Socialism

Conceptual History

Socialistae (Latin) or socialisti (Italian) were the polemical names given in the 18th century to the representatives of modern natural law in the manner of Hugo Grotius and Samuel von Pufendorf by Roman Catholic theologians who were critical or even hostile to the Enlightenment. In 1762 Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote his work Du contrat social, in which the state is based on the contract (contract) of free individuals. Since 1793, the legal-philosophical term "socialists" has been used in Germany for adherents of Pufendorf's principle of solidarity.

The word socialism is first found in 1803 in the Italian form socialismo. Giacomo Giuliani, in his critique of Rousseau, uses this term positively to refer to the social order, but in that he considered it to be the divine will that society be characterized by hierarchies between people. Such a religious reinterpretation, however, was strongly criticized because the term was seen as causally related to Enlightenment liberalism.

The first evidence of the use of the word socialist in English was found in 1824, the actual French socialisme first in 1832, coined by Joncières, more widely used by Leroux and Reybaud.

A transfer of the original adjective social into today's German social language is to be sought in the vicinity of common, just or socially reasonable, beneficial to the community.

The adjective socialist, on the other hand, was understood politically from the beginning. It is socially a further development of the social thoughts of the Enlightenment insofar as this equality is to be granted not only to the right but also to property.

Definition problem

What is meant by socialism has long been disputed. As early as the 1920s, the sociologist Werner Sombart collected 260 definitions of socialism.

A generally accepted, scientifically valid definition does not exist. Rather, the use of the term is characterized by a great variety of meanings and conceptual vagueness and is subject to constant change of meaning. For this reason, adjectives (proletarian, scientific, democratic, Christian, cooperative, conservative, utopian) are often prefixed to the term to make it more precise. Further examples of such specifications are, for example, agrarian socialism, state socialism or reform socialism.

A lowest common denominator of the term can be given by the following definitions:

The variety of meanings is further increased by the fact that the term socialism can denote methods and objectives, socio-political movements as well as historical-social phases and existing social systems:

• a socio-economic, political, philosophical, pedagogical or ethical doctrine directed towards the interpretation, analysis, criticism, ideal or practical shaping of certain social conditions;
• a political movement which tries to realize in practice the demands and aims founded by socialism;
• the state of society or social order which embodies socialism in economic modes of production and forms of life;
• within the framework of Marxism-Leninism, a world-historical phase of development in the transition from capitalist to communist social formation.
• the term "real socialism", which was used to describe those states that had been ruled by a Communist Party, usually in a one-party system, since 1917.

According to the political scientist Günter Rieger, socialist ideologies can be distinguished firstly according to their attitude to the state (state socialism versus anarchism), secondly according to the way in which the desired transformation of society is to be achieved (revolution versus reform), and thirdly according to the importance given to different social and economic interests of those involved (class antagonism versus pluralism).

An academic debate on socialism as an alternative conception of society, such as took place at universities during the German student movement of the 1960s, hardly takes place today. Only individual social scientists such as Wolfgang Fritz Haug, in view of the alleged turbo-capitalism today and the lifestyles associated with it, call for learning from historical experience and updating the socialist project. A critical stocktaking is undertaken, among others, by the journal Das Argument and the edition of the Historical-Critical Dictionary of Marxism (HKWM), which is also based there. A future alternative way of life with socialism is also being discussed in the environment of the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, which belongs to the party Die Linke.

In his paper The Idea of Socialism, the social philosopher Axel Honneth presented a critique of the original idea of socialism rooted in the Industrial Revolution and redefined "social freedom" as its core idea. Today, socialism means experimental political anchoring on the way to a society based on solidarity, which is to be striven for not only on the economic but also on the political level and in personal relations (especially between the sexes).

The political sociologist Heinz Dieterich also presents a new interpretation with his concept of 21st century socialism, in which he attempts to link Marxist value theory with grassroots democratic elements, which is then based on a non-market economy of equivalence democratically determined by those who directly create value. Attempts to put this new theory into practice can currently be found in Venezuela (Bolivarism) and Bolivia. The theory of a democratic confederalism is currently being tried to be realised in various Kurdish organisations and local administrations of a socialist character (Rojava, YPG).

Wolfram Elsner, Professor of Economics at the University of Bremen, sees Chinese-style socialism as a "more effective model" "compared to the old, Euro-centric concept of socialism", but also compared to "neoliberal financial market capitalism". In his 2020 book The Chinese Century, he writes: "China today is capable of breaking down again the decades-long discrediting and tabooing of any idea of real socialism, especially because it shows that socialism in the 21st century is no longer a static, bureaucratic poverty system, but can even surpass real existing capitalism in this respect and expand human perspectives."