Does Socialism Have a Future?
Heller, Agnes & Fehèr, Ferenc
Does socialism have a future? This question has been asked for almost two hundred years, whenever "socialism" as theory and movement reached a critical period. There can be little doubt that...
...The emptiness of daily life in welfare states and societies is, in our view, a direct outcome of this understandable, yet deeply problematic, choice...
...Second, socialism has to energize its paralyzed political imagination...
...At least there is no likelihood in the lifetime of now politically adult generations for a new edition of bolshevism— not without a cataclysmic collapse of civilization...
...In all probability, this kind of criticism will dominate the chorus in the present situation...
...Second, socialist theories and movements always protested the crippling burdens of work, whereby a whole class, a majority in modern society, was chained for life to exhausting and degrading types of labor...
...This one372 • DISSENT Socialism's Future dimensional image of the modern world generated an almost irresistible wish to create a brand-new society termed "socialism," which was to be the absolute negation of everything that had existed, even among socialists who were not necessarily enemies of every aspect of the modern world...
...Since there is nothing to be gained by arguing with the most hostile and unrelenting opponent's, we agree that some critics have a point, but only to the degree that they single out the defects in socialist political forecasts...
...In fact, many of these are pressing issues even if the edge of some have been blunted by welfarism and democratic social intervention...
...If Stalinism's "successor state" simply walks away from its social obligations, if the Communist apparatchniks will tinker with the practice, or parody, of minimal government, if they abolish all welfare mechanisms and generate an unprecedented level of unemployment by relinquishing economic controls, even that part of the world will turn away from the name of socialism with disgust...
...But if socialists want to have a future for their cause, they cannot simply close one chapter in a long and stormy history and proceed as if nothing had happened...
...Does, then, our conclusion read as follows...
...On the contrary...
...In the so-called First World, democracy as an established system has a very short history of forty postwar years...
...They accepted the ready-made political nostrums of their enemies on the social question...
...Socialism as prevention" is necessary in the modern world because an unrestrained market system, instead of creating "harmony," destroys our natural and social environment...
...Thatcherism 374 • DISSENT Socialism's Future may even win partisans among the newly emerging political forces of Eastern Europe...
...It was going to develop a new culture, a new type of human being, a new vision of the world that would surpass everything that had existed before...
...In this brand-new socialist universe every single feature of sociopolitical and cultural life had to be newly invented...
...And there is no reason for gloom...
...What Does The Future Hold...
...It is necessary that socialists learn that the secularization of socialism is a task long overdue...
...This time it implicates those who were innocent of any crime: those socialists who were not responsible for Stalinist terror or economic fiasco, indeed the very ones who were the most outspoken critics of the tyranny and the unrealistic promises of a "planned society...
...The very concept of a "planned society" sprang from precisely this aspect of socialist aspiration...
...The world "socialism" has no aura of sanctity around it...
...And yet socialists make life more tolerable only for themselves when they dismiss the socialist streak of Mussolini of the Republic of Salo, of the Rumanian Iron Guard, or of the Hungarian Arrow Cross Movement as a vulgar hoax or "mere plagiarism...
...At the very least, the following "revision of scripture," and not just of the Marxist kind, seems to be inevitable...
...Just like any other word in modern politics, "socialism" too can be exploited for the most infernal purposes...
...Not even the names of age-old business and market transactions were to be tolerated in this wonder-world of hyperrational planning...
...Fourth, community: a communitarian way of life as opposed to the rampant individualism of the industrial world was a basic tenet of socialist belief...
...Some others will move beyond it, or will act parallel with it...
...Do they add anything to the strength of socialism, to the socialist agenda...
...What is collapsing in front of us is one particular form of "socialism," one with gigantic philosophical ambitions and no ethical SUMMER • 1989 373 Socialism's Future conscience—but not socialism as such...
...Furthermore, it is a liberal dogma, and not the "ultimate truth," that democracy has already attained its final form beyond which it cannot develop...
