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CHAPTER 4
HISTORICAL OVERVIEW Although socialists have sometimes claimed an intellectual heritage that goes back to Plato’s Republic or Thomas More’s Utopia ([1516] 1965), as with liberalism and conservatism, the origins of socialism lie in the nineteenth century. Socialism arose as a reaction against the social and economic conditions generated in Europe by the growth of industrial capitalism (see p. 77). Socialist ideas were quickly linked to the development of a new but growing class of industrial workers, who suffered the poverty and degradation that are so often features of early industrialization. Although socialism and liberalism have common roots in the Enlightenment, and share a faith in principles such as reason and progress, socialism emerged as a critique of liberal market society and was defined by its attempt to offer an alternative to industrial capitalism. The character of early socialism was influenced by the harsh and often inhuman conditions in which the industrial working class lived and worked. Wages were typically low, child and female labour were commonplace, the working day often lasted up to twelve hours and the threat of unemployment was ever present. In addition, the new working class was disorientated, being largely composed of first-generation urban dwellers, unfamiliar with the conditions of industrial life and work, and possessing few of the social institutions that could give their lives stability or meaning. As a result, early socialists often sought a radical, even revolutionary alternative to industrial capitalism. For instance, Charles Fourier (1772–1837) in France and Robert Owen (see p. 80) in the UK subscribed to utopianism in founding experimental communities based on sharing and cooperation. The Germans Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels (1820–95) developed more complex and systematic theories, which claimed to uncover the ‘laws of history’ and proclaimed that the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism was inevitable.
KEY FIGURE
KARL MARX (1818–83) A German philosopher, economist and life-long revolutionary, Marx is usually portrayed as the father of twentieth-century communism. The centrepiece of Marx’s thought is a ‘scientific’ critique of capitalism that highlights, in keeping with previous class society, systemic inequality and therefore fundamental instability. Marx’s materialist theory of history holds that social development will inevitably culminate in the establishment of a classless communist society. His vast works include the Communist Manifesto (1848) (written with Friedrich Engels (1820–95)) and the three-volume Capital (1867, 1885 and 1894).
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In the late nineteenth century, the character of socialism was transformed by a gradual improvement inworking-class living conditions and the advance of political democracy.The growth of trade unions, working-class political parties and sports and social clubs served to provide greater economic security and to integrate the working class into industrial society. In the advanced industrial societies of Western Europe, it became increasingly difficult to
continue to see the working class as a revolutionary force. Socialist political parties progressively adopted legal and constitutional tactics, encouraged by the gradual extension of the vote to working-class men. By World War I, the socialist world was clearly divided between those socialist parties that had sought power through the ballot box and preached reform, and those that proclaimed a continuing need for revolution. The Russian Revolution of
Utopianism: A belief in the unlimited possibilities of human development, typically embodied in the vision of a perfect or ideal society, a utopia (see p. 110).
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