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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Slippery nouns: Socialism and Marxism
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Og, King of Bashan
Ship's giant Amorite
# 9562
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Posted
Without any background in political science or philosophy, I'll take a first run.
Marxism is a philosophy, socialism is a political and economic system that plays a major role in Marxist political and economic theory.
I would say socialism is the harder of the two to define, because it encompasses so many different variants. Some socialists would abolish private property, but probably not all. I'd say at its core it involves state-mandated sharing of resources and state provision of social welfare programs, with the idea that the greatest number of people will benefit from such an arrangement.
Marxism is a philosophy that sees human history as a long power struggle. They see socialism as the next step in inevitable human evolution from capitalism. It's better than capitalism, but it's still just a step on the way to stateless, classless communism. Marxism might influence not just how you look at history, government, and economics, but also how you read a piece of literature, listen to music, and view religion.
I think you can be a socialist without being a Marxist, but if you told a Marxist that you were socialist and not Marxist, the Marxist might accuse you of totally misunderstanding socialism. Kind of like a Christian might react if you say you like Jesus as a moral teacher but don't get into the whole son of God and resurrection thing.
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"I like to eat crawfish and drink beer. That's despair?" ― Walker Percy
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Kaplan Corday
Shipmate
# 16119
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Posted
Marxism can be just as difficult to define as socialism, because it is possible to be a "soft" Marxist (selectively and provisionally modifying and utilising various insights suggested by Marx, in the humanities and social sciences), or a hardline "religious" Marxist, insisting on inevitable historical determinism, absolute communism, and even the desirability of various would-be totalitarian regimes which have labelled themselves Marxist/communist.
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Barnabas62
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# 9110
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Posted
A thread which reminds me how much I miss ken!
Personally I think Marxism without historical determinism - the inevitable conflict between the proletariat producers and the wealthy exploiters - is not Marxism. So I'm not sure about Kaplan Corday's hard and soft distinction.
I see socialism as based on an emphasis on the value and power of collective responsibility. The Acts 2 emphasis on 'having all things in common' and a willing sharing of possessions is a kind of model. It doesn't have anything directly to say about class struggle or historical inevitability. Rather it emphasises sharing as a better way to live.
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
Re what Barnabas said about sharing being a better way of living:
The Dalai Lama said that *communism* failed because it wasn't based on compassion.
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--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
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Kaplan Corday
Shipmate
# 16119
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
I see socialism as based on an emphasis on the value and power of collective responsibility. The Acts 2 emphasis on 'having all things in common' and a willing sharing of possessions is a kind of model. It doesn't have anything directly to say about class struggle or historical inevitability. Rather it emphasises sharing as a better way to live.
There is a huge extrapolatory jump from the comprehensive, grass-roots, voluntary socialism (communism, actually) of Acts 2, to secular, political socialism.
I am a socialist in many respects, but for reasons of both economic well-being and individual liberty, I would be loth to see an attempt at total eradication of all market mechanisms and private property.
Tangent alert: Years ago when I was teaching a secondary school Scripture class, I compared the disciples in Acts 2 with contemporary experiments in communalism involvuing a number of Christian families sharing a house and having various things, eg the lawn mower, in common. Sure enough, in the exam I came across the early believers in Jerusalem sharing a lawn mower.
[ 10. June 2016, 05:49: Message edited by: Kaplan Corday ]
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
Engels wrote a famous pamphlet called 'Socialism: Utopian and Scientific'. This became probably the standard text amongst Marxists, and the utopians were scorned by Marxists such as Lenin.
In a British context, the utopian species is well exemplifed by Robert Owen, who had a kind of futuristic vision of peaceful working communities. But Owen wasn't just a dreamer, he organized factories and communities in Scotland and the US, although I'm not sure how successful they were.
Engels' reference to 'scientific' socialism refers to Marxism, the view that the utopians had not exposed the material bases of economic (and social) relations in production itself. Thus class itself in a Marxist context, can be defined by means of the relation to the means of production of a group of people, e.g. the capitalist owns them.
I think today there has been much hybridization, so you have social democracy, which is not anti-capitalist at all; there have been some fusions between anarchism and socialism, as in Spain, and all kinds of hard-line versions, e.g. Trotskyism.
