Socialism
...or ideas about the nature of human society and its
future desirable state--and to a state of society based on that ideology.
Socialists have always claimed to stand above all for the values of equality,
social justice, cooperation, progress, and individual freedom and happiness, and
they have generally sought to realize these values by the abolition of the
private-enterprise economy (see CAPITALISM) and its replacement by "public
ownership," a system of social or state control over production and distribution.
Methods of transformation advocated by socialists range from constitutional
change to violent revolution.
ORIGINS OF SOCIALISM
Some scholars believe that the basic principles of socialism were derived from
the philosophy of Plato, the teachings of the Hebrew prophets, and some parts of
the New Testament (the Sermon on the Mount, for example). Modern socialist
ideology, however, is essentially a joint product of the 1789 French Revolution
and the Industrial Revolution in England--the word socialist first occurred in
an English journal in 1827. These two great historical events, establishing
democratic government in France and the conditions for vast future economic
expansion in England, also engendered a state of incipient conflict between the
property owners (the bourgeoisie) and the growing class of industrial workers;
socialists have since been striving to eliminate or at least mitigate this
conflict. The first socialist movement emerged in France after the Revolution
and was led by Francois BABEUF, Filippo Buonarrotti (1761-1837), and Louis
Auguste BLANQUI; Babeuf's revolt of 1796 was a failure. Other early socialist
thinkers, such as the comte de SAINT-SIMON, Charles FOURIER, and Etienne CABET
in France and Robert OWEN and William Thompson (c.1785-1833) in England,
believed in the possibility of peaceful and gradual transformation to a
socialist...
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