Socialism

I know that the term 'Socialism' has come up in class several times recently, so I thought I would post a brief description and some external links, to make sure we are all on the same page.

I think the Wikipedia introduction provides a nice overview of the theory:

"Socialism is an [|economic] and [|political theory] advocating [|public] or [|common ownership] and cooperative management of the [|means of production] and allocation of [|resources].[|[1]][|[2]][|[3]] A socialist society is a social structure organized on the basis of relatively [|equal power-relations], [|self-management], dispersed decision-making ([|adhocracy]) and a reduction or elimination of hierarchical and bureaucratic forms of administration and governance; the extent of which varies in different types of socialism.[|[4]][|[5]] This ranges from the establishment of [|cooperative] management structures in the economy to the abolition of all [|hierarchical structures] in favor of [|free association]."

Friedrich Engels – a father of communist theory – states in his essay, "Socialism: Utopian and Scientific" – "Modern Socialism is, in its essence, the direct product of the recognition, on the one hand, of the class antagonisms existing in the society of today between proprietors and non-proprietors, between capitalists and wage-workers; on the other hand, of the anarchy existing in production. But, in its theoretical form, modern Socialism originally appears ostensibly as a more logical extension of the principles laid down by the great French philosophers of the 18th century. Like every new theory, modern Socialism had, at first, to connect itself with the intellectual stock-in-trade ready to its hand, however deeply its roots lay in material economic facts."

(The full version of Engels' paper can be found online here.)

I thought this introduction to Socialist theory played nicely into the context of our class. The "proprietors and non-proprietors," "capitalists and wage-workers," can be mapped to the "topdogs and underdogs" that Galtung discusses in his paper on cultural violence.

I do not fully understand the complexities and intricacies of Socialism, but I figured that if I provided a primary source article on Socialist theory (the Engels paper), I should also link to a critique of modern Socialism. This article provides a nice history of and theory behind the shortcomings of Socialism.