...There is no ready-made philosophical answer to this question...
...However, despite the present peak of Thatcherist-populist-conservative-"revolution" (or counterrevolution), it seems unthinkable that social democratic welfare socialism should be buried for good...
...Further, welfarist socialism, although opposed to the idea of transcending the modern world, was negatively and dangerously influenced by its enemy...
...After the seizure of power, this idea degenerated into totalitarian terror...
...We face a radically different picture in addressing the political methods recommended by socialism...
...Even without Stalin and the mini-Stalins, this invention evolved into a feverish figment of religious fantasy...
...The time has evidently come when a simple truth has to be understood once and for all: It is socialism that exists for the world, not the world that exists for socialism...
...Socialism with limitations is a very old idea...
...Socialists used to invoke History writ large as their main witness...
...The increasingly blunt admissions by the ruling bureaucracies of Soviet-type societies that their long and, as far as human lives are concerned, expensive experiments have failed politically and economically threatens the socialist idea, however defined, with extinction...
...Socialism" had to generate its political dynamic, ending in the most spectacular attempt at squaring the circle: "democratic centralism...
...True enough, another type of socialist, the social democrat, or democratic socialist, came to an early reconciliation with the parliamentary system...
...Sixth, some sort of internationalism, varying from constant and active interest in the affairs of the world (an attitude that never questioned the legitimacy of the nation state) to direct experiments with a world republic (in the form SUMMER • 1989 . 371 Socialism's Future of Internationals, "socialist communities," and the like), was always inseparable from the theory and practice of socialism...
...The most clear-cut examples are the antinuclear and environmentalist movements...
...First, socialists have to realize that the modern world does not have a single "center," wherein the whole social universe can be transformed for the better by seizing it...
...Marx, who dreamed about the total elimination of political confrontation in the emancipated society of the future, was only the most consistent, but hardly alone in his conception...
...A Look at the Socialist Legacy Critics charge that the socialist program is obsolete, that democratic societies have already achieved much or all of what was legitimate in the socialist platform...
...Regardless of whether the welfare states were the creation of socialists or whether they came about as a result of conservative efforts to foreclose the danger of a bolshevik revolution, the politics of welfarism invariably embraced one or several issues on the socialist agenda...
...SUMMER • 1989 • 375...
...every old habit, institution, and principle replaced...
...Yet this is an expensive kind of family hypocrisy, one that misses crucial lessons of history...
...The passionate critique of this "emancipated slavery" promised the "emancipation from labor," in some form, in the projected new society...
...What were the traditional components of socialist theory and practice...
...And those socialists who resisted this metaphysical-political abstraction often feel pangs of conscience and suffer from feelings of guilt because of their philosophical and political "pusillanimity...
...The depth and the radicalism of welfarist policies depended on how militantly socialists pressed them...
...it was not and is not a positive and creative energy...
...What kind of responsible predictions can at this point be made about the future of socialism...
...Other Movements Rebellious movements are most likely to grow and spread, whatever the political atmosphere on the parliamentary level may be...
...EDs...
...Welfare Socialism Parallel with the tyrannical, now spectacularly discredited attempt at the total transcendence of the modern world, were various diverse and limited forms of socialism...
...However, two structural deficiencies have characterized welfarist socialism...
...But what about feminism, this major global revolution after World War Two...
...The massive disillusionment with "preventive socialism" will in all probability continue...
...Nothing is wrong with the original agenda of socialism, while everything is wrong with its political imagination...
...to the contrary, they allege that radical treatment of what they agree are genuine social ills would bring more pain than recovery—or remission...
...Socialists can play a crucial role of explorer and discover unknown continents of statecraft if only they put the same amount of intellectual energy to use that they mobilized in discovering "the social question...
...Several influential movements of the last decade refrained from defining themselves as "socialist...
