Socialism

First, let’s try to define socialism. If we open a dictionary, it’s written that it means “various economic, social and political doctrines condemning private ownership of means of production and exchanges”. Actually, it’s a bit more complicated… Socialism means a LOT of things like ways of think and political movements having the same purpose: a more FAIR social and economic organisation. And this is done by social equality, or, at least, less social inequalities. The final point is building a better world for everyone, based on social harmony. that’s why it’s called “socialism” actually. It comes from a latin word “socius” that means “fellow, comrade or allied”.

The word “socialism” has appeared in 1820 (during the industrial revolution) but concerning the ideology, it’s a much older story… It begins a long time ago, in a society far, far away… in ancient Greece with our dear Platon. He is the first to think about social classes and the issue of living in harmony. Also in Asia, islam conceive a society based on fraternity. Later, during the Renaissance, Thomas More created the word “utopia” and with it, the concept of an ideal society without any defect. This way of think has got more and more success especially in the Lumières century. During the industrial revolution, there was also a social revolution which as for goal to solve the actuals problems. This revolution has led to the creation of the Labor movements. But it is only during the second part of the 19th century that the political parties have been created. All of this led to the first real uprising of the labor classe with “la Commune de Paris” in 1871. During 2 months and 10 days Paris became the first autonomous classless city in the world. The popular classes allied with the national guard took the power and began with democratic election. Everybody was represented and the city went better than ever during 2 months. People from all classes debated in the streets. It was a real democratic effervescence. In two months, the most important thinkers developed the bases of the social justice we know today : social security, workers rights, trade unions, paid vacation, … But it also gave the opportunity to people like Elisabeth Dmitrieff, a young Russian communist activist, to create one of the first female mass movements. The state is also separated from the Church and all the goods of it are redistributed in the population. This will end after a bloody fight called “la semaine sanglante”. I let you imagine why it has got such a name. This is, in our opinion, the only moment in the whole History during which Socialism has succeeded.

After World War two, the political family of socialism is cut in two parts : those who didn't believe in revolution anymore and simply wanted to be elected (with the generalization of universal suffrage in Europe) and to change the law to express the socialist ideas. But some purists who still believed in revolution, Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx theorised their “scientific socialism” in their manifesto. This manifesto was very well written and the idea of a society with total equality and no more private property, in addition with the class struggle theory, made this kind of socialism almost mathematical. The Russian were seduced by those ideas and saw in it a logical solution to their miserable life conditions. That’s how communism is born. This very utopic conception of society turned itself into something really… deceiving. A totalitarian and authoritarian regime that made this country and others fall so deep that even today we can see the terrible consequences of communism on the populations.

Of course there is not only one type of socialism but plenty of them. It began with the utopian socialism which is the oldest one. It regroups the oldest ideas of socialism. Big figures of this kind of socialism are Robert Owen, Charles Fourier,... After that we have the scientist socialism or communism with Markx and Engels but these two are a bit old compared with the three following one : the libertarian socialism, the ecosocialism and the neo-socialism. The first one is a kind of anarchy, they

...