The vexed question for all of them is if you can reform capitalism. The idea of overthrowing it seems daunting today, given the hegemonic nature of Soviet socialism. In other words, it was top-down, and ground down the very people it was supposed to liberate. But then the social democrats often dilute the sense of socialism so that it becomes meaningless.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
Isn't Marxism the twin of capitalism, both the children of Christianity? Bastards both I think.
I understood that Marxism is only a political philosophy when it's hyphenated with something like Marxism-Leninism. Otherwise it's merely economic. Socialism, or I think more properly, social democracy, tries to play out the principles of fair distribution of the riches of a society in a democratic way. The conflation of Marxism with dictatorship is as true as the conflation of capitalism with dictatorship.
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jacobsen
seeker
# 14998
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Posted
Perhaps this is outside the brief of this thread, but I wonder how the practice of goods being owned in common, as in, for instance the traditional religious e.g. Benedictine, orders, might fit into the ideal of Marxism or Socialism?
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But God, holding a candle, looks for all who wander, all who search. - Shifra Alon
Beauty fades, dumb is forever-Judge Judy
The man who made time, made plenty.
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Og, King of Bashan
Ship's giant Amorite
# 9562
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
I understood that Marxism is only a political philosophy when it's hyphenated with something like Marxism-Leninism. Otherwise it's merely economic.
Marxist dialectic, as I understand it, attempts to examine just about everything through the lens of socioeconomic conflict and struggle. I wouldn't say Marxism is merely economic; I would say that in Marxism, everything is economic.
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"I like to eat crawfish and drink beer. That's despair?" ― Walker Percy
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
A thread which reminds me how much I miss ken!
If I remember correctly, ken thought one could define socialism as being in favour of liberty, equality, and fraternity (and sorority). Socialists vary between Fabians (who believe in arranging society from the top down), through those that think as much power should come from the bottom as feasible, to anarchists (who believe in not having a top at all).
Marxism means some adherence to the writings of Karl Marx. Quite how much of his writings and which bits of his writings depends I suppose on the Marxist. I suppose at a minimum, some belief that politics is driven by the interests of economic classes, and (in the modern world) that one wants to side with the working class in order to maximise human potential and to minimise human suffering. This probably means being willing to take part in a revolution (the other classes being unlikely to resign power and wealth without a fight), and in orthodox Marxism it is expected this will have to be a violent revolution.
The end result that Marxists envisage would certainly qualify as socialism. Socialists however needn't be committed to Marxist economics or anthropology, or Marxist views on how to get to a socialist society.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
A thread which reminds me how much I miss ken!
If I remember correctly, ken thought one could define socialism as being in favour of liberty, equality, and fraternity (and sorority).
Yes, pretty much how I remember him.
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
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Kaplan Corday
Shipmate
# 16119
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Posted
Saying you are in favour of liberty, equality and fraternity/sorority is pretty much of a motherhood statement.
After all, who isn't?
The real issues concern priorities, trade-offs and compromises, politics being notoriously the art of the possible.
Most of us want neither an anarchist or minimalist government form of liberty, nor a totalitarian communist form of equality, so the real wars are fought over a broad band of territory around the middle of the spectrum between them.
I am both a liberal democrat and a social democrat, with a tendency to prioritise the former if it comes to the crunch, so my arguments are going to be with those who share the centre with me but tilt in the other direction, rather than with those at either extreme.
[ 11. June 2016, 01:08: Message edited by: Kaplan Corday ]
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
Yes, it is about means. I'm old enough to remember all of the Clause IV debates in the Labour Party. And am well aware that under Jeremy Corbyn they are re-emerging.
That fact shows clearly enough the overlap between Marxism and socialism. In terms of means, the battleground is about how, and to what extent, "common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange" should be obtained. By revolution? By winning hearts and minds? By obtaining political power through the ballot box?
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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simontoad
Ship's Amphibian
# 18096
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
Saying you are in favour of liberty, equality and fraternity/sorority is pretty much of a motherhood statement.
After all, who isn't?
Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin and President Assad, for starters. That's being flippant. I'm not sure anybody at all believes in equality or fellowship if what's happening to people fleeing war and persecution is the test. Very few people seem to give much of a shit. I went to a suburban shopping centre today and two of the shops had tape across their entrance and a bouncer like they were a cheap nightclub trying to tart themselves up.
I can't participate much in this debate because I have never read any Marx.
