Introduction to Sociology

LINK TO LEARNING

Watch this Crash Course video “Capitalism and Socialism” on capitalism and socialism to learn more about the historical context and modern applications of these two political and economic systems.

Organized socialism never became powerful in the United States. The success of labor unions and the government in securing workers’ rights, joined with the high standard of living enjoyed by most of the workforce, made socialism less appealing than the controlled capitalism practiced here.

Figure 5. This map shows countries that have self-proclaimed to be a socialist state at some point. Most of these followed Marxist-Leninist socialism and were also considered communist. The colors indicate the duration that socialism prevailed. (Map courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

TRY IT

6. 
   The type of socialism now carried on by Russia is a form of ___________ socialism.
   
   1. 
      Utopian
      
   2. 
      Centrally planned
      
   3. 
      Zero-sum
      
   4. 
      Market
      

7. 
   Among the reasons socialism never developed into a political movement in the United States was that trade unions _____________.
   
   1. 
      Diversified the workforce
      
   2. 
      Guaranteed health care
      
   3. 
      Broke up monopolies
      
   4. 
      Secured workers’ rights
      
      
      

Check your answers at the end of this document

Socialism in Practice

As with capitalism, the basic ideas behind socialism go far back in history. Plato, in ancient Greece, suggested a republic in which people shared their material goods. Early Christian communities believed in common ownership, as did the systems of monasteries set up by various religious orders. Many of the leaders of the French Revolution called for the abolition of all private property, not just the estates of the aristocracy they had overthrown. Thomas More’s Utopia, published in 1516, imagined a society with little private property and mandatory labor on a communal farm. A utopia has since come to mean an imagined place or situation in which everything is perfect. Most experimental utopian communities have had the abolition of private property as a founding principle.

Modern socialism really began as a reaction to the excesses of uncontrolled industrial capitalism in the 1800s and 1900s. The enormous wealth and lavish lifestyles enjoyed by the propertied classes contrasted sharply with the miserable conditions of the workers.

Some of the first great sociological thinkers studied the rise of socialism. Max Weber admired some aspects of socialism, especially its rationalism and its emphasis on social reform, but he worried that letting the government have complete control could result in an “iron cage of future bondage” from which there is no escape (Greisman and Ritzer 1981). Pierre-Joseph Proudon (1809−1865) was another early socialist who thought socialism could be used to create utopian communities. In his 1840 book, What Is Property?, he famously stated that “property is theft” (Proudon 1840). By this he meant that if an owner did not work to produce or earn the property, then the owner was stealing it from those who did. Proudon believed economies could work using a principle called mutualism, under which individuals and cooperative groups would exchange products with one another on the basis of mutually satisfactory contracts (Proudon 1840).

By far the most important influential thinker on socialism is Karl Marx. Through his own writings and those with his collaborator, industrialist Friedrich Engels, Marx used a scientific analytical process to show that throughout history, the resolution of class struggles caused economic and cultural changes. He saw the relationships evolving from slave and owner, to serf and lord, to journeyman and master, to worker and owner. Neither Marx nor Engels thought socialism could be used to set up small utopian communities. Rather, they believed a socialist society would be created after workers rebelled against capitalistic owners and seized the means of production. They felt industrial capitalism was a necessary step that raised the level of production in society to a point where it could then be reconfigured so as to produce a more egalitarian socialist and then communist state (Marx and Engels 1848). Marxist ideas have provided much of the foundation for the influential sociological paradigm called conflict theory.