...A late, and final, addition to the socialist agenda—one that never spread beyond the important but narrow circle of intellectuals who succumbed to the most radical version of socialist theory, movement, and party—was a romantic disillusionment with the "prosaics" of bourgeois society, and with it a longing for the great adventure of revolution...
...Is the reluctance of its sizeable contingents, perhaps its majority, to characterize itself as "socialist" merely a covert critique of the socialist agenda and the socialists' historical disregard for this epochal issue...
...It will have its natural resurrection to the extent that people gain their own experience with the existential insecurity of Thatcher's "popular capitalism" and her increasingly authoritarian state...
...More precisely, the whole debate has originated from the tacit identification of socialism with the total transcendence of the modern world even by those who opposed the foolhardy and terroristic experiment...
...If this is so, what, then, is wrong with socialism...
...There can be little doubt that socialism, both as a movement and a theory, is now living through one of its greatest trials...
...To their grief, they cannot even question the socialist character of Mao's Red Guards, the exact replica of European fascists...
...The first lesson is that "the socialism of the mob" has one cause: the power of ("capitalist" or "socialist") oligarchies and the social frustration that oligarchies create...
...And this applies as well to those who were not party to the bolshevik scandal, even to those who fought against it in the name of their different conceptions of socialism...
...Mea culpas of religious fervor with "loyalty to the cause" as an excuse no longer suffice...
...Honest observers of contemporary society can hardly fail to find almost all the components of the socialist ideal still relevant and valid...
...In the Third World, democracy is the exception rather than the rule, and it is facing tremendous cultural obstacles...
...More surprising, it was generally treated with more skepticism by socialist than by nonsocialist commentators...
...These socialists contributed considerably to the cause of democracy by mobilizing their constituency in behalf of universal suffrage...
...Some new products of this explosive period can and will be integrated into the socialist agenda...
...The real dimension and depth of the collapse of bolshevism has hit so far the politically astute observers in the West...
...Fifth, the legacy of the great political revolutions: the principle of political equality, or equality before the law, was extended to social inequalities...
...The first element, which appeared in every socialist project and movement, was to put the social question on the political agenda...
...In all probability, no full-scale transformation of the modem world is conceivable, and none can therefore be honestly recommended, that would yield a simultaneous answer to all legitimate issues on the socialist agenda...
...A highly complex modern society, with its capitalist organization of the economy, with its almost uncontrollable drive for industrial growth (both in countries with capitalist and anticapitalist economies), and with its still evolving democracy has been reduced to a phantom termed "capitalism" not only by the Bolsheviks but by virtually all varieties of socialism...
...The only healthy socialist innovation in the political sphere, namely, direct democracy, as it appeared in the Paris Commune, in the Russian soviets, in the working-class councils and committees of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, never had a historical opportunity to survive...
...But at some point it is perceived as a straitjacket on society and, particularly, on the individual...
...This is precisely our hypothesis: "Preventive socialism" as straitjacket was the major sociopsychological background of Thatcherism, not just in Great Britain but also in some Scandinavian countries and in Israel...
...We believe, however, that the issues raised by socialists are not at all obsolete...
...A painful issue, one that socialists prefer to cover with silence or self-righteous indignation, is "the socialism of the mob...
...It is an unmentionable part of our heritage, like a dirty scandal in a family's past...
...class—poverty, short life expectancy, exploitation, cultural deprivation—as the historical fruit of capitalist society...
...In this respect, more socialism than was supported by its natural beneficiaries—the people—can only be critically demanded by the romantically disillusioned intellectual...
...Above all, the present crisis provides a unique opportunity for the self-education of socialists...
...Where there is oligarchy and, in addition, where democratic tradition is weak or nonexistent, socialism of the mob—a terrible scourge of the modern world—is always around the corner...
...The second indispensable lesson is that socialists, insofar as they accept as primary the principle of freedom on which the modern world rests, owe no allegiance to a movement by virtue of its calling itself socialist...
