The Dictionary of Human Geography

Comp. by: VPugazhenthi Stage : Revises1 ChapterID: 9781405132879_4_S Date:1/4/
09 Time:15:23:37 Filepath:H:/00_Blackwell/00_3B2/Gregory-9781405132879/appln/3B2/
revises/9781405132879_4_S.3d

cautious insights into this thing,society, that

is now acknowledged – much more than ever

before – as a complicated, provisional, never-

fully-formed, always becoming object. cp

Suggested readings

Benko and Strohmayer (1997); Callinicos

(1999); Giddens (1979); Slater (1992).

social well-being The degree to which a

population’s needs and wants are being met.

In a well society operated onmarketprinciples

(seeeconomic integration), people have suf-

ficient income to meet their basic needs plus

additional money to be used for discretionary

spending, are treated with equal dignity (see

human rights), have reasonable access to all

public services, and have their opinions heard

and respected (cf. democracy). Levels of

social well-being vary across groups and places

within societies. Measuring variations in those

levels was part of the social indicators move-

ment initiated in the 1960s and taken up by

geographers with analyses of territorial social

indicators. (See alsoquality of life.) rj

Suggested reading

Smith (1979a).

socialism Modern socialisms have their ori-

gin largely in nineteenth-century European

working-class struggles against the predatory,

unequal and degrading consequences of

industrialcapitalismand twentieth-century

industrial and agrarian struggles against

imperialism. Thus, if capitalism is a social

and economic system in which ‘the ownership

and control of real capital are vested in a class

of private ‘‘capitalists’’, whose economic

decisions are taken in response to market

influences operating freely under conditions

of laissez-faire’ (Crosland, 1970, p. 33),

socialism seeks to change the ways in which

capital–labour relations are organized and

social surplus is distributed (seeanarchism;

marxism).

Historically, the socialist allocation of social

surplus has sometimes been organized

through collective ownership or by thestate

(state socialism), and has required planning

and control mechanisms to regulate the

economy. Since the nineteenth century,

some socialists have supported the complete

nationalization of the means of production,

others have been more interested in worker

democracy and decentralized ownership

(either in the form ofcooperativesor work-

ers’ councils), and yet others have proposed

selective nationalization of commanding

heights industries in the context of mixed

economies.

Recent neo-conservative and neo-liberal

theories and policies have greatly weakened

the popular legitimacy of socialism in many

parts of the globalnorth, but political move-

ments in the globalsouth(notably in South

Africa, Venezuela and Bolivia) have renewed

commitments to socialist parties and prin-

ciples. In countries such as Portugal, Spain,

Greece, Italy, Argentina and Mexico, socialist

movements have emerged deeply suspicious of

political projects that seek to seize the state

and, instead, have articulated new claims for

socialist autonomous political projects in

which vanguardist theories of social action

have been reworked and inflected with new

alignments of socialist theory with anarchist

and autonomous practices (what Derrida

(1994) called the ‘New International’ and

Hardt and Negri (2004) refer to as the new

communism). Partly as a result of these

broader movements in socialist practices and

stimulated by the consequences of increasing

integration into the global economy, reformed

socialism has also emerged in former (post-

socialist) and current state-socialist societies

throughouteurope andasia, perhaps most

notably in China. In Europe, discussions of

alternatives to neo-liberalism correspond

with strong debates about the possibility of a

social Europe, predicated on protections for

socialrights, social cohesion and a social

market, while in China experiments with mar-

ket socialism and Deng Xiao Ping’s advice that

‘To get rich is glorious’ are rapidly transform-

ing the conditions of social life and environ-

ment throughout the country.

The impact of socialist thought and practice

among geographers has been significant, par-

ticularly in their analyses of the geographies

of social movements and socialist politics.

Geographers such as Peter Kropotkin, E ́lise ́e

Reclus and others were closely engaged in

debates about socialism and anarchism, while

others – such as the English socialist J.F.

(‘Frank’) Horrabin (1884–1962) – worked to

construct a socialist geography through the

Labour party, the Fabian Society and groups

involved in working-class education, such as

the Plebs League and the National Council of

Labour Colleges (Hepple, 1999). In the post-

war era, particularly with the emergence of

strong civil rights, anti-colonial, anti-war and

anti-nuclear movements, socialist geographies

emerged in a wide range of arenas, generating

strong interest in the institutional and

Gregory / The Dictionary of Human Geography 9781405132879_4_S Final Proof page 700 1.4.2009 3:23pm

SOCIAL WELL-BEING