[ 11. June 2016, 08:40: Message edited by: simontoad ]
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Human
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
Yes, it is about means. I'm old enough to remember all of the Clause IV debates in the Labour Party. And am well aware that under Jeremy Corbyn they are re-emerging.
That fact shows clearly enough the overlap between Marxism and socialism. In terms of means, the battleground is about how, and to what extent, "common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange" should be obtained. By revolution? By winning hearts and minds? By obtaining political power through the ballot box?
I think it's lost its appeal. The Soviets were such a ghastly example, although OK, that is not socialism for the people and by the people.
Social democracy is a kind of benign capitalism, if such a thing is possible.
But an actual socialist economic system probably seems impossible or undesirable to most people. The heady days of 1968 seem a long way away now.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
I think the lesson from the history of Stalinist Russia is that centralisation of control over means of production under politbureaux is as uncaring of the proletariat as ownership by wealthy capitalists. Power corrupts.
That means that unbridled Marxism can be as dangerous to the proletariat as unbridled capitalism. The mixed economies of Europe and elsewhere are still experimenting with a third way, within which there is ongoing tension between the two ideals.
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
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Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
I think the lesson from the history of Stalinist Russia is that centralisation of control over means of production under politbureaux is as uncaring of the proletariat as ownership by wealthy capitalists. Power corrupts.
Even if power didn't corrupt, central planning would lead to bad results because the planners do not see the bad consequences of some of their decisions.
When people negatively affected complain, they are ignored.
I have a book, Ecocide describing the massive pollution and other environmental damage brought about in the Soviet Union by central planners. (The information in the book is based almost entirely on official Soviet documents.)
Moo
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See you later, alligator.
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
One of my favourite Solzhenitsyn stories concerns nail production in Stalinist Russia. Under the five year plan, targets were measured by weight, not numbers of nails. A vital machine broke down, spares were requisitioned early but were expected to take months to arrive. And of course the penalty for failure to meet targets was time in one of the Gulags.
So the factory management devised a plan. A huge mold was made sufficient to produce one giant nail which was added to stock. Audit was obtained by greasing a palm or two. Once parts arrived, the giant nail was melted down to produce proper nails. And the central planners were none the wiser.
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
The vexed question for all of them is if you can reform capitalism. The idea of overthrowing it seems daunting today, given the hegemonic nature of Soviet socialism. In other words, it was top-down, and ground down the very people it was supposed to liberate. But then the social democrats often dilute the sense of socialism so that it becomes meaningless.
I think that once culture moved beyond hunter-gatherer, the possibility of a society of equals permanently ended. No large society can exist without a power structure and that structure will create inequity. The best our species can do is manage the level of control the structure has. Socialism will always be a percentage, never complete. And it must be carefully managed. The Soviet system never had a chance. Too much power in the hands of those too willing to use it and with no intention of relinquishing it at a time when mechanisation and mass communication were on the rise. Along with the depletion of resources that rapid expansion and mismanagement brought.
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Hallellou, hallellou
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
Good points by various people about centralization - it seems today that the idea of centralized socialism is an oxymoron. You always end up with a nomenklatura, who ooze privilege.
Of course, there have been various ideas of non-centralized systems, for example, syndicalism in Spain, also anarcho-syndicalism, also found in the early days in the Soviet Union. Alas, many were killed in those countries, and the dream faded.
I remember racing round Barcelona blind drunk, shouting 'viva el anarco-sindicalismo', happy days.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I remember racing round Barcelona blind drunk, shouting 'viva el anarco-sindicalismo', happy days.
Wish I'd been there. Rioja or Sangria or both? Mind you, at a certain point you can neither remember or care ...
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
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Arethosemyfeet
Shipmate
# 17047
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
Isn't Marxism the twin of capitalism, both the children of Christianity? Bastards both I think.
Feudalism, I would say, rather than Christianity.
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
Saying you are in favour of liberty, equality and fraternity/sorority is pretty much of a motherhood statement.
After all, who isn't?
The real issues concern priorities, trade-offs and compromises, politics being notoriously the art of the possible.
Monarchists have a problem with equality. I'm sure there are socialist monarchists but it's not altogether straightforward to justify it. Socialism has its roots in a society in which aristocracy and hierarchy were still considered valid values in many quarters.
