Page 51 - Encyclopedia Of World History

communism and socialism 401

Pool, I. D. (1990). Technologies without boundaries: On telecommunica- to meet the material needs of their citizens. In this sense,
tions in a global age. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. industrial capitalism was an enormously progressive
Robinson,A. (1995). The story of writing:Alphabets, hieroglyphs, and pic-
tograms. London: Thames & Hudson. development in human affairs, and he praised its achieve-
Ruhlen, M. (1994). The origin of language: Tracing the evolution of the ments lavishly. But this vast potential was blocked by the
mother tongue. New York: John Wiley.
Standage, T. (1998). The Victorian internet: The remarkable story of the fatal flaws of capitalism—private property, growing
telegraph and the nineteenth century’s on-line pioneers. New York: inequalities, bitter class conflict, worsening cycles of eco-
Berkley Books. nomic expansion and recession, competitive and indi-
Winston, B. (1998). Media technology and society:A history from the tele-
graph to the Internet. London: Routledge. vidualistic values. Such societies, Marx believed, would
Wright. R. (1991,April). Quest for the mother tongue. Atlantic Monthly, self-destruct in a vast revolutionary upheaval, led by the
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Yates, J. (1989). Control through communication: The rise of system in factory working class (the proletariat), which was impov-
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vast productive possibilities of modern economies would
be placed in service to the whole of society in a rationally
planned and egalitarian community, bringing an end to
class conflict, to national rivalries, and to the endemic
Communism and poverty and inequalities of the past.This was socialism,
and to Marx it marked the end of the sorry history of end-
Socialism less class struggle and opened the way to a bright and cre-

ative future for humankind.
t the core of modern socialism and Communism lies
Aan ancient vision of an ideal human community Socialist Movements
characterized by abundance, equality, freedom, coopera- Marx’s ideas inspired socialist movements of workers and
tion, and harmony. Elements of this vision have surfaced intellectuals amid the grim harshness of Europe’s indus-
repeatedly—in the message of the Hebrew prophets, in trialization in the second half of the nineteenth century.
millenarian movements in Asia, Africa, and elsewhere, Socialists established political parties in most European
and in the small utopian communities of early-nineteenth- states and linked them together in international organi-
century Europe and America. (In general terms, Com- zations.These parties recruited members, contested elec-
munism refers to a political system that abolishes private tions as they gained the right to vote, agitated for reforms,
property, and socialism to a system of collective owner- and in some cases plotted revolution.While established
ship of the means of production and distribution.) elites felt enormously threatened by socialist movements,
nowhere in the most advanced capitalist countries of En-
Marxism gland, Germany, France, or the United States did Marx’s
Modern socialism took shape in the industrializing soci- predicted revolution occur. Through democratic pres-
eties of Western Europe during the nineteenth century.As sures and trade unions, workers gradually raised their
a set of ideas, this socialism is forever connected to the standard of living while the beginnings of “welfare state”
writings of Karl Marx (1818–1883). Having witnessed reforms softened the harsh edges of capitalism. Marx had
industrial capitalism during its early and harshest phase, not appreciated this capacity of capitalist societies to
Marx set out to analyze that phenomenon and to chart reform themselves. Furthermore, nationalism drew the
its future development.Through the wonders of modern loyalties of workers to their own countries rather than to
technology, Marx argued, industrial capitalist societies the international working class, as Marx had imagined.
had potentially solved the ancient problems of scarcity Socialist revolutions did occur in the twentieth century,
and poverty.They could now produce more than enough but in places where Marx would have least expected