Socialism evidence

Answer 1

Communism:

Social democracy:
- Eduard Bernstein = “Evolutionary Socialism” - capitalism had evolved, workers’ conditions improved & classes could compromise
- Keynes = mixed economy
- Sweden Discrimination Act (2008)
- Equality Act (2010)
- Health and Safety Act (1974) = regulated workplace health + safety
- Germany Minimum Wage Act (2014) = 1st min wage
- National Minimum Wage Act (1998)
- Employment Protection Act (1975) = right to maternity leave
- Social Democratic Federation (SDF) called for 8 hour working day

Democratic socialism:
- Creation of Labour (1900)
- Labour 1918 manifesto = min wage, 48 hr working week, nationalise, progressive tax
- Wheatley Housing Act (1924) = subsidised rent for poorest members of society
- Coal Mines Act (1930) = reduced working day 1/2 hour
- Housing Act (1930) = forced councils to clear out slums + build new houses
- NHS Act (1946)
- Nationalisation under Attlee = Coal Industry Nationalisation Act (1946), Transport Act (1947), Electricity Act (1947) + Gas Act (1948), nationalised 1/5 of economy - unemployment reduced to 2.5%
- Butler Act (1944) = secondary education free
- National Insurance Act (1946) = extended to all adults
TU = national minimum wage, 8 hour working days, 2 day weekends, equal pay
- Women’s Trade Union League (1880) pushed for equal pay –> Equal Pay Act (1970) = 1st UK legislation which banned unequal pay
- Sure Start Program (1998) = provide education to kids in deprived areas
- New Deal for Communities = improve infrastructure, create jobs & support community projects in deprived areas
- EMA
- Child Poverty Act = targets to reduce child poverty, eradicate by 2020
- Working Tax Credit and Child Tax Credit

Gradualism:
Communism: (rev)
Marx = “The working class is revolutionary or it is nothing at all”
Democratic socialism:
- Fabian society = “for the right moment you must wait”
- Beatrice Webb = “inevitability of gradualism”
- Beatrice Webb = (Revolution) “Chaotic, inefficient and counter-productive”, “guilty of the same problem besetting capitalism- unpredictability”
- Beatrice Webb = “matters may be resolved sensibly…by rational, educated and civic minded officials”

Private ownership
- Rousseau = “many crimes, wars and murders” grew out of the concept of private ownership
- Marx = “private property is thus the product… of alienated labour”
- Hobsbawm = “for an individual living in a slum…any notion of freedom or independence seemed utterly distant”

Capitalism:
Social democracy:
- Eduard Bernstein = “Evolutionary Socialism” - capitalism had evolved, workers’ conditions improved & classes could compromise
- Anthony Giddens = the left should “get comfortable with the markets” (accept capitalism)
Democratic Socialism:
- Beatrice Webb = capitalism - “crippling poverty and demeaning inequality”
- Tony Benn = labour’s 1979 defeat inevitable - “compromise with capitalism’s contradictions”

State:
Communism:
- Marx = State is “but a committee” for the bourgeoisie
- Stalin - USSR - nationalised entire economy with 5 point plan
- Marx = “The state is based on this contradiction…the state must confine itself”
- Marx = “but the working class cannot simply lay hold of the ready-made state machinery, and wield it for its own purposes”
- Marx = “The oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class are to represent and repress them”
- Engels = “The state is not abolished, it withers away”

Bourgeoisie + proletariat:
Communism:
- Marx = “the ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling class”
- Communist Manifesto (1848) = “the proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. Working men of all countries, unite”
- Marx = “The oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class are to represent and repress them”
– Beatrice Webb (nationalism) = “hollow, petty-bourgeois phraseology

Society:
Communism:
- Marx = “All forms of the state have democracy for their truth”
- Marx = “the history of society is the history of class struggles”
Social democracy:
- Anthony Crosland = “infinitely more complex than Marx could ever have imagined”

Human nature:
- John Donne = “no man is an island”
- Marx = “man is directly a natural being”
- Beatrice Webb = “matters may be resolved sensibly…by rational, educated and civic minded officials”

Equality:
- Hobsbawn = “for an individual living in a slum…any notion of freedom or independence seemed utterly distant”
- Marx = “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs” (access to goods)

Collectivism:
Communism:
- Marx = “The human essence is the true collectivist essence”
Democratic socialism?:
- “By the strength of our common endeavour we achieve more than we achieve alone” = labour clause IV