What is socialism? This is a political ideology that seeks to complete the human backstory. For this, the resources available to the state are mobilized. This doctrine affects social and economic spectra.
The property must belong to the company or be under its control. It is the broad ownership of resources that is considered to be the key characteristic that makes sense in this way of conducting politics. Pierre Leroy, this definition was used for the first time in 1834 in his work “Individualism and Socialism”.
On the one hand, in the foregoing, we do not observe any hidden tricks. However, is socialism really good? Why did some countries refuse it, while others quite successfully apply its basic principles and at the same time have a stable economy and a sufficiently high GDP? Next, we’ll talk about this and other issues and understand what socialism is.
Where the roots grow from
First, a few words about the term itself. What is socialism, and where did it come from? At all times, people have been thinking about abandoning private ownership of property; a thirst for equality has always been present.
This, as a rule, happened when the people did not suit his life. As we know, citizens are satisfied with the prevailing order in the country extremely rarely and not for long. A thirst for justice awakens. The starting point from which the construction of socialism began was Ancient Greece, where Plato expressed ideas in his works Laws and State.
Grains of ideology can be found if we consider Athens of the sixth century BC. Utopian Thomas More, as well as Tommaso Campanella, also contributed. In their works, society is described as free from private property, all people are equal. If we consider Western Europe, the construction of socialism here began in the 19th century thanks to Saint-Simon, Owen and Fourier.
Vision of Karl Marx
Marx made a significant contribution to the development of ideology. The system of socialism, in his opinion, should have acquired the following features:
- The plot must be expropriated. Land rent was used to cover government expenditures, from which the proletariat should be enriched.
- It was necessary to introduce a high progressive tax.
- Abolish the right of inheritance.
- Confiscate property owned by emigrants, rebels and speculators.
- Must be centralized loan. This will provide the National Bank, which will contain state capital.
- Monopolize all transport. The proletariat introduces a dictatorship.
- Factories, means of labor, arable land will become more numerous, land will improve.
- Agriculture and industry will be combined into one. There should be no particular differences between villages and cities.
- All children are brought up for free and on a social basis.
Travel restrictions
Socialism has another interesting feature: citizens do not have the right to freely move abroad and back. The government carefully monitored to ensure that the country left maximum as part of a business trip or for tourism.
Some people were forbidden to travel if they had information that hypothetically could have been important when it was disseminated.
Nationalist model
National Socialism implies the official political ideology of the Third Reich.This includes anti-Semitism, fascism and racism.
The main goal of National Socialism is to create and approve a state pure in blood over a large territory. In Germany, the Aryan race was considered such, which the Germans themselves considered ideal for survival for as long as possible.
The ideas of a thousand-year Reich spread. Totalitarianism is very close in nature to this ideology. And, of course, socialist views brought their roots. However, the difference is that Nazism denied the possibility of dividing society into classes.
Restructuring Management Model
Developed socialism - what is it? This term was called the power that reigned at the moment when public rule passed into communism. Relate this scheme of government to a period of stagnation, when the state was going through hard times.
A positive feature was the fact that he maintained sociability in his citizens, a desire to think and analyze, create something extraordinary, and devote time to the spiritual development of developed socialism. What these opportunities are, it becomes extremely clear when compared with the same totalitarianism, when the initiative was severely suppressed. The cultural life of society was going up, and at that time on the shelves it was empty, and even making money, the problem was to buy something for them.
Planned production
Economic socialism is also called a planned economy. The resource base with such a management model belongs to the whole society, a centralized distribution is carried out.
Individuals and legal entities perform certain actions by order of a single economic planning. This is typical for the USSR. Nowadays, you can notice this order in the DPRK. The whole state works according to one plan, like a huge and powerful machine.
This is similar to an organism whose orders in parts come from the brain. Planning of volumes and assortment of products and services is controlled by government bodies. They are assigned prices, wages, investments. Private property is denied.