People who're taken by Ayn Rand aren't in favour of fraternity or equality.
I think most socialists would also consider other groups are over eager to make some trade-offs, especially when the other groups are willing to trade off equality.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
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Posted
Is socialism possible without central planning?
Moo
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See you later, alligator.
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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Moo:
Is socialism possible without central planning?
Moo
If all your goods and services are produced and provided by state-owned enterprises then central planning is a consequence, but if these are run as cooperatives or mutual societies then central planning wouldn't be required, as the co-ops/mutual ought to be able to shift their efforts to what people need.
I doubt that co-operatives and mutual societies will cover everything, so the state will still have to run some things, like education, defence, police & justice and health services.
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"He isn't Doctor Who, he's The Doctor"
(Paul Sinha, BBC)
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Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
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Posted
I am thinking specifically of agriculture. Before the Russian revolution, the country exported grain. They have been importing it ever since.
When farmers are free to decide what to plant, when and where, the crops are usually much larger. If a farmer makes mistakes, he learns from them. If someone far away tells him what to plant the crop may turn out very badly, but the official hundreds of miles away is unaware of the problems.
Moo
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Kerygmania host
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See you later, alligator.
Posts: 20365 | From: Alleghany Mountains of Virginia | Registered: May 2001
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Kaplan Corday
Shipmate
# 16119
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
I think most socialists would also consider other groups are over eager to make some trade-offs, especially when the other groups are willing to trade off equality.
There are as many or more groups in the world willing to trade off liberty - in many cases, along with equality.
As a republican, groups like communists and Islamists concern me infinitely more than the handful of (mainly old) people I know who adulate the royal family.
Probably the safest route is to emulate Orwell, who passionately pushed for both equality and liberty and never, as far as I can tell from his writings, ever felt the need to demonstrate how to balance them.
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
It's curious that people talk a lot about liberty and equality, and even, as above, which one should prevail if there is a conflict between them. We don't hear so much about fraternity.
Political dogmatists never seem to be very interested in it, or what effect it ought to have on the demand for the other two.
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
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Russ
Old salt
# 120
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
I think that once culture moved beyond hunter-gatherer, the possibility of a society of equals permanently ended.
You're not suggesting that hunter-gatherer society was equal ?
As I understand it, hunter-gatherers tend to live in extended-family groups. With no mechanism at all for promoting equality between groups. And within-group sharing prompted by kin ties (?fraternity?) rather than any notion of "rights".
But yes, once people became settled, envy of the people settled on the good land became possible, people were tempted to take it by force of arms and the whole history of warfare and conquest got going...
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Wish everyone well; the enemy is not people, the enemy is wrong ideas
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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
It's curious that people talk a lot about liberty and equality, and even, as above, which one should prevail if there is a conflict between them. We don't hear so much about fraternity.
Political dogmatists never seem to be very interested in it, or what effect it ought to have on the demand for the other two.
That's a very good point and here's my 2d worth.
Liberty and equality are fundamentally for individuals within society but fraternity is collective. It ought to balance the selfishness that can become dominant as a consequence of liberty and strengthen equality as people apreciate the needs of others.
We now have a society in which fraternity is notable by its absence, liberty (and its usually politically opposed cousin, freedom) is prized above all things and equality is despised as being incompatible with excellence and, for that matter, liberty/freedom!
YMMV.
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"He isn't Doctor Who, he's The Doctor"
(Paul Sinha, BBC)
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Leorning Cniht
Shipmate
# 17564
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
Liberty and equality are fundamentally for individuals within society but fraternity is collective.
I would phrase it a little differently. Liberty and equality are ways that you can demand to be treated. You can scream and shout about how you're being deprived of your liberty, or how you're not being treated equally.
Fraternity is an obligation on you. It's hard to scream in a coherent way about the other guy not being fraternal enough.
People don't like obligations on them. They like being able to force other people to do things.
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Sipech
Shipmate
# 16870
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Posted
I would say that socialism is a fairly broad term where the fundamental unit of the economy is the person, rather than the currency. This way round, economics exists to be the servant of the population, as opposed to capitalism where the life and work of the population is there to serve the economy, and have it measured in £ value (or whatever your currency happens to be).
I would characterise Marxism then as first of all borne out of the philosophy of history sketched at the start of The Communist Manifesto (The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles) and which finds its expression in terms of violence.
