Book Review from the March 2007 issue of the Socialist Standard
Socialism: A Very Short Introduction, by Michael Newman. Oxford University Press. £6.99.
We are hard to please when it comes to books on socialism because it is likely they won’t mean by socialism what we do. This book is no exception but if “socialism” is understood as meaning “what has been considered socialism” it’s not too bad.
The definition of socialism we have inherited – a society based on the common ownership by all the people of the means of production – is logically and historically justified, but we don’t want such common ownership for its own sake. What we want primarily is a society where people are socially equal, have an equal say in how things are run, and feel, and are, part of a genuine community with a common interest; in abstract terms, where equality, democracy and community exist, arguing that this can only happen on the basis of the common ownership by all of the means for producing wealth.
Newman says that socialism involves “a belief in the possibility of constructing an alternative egalitarian system based on the values of solidarity and co-operation”, that such a system is not incompatible with human nature and that it can be brought about by conscious human action. We fall into this category, but so do others. Newman uses the word “socialist” in this book to describe all who do.
The two major movements in the last century which claimed to be committed to this were the Social Democratic and Labour parties and the Leninists. The former believed that an “alternative egalitarian system based on the values of solidarity and co-operation” could be gradually introduced through parliamentary action within capitalism; the latter argued (for most of the time) that it could only be done dictatorially, though still gradually, after the seizure of political power by a vanguard party.
Newman examines what he considers the most favourable cases of both strategies: Sweden for the Social Democrats and Cuba for the Leninists. He does conclude that less inequality came to exist in these countries than previously, but suggests that other factors than a desire to establish “socialism” were involved.
Our view is that all Sweden had under the Social Democrats (recently voted out of office again) was a reformed capitalism, while Cuba (Russia, China, North Korea and the rest) were state capitalist dictatorships which had nothing to do with socialism. And that both contributed to the alteration of meaning that the word socialism underwent in the last century.
Searching for more modern contributions to the idea of socialism, Newman comes up with feminism and ecologism. Socialists are of course feminists in the sense that we believe in equality between men and women, but nowadays only a few ageing feminists from the 1960s and 70s still see feminism as having some connexion with socialism; most now see it as meaning that women should be allowed to compete on equal terms in the rat-race capitalism imposes and have an equal chance of ending up capitalists, top politicians or army generals.
Socialists have become more aware of environmental issues than at one time, but most Greens think that these problems can be solved by gradual parliamentary action, and participation in running capitalism, as the old Social Democrat and Labour parties used to think working-class problems could be. They, too, are doomed to fail.
We can, however, agree with Newman when he says, in his conclusion, that as long as capitalism exists so will socialist ideas: “What can be maintained with confidence is that capitalism will not be able to resolve the problems and injustices it causes, that there will be constant protests in one form or another, and that socialist arguments remain relevant. However, it is the task of socialists to help create that consciousness” rather than assume that socialism will come automatically.
Adam Buick
No comments:
Post a Comment