Criticism of socialism

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The term critique of socialism denotes - analogous to the critique of capitalism - the critique of a social mode of production that understands itself as socialist , but is analyzed by system critics as a new type of social formation with class character. The “workers bureaucracy” or “monopoly bureaucracy” as a new ruling class that has access to the collectivized means of production are particularly targeted . The Soviet Union and the socialist countries dependent on it were described by critics of socialism as a “bureaucratically degenerate workers state” ( Leon Trotsky ), “monopoly socialism ” (Kuron / Modzelewski), “ state capitalism ” ( Tony Cliff ) or “real socialism” ( Rudolf Bahro ) .

The criticism is mostly an immanent criticism that previous partisans and followers of socialist doctrine articulate. Leon Trotsky's "Revolution Betrayed" and Djilas ' "New Class" are among the early publications that formulated such a criticism of socialism.

Liberal criticism

Representatives of liberalism such as Friedrich August von Hayek ( The Road to Serfdom , science and socialism ) or Ludwig von Mises criticize socialism mainly because of the limitation of freedom . Socialism is always connected with coercion and therefore unjust per se.

Lack of economic efficiency

Since the beginning of the dispute in France between political economy and socialism, the socialist critics of the market economy have been accused of having no practical alternatives or that various experiments that have already been made have shamefully failed. Among the more recent economists, Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk , a representative of the Austrian School , raised the problem of economic accounting in socialism for the first time in Capital and Capital Interest (1884–1902) against Marxism , which Ludwig von Mises's argument subsequently continued was expanded. Socialism negates the entire market process and thus there are no market prices that are signals of scarcity. If these are missing, there is no way to rationally evaluate investment alternatives, as Mises can deductively deduce from his theory of action. However, in a mixed economy with interventions, the same problem ultimately arises, only more moderately, since to the extent that the state intervenes in the free market, the formation of reasonable prices is thwarted here too and the direction of production is thus changed. The government then only has two options: either to return to a free market or to try to correct the imbalance through further interventions, which in turn disrupt the competitive structure of market prices. The economy of any interventionist state is therefore inevitably unstable.

Milton Friedman emphasizes that socialist economies generally produce lower quality products at higher prices.

Lack of individual rights and the rule of law

According to Mises' pupil Friedrich August von Hayek, the socialization of the means of production inevitably collides with individual rights and the rule of law. Preserving the rule of law would require the planning authorities to restrict themselves, which they are not able to do because otherwise they would not be able to perform their tasks.

The economist Jürgen Pätzold puts it this way: “Central planning requires collectivism in socio-political terms and the totalitarianism of the one-party system in terms of state policy. On the other hand, if a market economy is to function, it must be embedded in a system of political and economic freedoms. A comparable system of freedoms is incompatible with the central administration economy. The freedom of action and movement of individuals forms a latent disruptive factor in the centrally administered economy, which the state seeks to suppress. "

Jean Baudrillard

The post-structuralist sociologist and philosopher Jean Baudrillard criticizes in The Divine Left - Chronicle of the Years 1977-1984 with a view to the French situation what from his point of view no longer contemporary goals of socialism. While socialism still dreams of a transparent and coherent society, people hardly have such a need for connection, contact and communication. According to the philosopher Wolfgang Welsch , a Baudrillard could hardly express this criticism of socialism. Baudrillard's criticism is merely narcissistic and a vehicle to make his own antiquated diagnosis appear current.

Friedrich Nietzsche

In 1878, the contemporary of Marx and Engels pointed out that socialism was the younger brother of the almost dead despotism that he wanted to inherit. He needs an abundance of state power and strives for the annihilation of the individual. The desired Caesarian state of violence needs the most submissive prostration of all citizens and can only hope for existence through extreme terrorism. He is quietly preparing for a reign of terror and misusing the concept of justice. Socialism teaches the danger of the accumulation of state power and will provoke calls for as little state as possible.

Anarchist criticism

Bakunin already argued with Marx about the role of political rule of any kind, whether absolutism or the dictatorship of the proletariat . The smashing of capitalism must take place at the same time as the smashing of the state. He feared that Marxist socialism would continue the domination of the masses by state socialism . Anarchists like Victor Serge were initially partisans of Lenin in the Russian Revolution, but showed solidarity with the Kronstadt sailors' uprising against the party bureaucracy and, under Stalin's rule, increasingly came into opposition to the Soviet system of rule.

Trotskyist criticism

While Trotsky still viewed the Soviet Union as a - albeit "bureaucratically degenerate" - workers' state, Tony Cliff and the International Socialist Tendency, influenced by his ideas, propagated the version of a state capitalist system with all the characteristics of capitalist class rule.

Budapest school

The Budapest school around Ágnes Heller and Ferenc Fehér used Marxist instruments to analyze Soviet societies as totalitarian systems with a “dictatorship over needs”.

Critique of Really Existing Socialism

In 1977 SED member Rudolf Bahro presented a Marxist-based analysis and criticism of “actually existing socialism” as a “non-capitalist” class society under the dictatorship of the party and bureaucracy with his well-known publication “Die Alternative”.

literature

Classic texts
Further literature
  • Tony Cliff : State Capitalism in Russia . Socialist workers group Frankfurt 1975.
  • Ferenc Fehér / Ágnes Heller : dictatorship over needs. Socialist criticism of Eastern European social formations . VSA-Verlag, Hamburg 1979.
  • Ágnes Heller / Ferenc Fehér / György Makus: The Soviet Way. Needs dictatorship and alienated everyday life . VSA-Verlag, Hamburg 1983.
  • Günther Hillmann : self-criticism of communism. Opposition texts . Rowohlt, Reinbek b. Hamburg 1967.
  • Jacek Kuron / Karol Modzelewski: Monopoly Socialism. Open letter to the Polish United Workers' Party . Hoffmann and Campe, Hamburg 1969.
  • Stefan price: The socialism criticism with Max Weber and Ludwig von Mises. Reflections on apocalyptic politics . Scientific publishing house Berlin 2016.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ "Ainsi, deux puissances se disputent le gouvernement du monde, et s'anathématisent avec la ferveur de deux cultes hostiles: l'économie politique, ou la tradition; et le socialisme, ou l'utopie ”. Translation: "So two powers quarrel over the rule of the world and curse each other with the enthusiasm of hostile faiths as heretics: political economy or tradition and socialism or utopia" Pierre-Joseph Proudhon : Système des contradictions économiques, ou philosophie de la misère, Oeuvres Complètes, Vol. I, ed. by C. Bouglé, H. Moysset, Geneva Paris 1982, p. 66 f.
  2. ↑ See Richard Ebeling in the foreword, Section III to “Money, Method, and the Market Process - Essays by Ludwig von Mises”, edited by Margit von Mises and Richard M. Ebeling (Eds.), Ludwig von Mises Institute, 1990.
  3. ^ "Socialized enterprises produce poor quality products at high prices with much conferred special benefits on small growers." Interview: Milton Friedman - Nobel Prize in Economics, January 31, 1991, Stanford, California ( Memento of the original of February 16, 2007 on the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.achievement.org
  4. ^ Friedrich August von Hayek : The Road to Serfdom (Eng. The way to bondage )
  5. ^ Jürgen Patzold: Social market economy. In: juergen-paetzold.de. Retrieved February 28, 2015 .
  6. ^ Wolfgang Welsch: Our Postmodern Modernism , Akademie Verlag, 2002, p. 153.
  7. ↑ Friedrich Nietzsche: Menschliches, Allzumenschliches No. 473, in KSA vol. 2 p. 307.