Socialist Thinkers

Question 1

Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels (Revolutionary)

Answer 1

Centrality of social class eg. dialect change - this interpretation of socialism is ‘scientific’
Humans as social beings
Radical revolution as the only way to transform society
Human nature is socially determined - true nature only through communism

Question 2

Beatrice Webb (Evolutionary)

Answer 2

‘The inevitability of gradualness’ - gradualist parliamentary strategy for achieving evolutionary socialism
Expansion of the state
Supports the ‘parliamentary road’ to socialism with the working class driving this through their political emancipation

Question 3

Rosa Luxemburg (Revolutionary)

Answer 3

Other forms not possible because capitalism is based on an economic relationship of exploitation
The struggle by the proletariat for reform and democracy creates class consciousness necessary for the overthrow of capitalist society and the state

Question 4

Anthony Crosland (Evolutionary)

Answer 4

Managed capitalism can deliver social justice and equality - mixed economy, full employment & universal social benefits
Rejects Marxism
Supports capitalism to pay for social justice and welfare, limit to the operation of the state

Question 5

Anthony Giddens (Revisionism)

Answer 5

Rejects state intervention - free market, equality of opportunity rather than equality of outcome
Role of the state is social investment in infrastructure and education, not economic and social engineering
Associated with Blair & Third Way