Introduction to Political Theory

Chapter 10

Socialism

Introduction

Is socialism dead? This provocative point was argued by many conservatives,

and the former British prime minister, Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013), in

particular, after the collapse of the Communist Party states.

The difficulty in deciding whether socialism is dead is that socialism, like

feminism, is bedevilled by the problem of variety. Socialism comes in many

different shapes and forms. The Iraq War saw the British government, which

would consider itself socialist, waging armed struggle along with the USA

against a regime which would also call itself socialist. Do the diverse kinds of

socialism have anything in common?

Can socialism be defined? Is it an impossible dream? Do more ‘realistic’ forms

of socialism sacrifice their very socialism when they become more pragmatic?

These are all questions we shall try to answer.

Chapter map

In this chapter we will explore:

• The problem of variety and a working
  definition of socialism.


• The problem of Utopia as one to which
  socialism is peculiarly prone. Three
  nineteenth-century socialists, regarded
  by Marxists as utopian, but who
  consider their own work scientific and
  realistic.


• Marxism as one of the variants of
  socialism: Marxism is a theory that
  tends to authoritarianism in practice.
  
  
  • The distinct character of democratic
    socialism or social democracy and the
    impact made upon British labour by
    the ‘revisionist’ theory of Eduard
    Bernstein.
  
  
  • The link between class and agency,
    freedom and determinism.
  
  
  • The argument that socialists do not
    have to choose between being utopian
    or being realistic.