Socialism

Guy Routh

Chapter 11 in Economics, 1984, pp 272-284 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Abstract How does one set about the conversion of a country to socialism? Marx and his disciples did not seem to anticipate any special problem. The proletariat seizes power as the last act of an immense historical process, classes are abolished, since the State (instrument of oppression by one class of another) is no longer needed, it withers away. All is harmony and, since expropriation of surplus value has ended, wellbeing. One would expect some guidance from the mature Frederick Engels, Socialism Utopian and Scientific, first published in 1882, but this does not go much beyond suggesting an immense release of energy by which social problems will be resolved: Active social forces work exactly like natural forces; blindly, forcibly, destructively, so long as we do not understand and reckon with them…. But when once their nature is understood, they can, in the hands of the producers working together, be transformod from master demons into willing servants. The difference is as that between the destructive force of electricity in the lightning of the storm, and electricity under command in the telegraph and the voltaic arc; the difference between a conflagration, and fire working in the service of man.

Keywords: Socialism Economic; Economic History; Socialist Country; Collective Farm; Free Price (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1984
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DOI: 10.1007/978-1-349-17348-8_11

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