Socialism

Among the political systems present in the governments of many countries, socialism is one of the most prominent due to its impact at the social level and for the different approaches that have been given to this political and social theory that seeks as social welfare to place everyone the means of social production in the hands of the State for it to administer, in opposition to the capitalist system that seeks to develop private property for the development of the liberal economy. At present, socialism has been transformed by identifying itself with positions that accept the free market but with the intervention of the State to solve social differences.

What is socialism

Socialist system seeks that the means of production and private property remain under the control of the government and are used for society, eliminating all capitalism from the economic apparatus of the nation.

Characteristics of socialism

Among the most representative characteristics of socialism we can mention:

• The State, having control of all the means of production and services, acts as a great monopoly .
• The State is the one who administers the means of production of the whole society.
• The State manages a centralized form of government where it deals with economic administration and manages the common good of the inhabitants.
• The State intervenes constantly in all the social, economic, cultural and educational activities of the nation.
• It is opposed to the capitalist system.
• The only social class is the proletariat .
• It can work from a democratic regime.
• The citizen must subordinate himself to the needs of society before his personal needs.

History of socialism

The origin of socialism can be located in Europe . From the French Revolution, the feudal monarchical system fell and a new power generated by the bourgeoisie began to be created . This gives rise to the capitalism as a political-economic system in nations and begin to settle the new nation-states that would gradually industrializing, creating a new global phenomenon known as the Industrial Revolution . In this new revolution, a social class known as the proletariat is born made up of the working class that represented a majority in the population, which was going through moments of very severe misery, unlike the bourgeois class that represented a minority of the population and that represented the upper class of society.

Years later, the philosopher Karl Marx presents his work “Capital” where he expresses his thoughts on the economy and the exploitation of the working class . With the works of Marx, many European socialist parties create their ideological bases and after the Russian Revolution and the interpretation of Lenin, the bases for the communist parties grouped in the Third International are developed.

After the Soviet Union liberates the countries occupied by Nazi Germany, it helps them adopt the socialist system, generating a large territory for this system of government. This is how socialism took on great importance in 20th century Europe after the Second World War and spread to countries in Central America and Asia.

It is important to mention that the countries that are part of the capitalist group headed by the United States entered into an unarmed conflict with the communist bloc headed by the Soviet Union. This conflict was known as the cold war. But as the years passed, the Soviet Union was divided by external and internal factors and the cold war ended.

For communists, socialism is a transitional phase between capitalism and communism, but no socialist country has managed to obtain the decreed benefits of communism; neither the USSR, nor Cuba, nor China .

Later, with the arrival of the new millennium, Venezuelan President Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías touches for the first time the issue of socialism of the XXI century with ideas of social and economic well – being that were never developed and that on the contrary maintains the Venezuelan population in a constant economic, social and health deterioration that increases the rates of poverty and death.

goals

The objectives of socialism are based on the abolition of poverty, the achievement of general prosperity, progress, peace and brotherhood among peoples . Unfortunately these objectives have not been evidenced in the socialist countries, since the results of the political and economic actions of the socialist countries have failed in their application. Proof of this can be seen when studying the quality of life of people living in socialist regimes that do not have private property or free markets.

Types

Socialism has several types or currents, among which we can mention, as the most representative, the following:

• Utopian socialism:  this philosophical trend was born as a result of the industrial revolution and the period of the enlightenment in which reference was made to the exploitation of man.
• Scientific socialism:  this type of socialism takes into account the ideas raised by utopian socialism but focuses more on the scientific analysis of the means of production under a scientific basis called dialectical materialism which is used to explain and understand history.
• Social democracy: This  approach to socialism includes democracy taking into account the ideas of utopian socialism and mixed economies, human rights, social security, without altering the means of production. Many socialist parties in the world follow this trend.
• The Marxism – Leninism:  this current was applied by the Soviet Union, a country that sought to create a communist world society but directed by a centralized socialist state and a single party that opposed capitalism and bourgeois democracy. All communist parties follow this socialist approach.
• Christian socialism: this approach comes from the Catholic Church, stating that Jesus Christ taught socialist ideas, thus generating a thesis known as Liberation Theology which presents exploitation and poverty as a social sin. Many guerrilla groups in Latin America were linked to this socialist current.

