— Amir Ali (The Indian Express has launched a new series of articles for UPSC aspirants written by seasoned writers and erudite scholars on issues and concepts spanning History, Polity, International Relations, Art, Culture and Heritage, Environment, Geography, Science and Technology, and so on. Read and reflect with subject experts and boost your chance of cracking the much-coveted UPSC CSE. In the following article, political scientist Amir Ali describes the concept of socialism.) Socialism is the political idea that the means of production should be collectively held by society so that the benefits can flow to the maximum number of people, rather than remain confined to the few. That is almost the opposite of capitalism where the means of production are privately held by individuals and the benefits of these means in the form of profits flow to those individuals. Back in the 1980s, Western politicians like Margaret Thatcher would speak out vehemently against socialism and advocate the great virtues of free markets. In those days it felt as if socialism would never come back. However, after close to five decades of free market capitalism, rising inequality was recently brought into historical perspective by Stanford academic Walter Scheidel in his book The Great Leveler: Violence and the History of Inequality from the Stone Age to the Twenty-First Century where he suggested that high inequality has usually ended in violent disruptions. A recent paper released by the World Inequality Lab, written by among other authors French economist Thomas Piketty, has argued that with the top 1 per cent wealth share standing at 40.1 per cent in 2022-23 in India, a veritable “Billionaire Raj” has been created that is more unequal than the British Raj. Moreover, a just released Oxfam report has stated that in the past decade the world’s top 1 per cent has increased their wealth by $42 trillion which is 34 times more than the bottom 50 per cent of the global population. The report further stated that billionaires around the world have been paying a tax rate that is less than 0.5 per cent of their wealth. Socialism will remain relevant Is it any wonder then that in the recent French parliamentary elections in July, the socialist left did so well? In capitalist and highly unequal countries like the US and the UK, two of the most prominent politicians are socialists, Bernie Sanders and Jeremy Corbyn respectively. Socialism has not gone anywhere. Socialism as a set of ideas will always remain relevant, especially when there are glaring inequalities of the kind we see in India and across the wider world. One of the most important and indeed noble features of socialism is its commitment to egalitarianism or the creation of a more equal society. Socialism is a large set of ideas with many prominent thinkers contributing to the development of these ideas. In 1880, German socialist philosopher Friedrich Engels published an important work Socialism: Utopian and Scientific. The distinction between the two is important. Difference between Utopian and Scientific socialism Utopian socialism, according to the critique by Engels, has a wishy-washy quality to it. While it desires socialism, it does not really know how to achieve it, naively believing in the goodwill and idealism of individuals from the property-owning bourgeoisie to bring about a socialist state of affairs. Engels criticised the utopian socialism of Saint Simon, Charles Fourier and Robert Owen. On the other hand, the scientific socialism that Engels talked about was based on a deep scientific understanding of the material conditions of society and its historical trajectory. In this understanding, socialism could only be brought about by the working-class proletariat. While Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels talked about the ultimate withering away of the state, some of the most influential strands of socialism that developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, such as Fabianism believed in the state itself through which a socialist society could be brought about through the powerful instrument of legislation. Such strands of state socialism translated into extensive welfare states in the post-WWII era, especially in many Western European countries through social democratic parties like the British Labour Party or centre-left Social Democratic Parties. Socialism and welfare states Welfare states were created by states levying steep rates of progressive taxation, the revenue proceeds of which went to provide high quality public services such as healthcare, education, public transportation and public housing. A Scandinavian country like Sweden is well known for its welfare state where people don’t mind paying high rates of taxes as they are provided with extremely good public services. Also, it may be noted that socialism does not entail the complete end of private property. It believes in regulating private property and the market so that inequalities do not attain the kind of unsustainable and indeed obscene levels they have reached today. The socialist idea is that private property and free markets, if left too much to their own devices, can get completely out of hand, to the detriment of the peace and stability of society. The famous socialist George Bernard Shaw in the year 1928 wrote the book The Intelligent Woman’s Guide to Socialism and Capitalism to explain these ideas to his sister-in-law, and in one of the chapters talked about capitalism being like a car that can careen out of control and crash. The English philosopher and broadcaster C.E.M. Joad commented that socialism is like a hat that so many people have put on, that it has lost its shape. In other words, it could be all things to all men and women. Socialism in India and other countries In India, where there is a rich tradition of socialist thinkers such as Jayaprakash Narayan and Ram Manohar Lohia, socialism has been given a very distinct feel that makes it different from European socialist strands. Commentators have observed that while there is generally to be found a very tangible material concern in socialism, thinkers in India have tended to add a distinctly spiritual dimension. As a result, Indian socialism became more concerned about Indian indigeneity, originality and the innate genius that sets the country apart. Socialist ideas have thrived in various other parts of the world. Like in India, in the Arab world, socialist thinking has acquired characteristics that make it distinctly Arab such as in the Syrian thinker Michel Aflaq whose ideas became the inspiration behind socialist-leaning Arab Baath Parties. Socialist Zionism had a prominent role to play in the creation of the state of Israel in 1948, even though the country has more recently come to be known as a ‘start-up nation’ of capitalist success. In Latin America, socialist ideas combined with the prominence of the Roman Catholic Church to give rise to Liberation Theology, a concern to improve the lot of the poor, oppressed by the structures of domination created by the rich. Criticisms of socialism However, in the late 1980s, with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of many East European socialist economies, socialism itself became quite discredited. It was associated with the excesses of dictators like the Romanian Nicolae Ceausescu. Socialism was also considered inefficient, especially in contrast to the dynamism of capitalist free markets and their supposed ability to match supply with demand. There is a joke about a man in a socialist country who applies for a telephone connection. He is given a date after 20 years and he requests the official for an afternoon slot. The official is confused and the man explains that 20 years from now on that very morning he has an appointment with a doctor! Thus, there are downsides to socialist societies and these need to be considered in an overall assessment. Life in socialist societies tends to have a drab quality as there are not many consumer goods easily available and this often makes the life of citizens monotonous and dull. When the Berlin Wall came falling down, residents of socialist East Berlin were dazzled by the kind of consumerist lifestyles that West Berliners enjoyed. In fact, for as long as the wall existed, West Berlin was considered to be a shining beacon of capitalism in the large swathe of socialism that East Germany was. Socialism is also considered by its critics to suppress the instinct of human enterprise as there is really no incentive for people in this regard. People old enough to remember India in the pre-liberalisation era talk about the licence-permit raj. As a result of which the heavy hand of government and bureaucracy was felt in an often stifling sort of way. Due to these downsides, socialist societies are often seen as preventing the possibility of high rates of economic growth, the credit for which is often given to free markets. Socialist India, many decades prior to liberalisation policies, was beset with low rates of economic growth of between 3-4 per cent that was characterised by the famous economist Raj Krishna in 1978 as the Hindu rate of growth. Yet, with recent developments across the world, we may be seeing the pendulum swing back to socialism, especially as capitalist free markets have created vast inequalities. For instance, in countries like the UK, where social housing ended with a spate of privatisations in the Thatcherite 1980s, house prices are way beyond the reach of many, especially young people, who see this as a failure of housing markets. Post Read Question What is socialism? Discuss its advantages and disadvantages. Draw a comparison between socialism and capitalism. How is the Indian strand of socialism different from the European strands? (Amir Ali is an Assistant Professor at the Centre for Political Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi) Subscribe to our UPSC newsletter and stay updated with the news cues from the past week. Stay updated with the latest UPSC articles by joining our Telegram channel – Indian Express UPSC Hub, and follow us on Instagram and X. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nC4ckaj-dJI?si=9PT4DT24i_HwsQWf&w=560&h=315