...Good riddance, even if honest hopes and aspirations are going to be temporarily buried in the same mass grave together with criminal experiments conducted on millions of lives...
...But are they socialist...
...In addition, there has always been an element of sterility in the socialist political imagination...
...We now see the monstrous outcome of this boldly designed universe as a moral, political, and philosophical obscenity...
...Yet the issue ranked high on their agenda...
...Socialists are therefore chasing antiquated goals and upset the healthy atmosphere of the modern world...
...But their fantasy remained barren...
...How lasting this resurrection is going to be is another matter...
...This time, an honest bill of particulars is needed...
...Socialist theories and movements did not necessarily propose absolute egalitarianism as a panacea for every social evil...
...The longevity, the extension, and the internal enrichment of welfare socialism depend in part on its ability to create "a second dimension," a cultural-ethical background for its social reforms...
...The new order had to be based on unprecedented principles of perfect economic management...
...The best known of them is a socialist version of the welfare state...
...In this regard, the socialist legacy is either uninventive or original, but fatal either way...
...We are living in an age of the explosion of political fantasy...
...In the Second World, it will make its first steps in the near future if our hopes about the Soviet transformations have at least a minimal validity...
...Democracy appeared to them either as the more accessible path to their own power (whose political character remained obscure) or as identical with the "rule of the majority" —and, of course, they represented the majority...
...Welfarist socialists, sensitive to the results of bolshevik philosophical and practical audacity, have thrown away all kinds of "socialist metaphysics" and proudly chosen a "prosaic socialism," without "big phrases" and "intellectual fanfare...
...Even if socialists resolutely reject the "atheist religion" of an earthly paradise, they still have to realize that no social issue can be permanently resolved without "metaphysics," that is, without a cultural and ethical dimension and without thoroughgoing changes, eventually revolution, in our established ways of life...
...This, in part, can be accounted for by the fact that their objectives were indeed beyond any social system...
...And socialism has to find a kind of friendly cohabitation with them...
...In the whole history of this theory and movement, a recurring feature has been the socialists' challenge to a world that was reluctant to accept their political or philosophical prescriptions...
...Does the source of the crisis in socialism lie here...
...The first in this series, by Michael Harrington, appeared in our Spring 1989 issue...
...Third, socialists always voiced the muted but strong feeling of the masses that "market rationality" is a façade hiding the ultimate irrationality of social life when the latter is abandoned to the forces of competition and the untempered pursuit of industrial growth...
...The barrenness of the socialist political fantasy, its organic indifference to the political sphere combined with the vivacity of its social imagination, had one fatal result...
...We find the debate on their "authentically socialist" character particularly sterile...
...more precisely, they appealed to the common interests of every nation, every social group, every actor...
...So far, only a minority of the critics is prepared to recognize the lasting validity of all the items on the socialist agenda...
...This witness is, however, neither just nor fair...
...Socialists without exception addressed the condition of the working This article is one in a recurrent series on socialist thought that Dissent will be printing...
...First, its socialism has been a negative, a limiting force, one that acted as an impediment to the destructive dynamic of an unrestrained market system...
...It was going to transcend the modern world and create this world's absolute negation, a genuine paradise on earth, while proudly flaunting its "atheism...
...Or is it an indication of the emergence of new phenomena that are truly radical yet no longer find accommodation within the old theoretical framework of socialism...
...This fiasco seems to be as final as anything can be in the modern world, where long-forgotten thoughts and policies unexpectedly return...
...The only innovation socialism added to the arsenal of modern statecraft, long before "socialists" acquired power in any country, has been the idea of a revolutionary dictatorship...
...The present grave predicament of socialism, alas, has more complex causes...
...In the short term, the socialists' fortune can only deteriorate...
...hence a planned (in fact, a command) economy...
...It has appeared intermittently, as postulate or practice, ever since the French Revolution and the workers' revolts against modern industrial technology...
Vol. 36 • July 1989 • No. 3
