Socialism

The original utopian socialists condemned this doctrine of individualism for failing to address social concerns during the Industrial Revolution, including poverty, oppression, and vast wealth inequality.

The Owenites in England and the Fourierists in France were considered respectable socialists while working-class movements that "proclaimed the necessity of total social change" denoted themselves communists.

For a duration of one week in December 1899, the Australian Labor Party formed the first ever socialist government in the world when it was elected into power in the Colony of Queensland with Premier Anderson Dawson as its leader.

Russell opposed the class struggle aspects of Marxism, viewing socialism solely as an adjustment of economic relations to accommodate modern machine production to benefit all of humanity through the progressive reduction of necessary work time.

[86] With no need for capital accumulation and a class of owners, private property in the means of production is perceived as being an outdated form of economic organisation that should be replaced by a free association of individuals based on public or common ownership of these socialised assets.

[87][88] Private ownership imposes constraints on planning, leading to uncoordinated economic decisions that result in business fluctuations, unemployment and a tremendous waste of material resources during crisis of overproduction.

For Marxists, the development of capitalism in Western Europe provided a material basis for the possibility of bringing about socialism because according to The Communist Manifesto "[w]hat the bourgeoisie produces above all is its own grave diggers",[103] namely the working class, which must become conscious of the historical objectives set it by society.

Orthodox Marxists and left communists take an impossibilist stance, believing that revolution should be spontaneous as a result of contradictions in society due to technological changes in the productive forces.

Soviet scholar Robert Bird considered his work as the "first systematic treatment of art by a Communist leader" and a catalyst for later, Marxist cultural and critical theories.

[116] The counter-cultural phenomenon which emerged in the 1960s shaped the intellectual and radical outlook of the New Left; this movement placed a heavy emphasis on anti-racism, anti-imperialism and direct democracy in opposition to the dominant culture of advanced industrial capitalism.

[117] Socialist groups have also been closely involved with a number of counter-cultural movements such as Vietnam Solidarity Campaign, Stop the War Coalition, Love Music Hate Racism, Anti-Nazi League[118] and Unite Against Fascism.

The education of the individual, in addition to promoting his own innate abilities, would attempt to develop in him a sense of responsibility for his fellow men in place of the glorification of power and success in our present society.

In his model, assuming perfect computation techniques, simultaneous equations relating inputs and outputs to ratios of equivalence would provide appropriate valuations to balance supply and demand.

[138] State socialism is unfeasible in this view because information cannot be aggregated by a central body and effectively used to formulate a plan for an entire economy, because doing so would result in distorted or absent price signals.

[151] The economy of the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia established a system based on market-based allocation, social ownership of the means of production and self-management within firms.

[152] The Marxian economist Richard D. Wolff argues that "re-organising production so that workers become collectively self-directed at their work-sites" not only moves society beyond both capitalism and state socialism of the last century, but would also mark another milestone in human history, similar to earlier transitions out of slavery and feudalism.

Neoclassical economist Léon Walras believed that a socialist economy based on state ownership of land and natural resources would provide a means of public finance to make income taxes unnecessary.

[161] Mutualism is an economic theory and anarchist school of thought that advocates a society where each person might possess a means of production, either individually or collectively, with trade representing equivalent amounts of labour in the free market.

Modern social democracy emphasises a program of gradual legislative modification of capitalism to make it more equitable and humane while the theoretical end goal of building a socialist society is relegated to the indefinite future.

[246] A number of scholars and Western socialists have regarded Leon Trotsky as a democratic alternative rather than a forerunner to Stalin with particular emphasis drawn to his activities in the pre-Civil War period and as leader of the Left Opposition.

In a well-organised society, all of these things must be systematically accomplished by means of parallel federations, vertically united at the highest levels, constituting one vast organism in which all economic functions will be performed in solidarity with all others and that will permanently preserve the necessary cohesion".

[282]All of this is typically done within a general call for libertarian[283] and voluntary free associations[284] through the identification, criticism and practical dismantling of illegitimate authority in all aspects of human life.

Muslim socialists believe that the teachings of the Quran and Muhammad are not only compatible with, but actively promoting the principles of equality and public ownership, drawing inspiration from the early Medina welfare state he established.

[300] In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, both Clara Zetkin and Eleanor Marx were against the demonisation of men and supported a proletariat revolution that would overcome as many male-female inequalities as possible.

[301] As their movement already had the most radical demands in women's equality, most Marxist leaders, including Clara Zetkin[302][303] and Alexandra Kollontai,[304][305] counterposed Marxism against liberal feminism rather than trying to combine them.

[306] In the Spanish Civil War, an anarcha-feminist group, Mujeres Libres ("Free Women") linked to the Federación Anarquista Ibérica, organised to defend both anarchist and feminist ideas.

The Encyclopedia of Homosexuality reports that "[a]s Marxists the founders of the group believed that the injustice and oppression which they suffered stemmed from relationships deeply embedded in the structure of American society".

[314] Emerging from events such as the May 1968 insurrection in France, the anti-Vietnam war movement in the US and the Stonewall riots of 1969, militant gay liberation organisations began to spring up around the world.

Many sprang from left radicalism more than established homophile groups,[315] although the Gay Liberation Front took an anti-capitalist stance and attacked the nuclear family and traditional gender roles.

Eco-socialists generally claim that the expansion of the capitalist system is the cause of social exclusion, poverty, war and environmental degradation through globalisation and imperialism under the supervision of repressive states and transnational structures.