Beginning

Among the principles of socialism we can mention the following:

• Individual actions and practices must benefit the collective.
• Sovereignty and autonomy focused on creating policies that liberate the people from free market thinking or dependence on capital.
• Overcome self-centeredness
• Creation of activities that minimize the impact on the environment in populations or communities.
• Self-sufficiency and self-government supported by communes.
• Technological development to develop new means of production.
• Artistic manifestations to reinforce the collective identity of a people.
• Recovery of the spaces expropriated by the bourgeoisie and the local oligarchies.
• Transformation of the means of production by changing the idea of ​​how to produce and for whom.

Importance of socialism

The importance of socialism can be seen in the left parties of many countries.

For socialists, their theory is the most important and coherent for society because it leaves the means of production in the hands of the people and not of the big capitalists, giving importance to the community. On the other hand, according to this theory, socialism prevents the individualism of capitalism from being generated in the peoples.

Causes of socialism

Among the main causes that generated the appearance of socialism we can mention:

• The machinery that enslaved the worker and also generated his unemployment.
• The exploitation of the working class.
• The state of abandonment that the workers or proletarians had.
• The insensitivity of the employers who acted according to their profit and without caring about their workers.
• The poor distribution of wealth as the main cause of social misery.

Consequences

Socialism has generated many positive and negative consequences depending on how it has been applied and the management that has been given to the economy in the nations. An example of this can be seen in many socialist parties in Europe that have defended social equality and support for economic, educational and cultural development in many countries without nationalizing the means of production and allowing free markets and private property.

However, in Latin American countries like Cuba or Venezuela, where socialism is presented as communism and where the State has taken control of the means of production and there is no private property ; the quality of life is limited by the government that does not export or import any product because the economic apparatus is in total deterioration and the means of production are increasingly deficient.

Another negative example of the consequences of the socialist system was what happened in the Soviet Union, a bloc that suffered a great deterioration at a social and economic level and in which more people died than in the Nazi holocaust and which ended in 1987 with Perestroika. , political, economic and social restructuring that opened Russia to the free market, allowed private property and allowed trade with the West.

Representatives of socialism

Among the representatives of socialism, the most representative are Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels .

Karl Marx

Karl Marx is a German thinker of Jewish origin, born in 1810 in the city of Trier. Known as the father of scientific socialism, he studied the reality of the society of his time and generated theories about capital, work and wealth that had a great impact on the working masses worldwide . His masterpiece is “Capital” , known as the bible of socialism, has the following statements:

• Wealth comes from work and the value of objects depends on work.
• Capital has no value on its own, and it is dead labor that can only gain new life by exploiting the proletariat.
• Only the work of the worker produces value and for this reason the benefits should be focused on the workers and not on the capitalists. For this reason, the workers must share the profits of the industry.
• Labor is a commodity tied to the exploitation of capitalists and commerce.
• The government must be at the service of the proletariat.
• The accumulation of surplus value generates private wealth and this results from not paying the worker properly.

Friedrich Engels

Friedricho or Federico Engels, is a German thinker and socialist born in Barmen in 1820, in Germany. He was interested in the revolutionary movements of his time, the situation of the working class in 1845 and the socialist groups.

One of his best known works, ” The Communist Manifesto” was made in collaboration with Karl Marx in 1848. The following principles are used in this document:

• Historical materialism is determined by economic factors.
• The class struggle in the capitalist stage is the confrontation between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat.
• The new socialist society will emerge from the triumph of the proletariat, eliminating social classes, abolishing private property and placing the means of production and exchange in the hands of society.