Early Ideas
Long before the days of Adam Smith idealist philosophers had been seeking an egalitarian economic system that would relieve the plight of the poor. They were seeking for a way to achieve the ideals of what later came to be known as socialism. The search for early socialist ideas goes back to ancient times. In the Bible, Israel’s God, Jehovah, revealed to Moses a law which was designed inter alia to care for the poor. This encouraged a positive response to an inherent, ongoing social problem. Some Christians feel that response was placed in people by their Creator.
A social concern for poverty was noticeable among the Greeks; they also disapproved of commerce and the use of usury to “make money with money.” That concern was passed forward through Thomas Aquinas and other Church Fathers, down through the Middle Ages.
Thomas More and the Beginnings of Modern Socialism
The more modern history of socialist concerns began in England with the publication of Sir Thomas More’s famous work, Utopia, in 1516. More described a way of life and commerce in an optimal, utopian society. Utopia became the conceptual blueprint of ideal socialism long before Adam Smith’s day. Utopia criticized the inequality that capitalism was alleged to engender.
After Thomas More, socialists concluded that markets and corporations represent little more than social abuse by greedy capitalists. Early on, socialists began to call for the elimination of capitalism because it was tainted with that greed. With equal invalidity one might conclude that religion, politics, education and other social institutions designed to achieve our values should likewise be eliminated, since some people are also willing to abuse these other social institutions in pursuit of their own greedy interests.
Some of the famous, early French philosophers found evil in the institution of private property and in the inequality produced by market activity. Other Frenchmen, such as Voltaire and the èconomistes, Francois Quesnay, Richard Cantillon, and Jacques
Turgot, with whom Adam Smith consulted in Paris, were very positive about what came to be known as capitalism. They were all critical of “mercantilism,” which at that time was one of the forerunners of socialism. It was the attempt to manipulate market activity and, through foreign trade, to attract gold for the king’s coffers.
Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-78) was the intellectual father of the radical component of the French Revolution. He stressed the principle of community in The Social Contract, his chief work. His writings on social questions were imbued with a quality of moral fervor. The notion of social equality and the corrupting effects of private property also saturated his writings, which were thus found useful in subjecting his thoughts to a communistic interpretation.
Economics as the “Wealth of Nations”
Smith wanted people to understand that the real “wealth of nations” were the goods and services a nation produced to enhance the material lives of its citizens. The competing mercantilism suggested that if a nation would maximize its exports, hotly desired bullion could be drawn into the king’s treasury. People paid for those exports with gold, so the strategy was to cease importing commodities and export as much as possible.
If everybody followed the notions of the Mercantilists, no foreigners would purchase their exports, since the potential customer nations would all be eliminating their imports as well. If instead they followed Adam Smith nations would be engaging enthusiastically in market transactions in the pursuit of their own self-interest, buying and selling to their hearts’ content the growing abundance of goods and services produced by people of free minds and free markets.
Utopian and “Scientific” Socialism
But returning to the development of socialist ideas, we begin with “Utopian” and pre-Marxian socialism, which were both an uncertain collection of dispersed considerations and aspirations inspired by love for mankind and a desire to ameliorate man’s social condition. “Real” socialism historically began when Karl Marx pronounced his brand of socialism, “scientific” socialism. It was not based on wishful thinking, but on a thirst for revenge.
Utopian socialism was the expression of love in economic theory and organization. It offered people the opportunity to become a part of a socialistic organization probably best described as a commune. Communitarian living arrangements were characteristic of the many, many private socialist arrangements proposed. The heroes of the movement were the theoreticians who suggested people should leave the harshness of secular society and live a communal lifestyle with their property held in common, as was the case of early Christians in New Testament times (see Acts, chapter 4).
Theories were propagated in England by Robert Owen, a successful textile factory owner who showed the world that a firm could run profitably without exploitative. long hours, child labor, or unhealthy work conditions. He ultimately went to America to establish and fund a commune of his own.
In France, theories were propagated by Saint-Simon as well as by Charles Fourier. A discussion of these interesting and somewhat strange personalities and their economic and social views is available in the book Socialism for any desiring greater detail. It is important to note here, however, that utopian and communitarian socialism had the virtue of being voluntary. Today’s socialists, either through violence or ballot-box enforcement, would force everyone in society into the socialist tent. If you are on the wrong side of the revolution, or if your views are defeated by socialists at the ballot box, you are forced to submit to the economic, social and political preferences of the socialists. With utopian socialism, the people favoring socialist organization of their particular type go off on their own and establish a small community consisting of those who freely choose to participate. They need no Siberian prison camps to inter the individuals whose preferences differ from their own and are loathe to submit to socialist strictures.
Marx transformed socialism to a movement of hatred. Capitalism was to be punished for every act of greed and exploitation that characterizes every capitalist and enters into every market transaction. It would be punished by a proletarian revolution that would expropriate the expropriators. The dictatorship of the proletariat would consolidate power and prevent any return to power of capitalist sympathizers. After it was no longer necessary for the dictatorship to rule with an iron fist, men would work together to exploit nature, then things would become really utopian and communistic. But of this distant phase of future history, Marx did not write. He only had energy and time to condemn capitalism root and branch, giving the anti-capitalists fodder for their vindictiveness.
Marxian Socialism, the Path to the Communism of the Distant Future
Marxian socialism did not spring full-blown from the dark mind of Karl Marx. Marx freely borrowed from the many socialist pioneers who preceded him. Just as Adam Smith had pulled together the ideas of many previous political economists to establish a comprehensive theory of markets and capitalism, Marx drew on the thoughts of such people as Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Charles Hall, William Thompson, John Francis Bray, John Gray, Ferdinand Johann Gottlieb Lassalle, Alexander Herzen, and Johann Karl Rodbertus. It must be observed that Marx was neither as honest nor as generous as Adam Smith in giving credit to those whose ideas were found useful in the construction of a theoretical system destined to endure. Again, the interested reader longing for more of the detailed history of these pre-Marxian theoreticians is invited to consult with the book, Socialism. That source also elaborates, of course, on Marx’s theories, which have also been treated in other blogs of this website.
The Decline of Socialism
By 1990 socialism was dead in Europe. It had just succumbed in the former Soviet bloc and communist parties were disappearing everywhere in East Europe. In West Europe with nationalization dead, with economic planning expired, the socialist parties had nothing more to offer than social welfare programs and income redistribution, which had from the time of Bismarck developed rapidly in Europe throughout the twentieth century. By 1990 there were still socialist parties and socialists, but socialism was moribund. It was a system without socialist policy initiatives, since by that time it was difficult to find any capitalist or right wing party that did not propose income redistribution policies of its own. In other blogs and in the book I have shown in some detail the disaster that was socialism.