While there is overlap, I would contrast the two firstly in their motivations and secondly in their means. Socialism is motivated out of love, wanting the best for the poorest, tackling injustice and inequality. Marxism sees the same inequality but whose reaction instead of compassion towards the poor, is anger towards the rich.
In terms of achieving their means, socialism is inherently a democratic movement that seeks to educate and persuade the populace, whereas Marxism grasps at power and speaks of overthrow and the smashing of systems.
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Twitter: http://twitter.com/TheAlethiophile
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Anyuta
Shipmate
# 14692
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Posted
A few years ago I re-read Hugo's Les Miserables. In it I found what I think is the most straightforward description of the distinction between Capitalism, Socialism, and Communism. It's a page or so long, so I won't repeat it verbatim here, but in short he states that there are two issues which a society needs to deal with: wealth creation and wealth distribution: Capitalism is great at promoting wealth creation, but terrible at distributing that wealth, so a few individuals end up with the majority of the wealth. Communism (according to Hugo.. so remember this is pre-Russian Revolution) excels at wealth distribution, but does little to promote wealth generation (no incentive). Socialism, according to Hugo, is the happy place in-between, which provides sufficient incentive to individuals to generate wealth, while also having a mechanism for ensuring that the wealth is equitably (not equally.. he makes a point of that) distributed.
This definition resonated with me. I am the child of Russian emegres, who fled communist repression, and fear/hatred of communism entered me with mothers milk. yet I consider myself a socialist. And, interestingly, my very aristocratic grandmother once told me she was a socialist as well (in certain things). This shocked me as a child when she told me, because, well, at the time I didn't make the distinction between socialism and communism. Her words made me begin to think more deeply on the subject.
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Albertus
Shipmate
# 13356
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Monarchists have a problem with equality. ...[/QUOTE]
Not necessarily. The great thing about having a monarch is that everybody else has the equal status of being his/her subjects and none of them, certainly none of them outside of a small and defined group, has any prospect of being otherwise. ![[Smile]](smile.gif) You might or might not like that but it does assert a certain equality.
Posts: 6498 | From: Y Sowth | Registered: Jan 2008
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Albertus:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Monarchists have a problem with equality. ...
Not necessarily. The great thing about having a monarch is that everybody else has the equal status of being his/her subjects and none of them, certainly none of them outside of a small and defined group, has any prospect of being otherwise. You might or might not like that but it does assert a certain equality.
Really?
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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sabine
Shipmate
# 3861
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Posted
[/tangent]
I was once driving near a university. A man on a street corner was holding a sign that read:
"[name of politician] is a communist, socialist, fascist."
So, I rolled down my window and said, "They're different philosophies. You're in a college town. Read a book."
Do I believe my little tirade made a difference? Sadly, no.
sabine
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"Hunger looks like the man that hunger is killing." Eduardo Galeano
Posts: 5887 | From: the US Heartland | Registered: Dec 2002
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Zappa
Ship's Wake
# 8433
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
I'm sure there are socialist monarchists but it's not altogether straightforward to justify it.
I'm probably one of them but I would never attempt to explain it beyond saying "it's bloody dumb and inexplicable."
But there we are. Perhaps in a vague sense if pushed I would argue that the British public/state "owns" The Firm™ ... therefore they are just public servants like the old railways ticket officer before public transport was obscenely privatised. ![[Ultra confused]](graemlins/confused2.gif)
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shameless self promotion - because I think it's worth it
and mayhap this too: http://broken-moments.blogspot.co.nz/
Posts: 18917 | From: "Central" is all they call it | Registered: Sep 2004
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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Zappa:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
I'm sure there are socialist monarchists but it's not altogether straightforward to justify it.
I'm probably one of them but I would never attempt to explain it beyond saying "it's bloody dumb and inexplicable."
But there we are. Perhaps in a vague sense if pushed I would argue that the British public/state "owns" The Firm™ ... therefore they are just public servants like the old railways ticket officer before public transport was obscenely privatised.
I'm not certain he was a monarchist but Lord Mountbatten was Labour supporter. A Tory canvasser called, sure of Lord M's support and went away disappointed but consoled to hear that the butler voted Conservative.
Posts: 24276 | From: Newport, Wales | Registered: Apr 2004
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