, reach back almost as far as recorded thought — even as far as Moses, according to one history of the subject. Socialist or communist ideas certainly play an important part in the ideas of the ancient Greek philosopher Plato, whose Republic depicts an austere society in which men and women of the "guardian" class share with each other not only their few material goods but also their spouses and children. Early Christian communities also practiced the sharing of goods and labour, a simple form of socialism subsequently followed in certain forms of monasticism. Several monastic orders continue these practices today.

Christianity and Platonism were combined in More’s Utopia, which apparently recommends communal ownership as a way of controlling the sins of pride, envy, and greed. Land and houses are common property on More’s imaginary island of Utopia, where everyone works for at least two years on the communal farms and people change houses every 10 years so that no one develops pride of possession. Money has been abolished, and people are free to take what they need from common storehouses. All the Utopians live simply, moreover, so that they are able to meet their needs with only a few hours of work a day, leaving the rest for leisure.

More’s Utopia is not so much a blueprint for a socialist society as it is a commentary on the failings he perceived in the supposedly Christian societies of his day. Religious and political turmoil, however, soon inspired others to try to put utopian ideas into practice. Common ownership was one of the aims of the brief Anabaptist regime in the Westphalian city of Münster during the Protestant Reformation, and several communist or socialist sects sprang up in England in the wake of the Civil Wars (1642–51). Chief among them was the Diggers, whose members claimed that God had created the world for people to share, not to divide and exploit for private profit. When they acted on this belief by digging and planting on land that was not legally theirs, they ran afoul of Oliver Cromwell’s Protectorate, which forcibly disbanded them.

Whether utopian or practical, these early visions of socialism were largely agrarian. This remained true as late as the French Revolution, when the journalist François-Noël Babeuf and other radicals complained that the Revolution had failed to fulfill the ideals of liberty, equality, and fraternity. Adherence to "the precious principle of equality," Babeuf argued, requires the abolition of private property and common enjoyment of the land and its fruits. Such beliefs led to his execution for conspiring to overthrow the government. The publicity that followed his trial and death, however, made him a hero to many in the 19th century who reacted against the emergence of industrial capitalism.

Economic calculation

The seeds of the calculation debate had been planted by a host of economists before Ludwig von Mises posed the central question "in such a form as to make it impossible that it should ever again disappear." Mises' article, adapted from a lecture of a year earlier, appeared in the spring of 1920 entitled "Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth" (pdf). The famous challenge of Mises was uncompromising and to the point: "Where there is no free market, there is no pricing mechanism: without a pricing mechanism, there is no economic calculation." Two years later the argument was enlarged in a wide-ranging critique of socialism, entitled Die Gemeinwirtschaft (html, pdf), after which replies from his critics began. Mises defended his position in articles published in 1924 and 1928 against, in Hayek's estimation, "objections [that] were really more quibbling about words caused by the fact that Mises had occasionally used the somewhat loose statement that socialism [economic calculation] was impossible."

The main effect of Mises' arguments has been best summed up by the renowned socialist economist Oskar Lange: "It was [Mises'] powerful challenge that forced the socialists to recognize the importance of an adequate system of economic accounting in a socialist economy. Even more, it was chiefly due to Professor Mises' challenge that many socialists became aware of the very existence of such a problem." But the real effect, was to force the socialists to retreat from a pure advocacy of Marxian socialism to a compromise watered down with "competitive" infusions-market socialism.

External links

• Socialism on Wikipedia
• Why Nazism Was Socialism and Why Socialism Is Totalitarian by George Reisman, November 2005
• Why Intellectuals Still Support Socialism by Peter G. Klein, November 2006
• The Intellectuals and Socialism (pdf) by F.A. Hayek, 1949
• National Socialism by Ralph Reiland, September 1998
• Socialism vs. Market Exchange by Ludwig von Mises, August 2002
• Socialism versus European Democracy by Ludwig von Mises, 1943
• Nationalism and Socialism by Faustino Ballve, March 2008
• Nazism is Socialism by Adam Young, September 2001
• The Nature of Socialism by Mateusz Machaj, January 2010
• Middle-of-the-Road Policy Leads to Socialism by Ludwig von Mises, 1950
• The End of Socialism and the Calculation Debate Revisited by Murray N. Rothbard, 1991