Means of production belong to the country. The opposite scheme for organizing the reproduction of material goods is a market economy. The pluses can be attributed to the total employment of people, no one sits idle when socialism reigns. The bottom line is to reduce the level of social stratification. You can focus on creating products that will play a key role in the event of a crisis.
Negative sides
Everything has its drawbacks. What is socialism in this version of it? This is the actual lack of freedom of choice in life for a person.
Neither the manufacturer nor the employee has their own incentives, because they do not choose their life and work. Consequently, they constantly feel like they are just cogs in the system, which they cannot plan their own fate, someone has already decided everything for them. In addition, creating plans for the whole country is very difficult and time-consuming. For this, the best specialists must be selected, and still there is the possibility of error. So the risk is great. The system must achieve its ideal state in order to work correctly.
Slow pace of development
Often, a planned economy cannot quickly and correctly apply the things that are achieved through the breakthrough of science every day. Usually long-term plans are put in which they simply do not include the possibility of change. Because of this, braking, stagnation, and lag occur.
The opportunities that could benefit the more flexible system are not used. Such control schemes are suitable for mass production of similar products. At the moment, a market economy, with its constant races, superior to each other market offers, is considered more viable.The situation is changing so quickly that it makes no sense to set ambitious plans.
More social freedom
Political socialism implies universal labor under the leadership of the party, which directly controls the process of work. It covers and regulates all the relationships that arise between classes, strata of society, peoples, individuals and collectives. A policy aimed at achieving the goals of a society characterized by development and high organization is developed and implemented.
Far-reaching plans are always set in such schemes of government. People are attracted to the management of processes that occur in society and the country. The state apparatus is constantly being improved. Increase the activity of social organizations. People’s control is becoming higher, the legal basis on which public and state life stands is strengthened. Publicity is becoming more favored.
The opinion of people is taken into account. The proletariat initially establishes its dominant position in society. What is socialism? This is a strategy to strengthen centralized governance. With further development, the dictatorship is abolished, more freedom of speech appears.
Power in the hands of the people
Public relations are gaining maturity, because now people control the state. The main value is considered national sovereignty. The state is governed by society, with the hands of all people in it social transformations are carried out. Decisions of people's deputies are the basis of legislation binding on all citizens. This is the main principle of the rule of law, where not the personal goals of the ruling class, but the public good are put at the forefront.
The working people themselves are the ruling force, while using institutions of a non-managerial kind. The role of cooperative and other organizations is great, as tasks that they set themselves to regulate the work of the power and the affairs of the people. An example of political and public associations is the Popular Front, which includes at most those movements and associations that participate in the political processes of the country. Every year the importance of such organizations only grows, because for people it is very important to feel that they themselves decide the fate of their own country.
Where did you get distribution
The countries of socialism were designated by the CPSU at the time when the Cold War was on the territory of the Soviet Union. Those states are meant that have chosen the path of socialist change. The priority is the ideology of Marxism and Leninism. Modes are characterized by a fairly stable structure.
Relations with the Soviet Union could be either friendly or hostile. Also, these states are called the communist or socialist community (camp, bloc). In the period of the 40-50s of the last century, countries making the transition between capitalism and popular government were called states of people's democracy. The same thing in the past applied to many third world countries, which the USSR helped with resources in the 60-80s of the twentieth century. These were Angola, Yemen, Afghanistan, Congo, Mozambique, Algeria, Bangladesh and many others.
Nowadays
As of today, they include the Socialist Republic of Laos, the Republic of Korea, the People's Republic of China, Cuba, and Vietnam. In these states, the Communist Party rules political life, although private property also plays a role in the economy. The 21st century brought socialism to Latin America. This model of power in Nepal is clearly expressed, where it came in 2008.
Cuba is another bright representative of countries that have affected socialist ideals. Raul Castro, head of state, in 2010 followed the example of the Chinese government and transferred the eastern model of government to the conditions of his own country.They gave a green light to entrepreneurship; more opportunities appeared for small and medium-sized businesses.
Thus, the Cuban government combined a planned economy with some freedom for enterprises that want to grow and earn money, seeing that for the state this will be of certain benefit.
