By his position alone he is alienated. The disdain expressed in this assertion compellingly demonstrates the extent to which intellectuals tend to set their own value standards as absolutes. People are to be judged by their level of education and cultural capital. Accordingly, how deeply unfair it is that someone with little formal education and no interest in high culture should amass a great fortune, while well-educated and well-read academics have to make do with comparatively little?
It is hardly surprising that the world seems upside down to such intellectuals. After all, they derive their own sense of superiority from being better educated, more knowledgeable and better able to express themselves.
Understandably, intellectuals tend to equate knowledge acquisition with academic education and book learning. Entrepreneurial research has shown that this is the route to knowledge acquisition taken by the majority of entrepreneurs.
In other words, learning is not necessarily the result of the conscious and systematic acquisition of knowledge, but often the result of unconscious, implicit learning processes. This is a point that had previously been emphasized by the economist and Nobel laureate Friedrich August von Hayek.
Implicit learning differs from explicit learning in that outcomes are difficult or impossible to demonstrate in the form of certificates or academic qualifications. Ever since the days of Plato and Aristotle, intellectuals have been telling us that their contribution to society is more valuable than that of any other group. But where does this sense of entitlement come from?
This leads them to expect society at large to operate according to the same norms. In particular, in capitalist societies, which promise the greatest success for the brightest and most deserving, such promises of meritocracy fuel their expectations. Intellectual anti-capitalism has become as powerful as it has only because the business elite has so far been unable to muster an intellectually adequate response.
Pro-capitalist intellectuals — economists such as Ludwig von Mises, Hayek and Milton Friedman as well as writers such as Ayn Rand — have tried to take up the battle that the business elite itself is unwilling or unable to fight, whether out of lack of courage or intellectual wherewithal and verbal agility.
However, such supporters of capitalism have always been outsiders among their fellow intellectuals. These were not outsiders or misfits, but members of the intellectual elite, whose hatred of capitalism was so strong that it drove them to revere some of the worst mass murderers of the 20th century. To address the problem, they prescribed a system in which the workers themselves "take the control of industry and of all branches of production," along with the abolition of private property and "the communal ownership of goods.
Following the Russian revolution of , Vladimir Lenin, leader of the victorious Bolsheviks, expanded on the principles of Marxism, as did Lenin's eventual successor, Joseph Stalin. Their ideas evolved into Marxism-Leninism, which, rather than seeing the state wither away, called for rule by a single political party. That was the system that governed the Soviet Union until its collapse in In addition, a number of other nations have communist parties that participate, to varying degrees, in the political process.
Like Marxism, modern socialism arose in the 19th century in response to the Industrial Revolution and what many perceived to be the excesses of capitalism. Instead of the individualism encouraged by a capitalist system, it emphasized the "collective good," or collectivism. It grew out of ideas about redistribution of wealth that developed during the Enlightenment and revolutionary movements of the 18th century.
Among its leading proponents on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean was Robert Owen, himself a prosperous, Welsh-born owner of textile mills. Some early socialists including Owen, often referred to as utopian socialists, created communities based on shared property in Europe, Great Britain, and the United States.
One well-known American example was the Shakers, a Protestant sect formed in England that established settlements throughout the eastern and Midwestern U. Adherents who still called themselves socialists maintained their gradualist approach, while communists urged more aggressive action.
From the 19th century on, socialist principles have had an influence on public policy in Great Britain, France, and other countries—in particular through laws aimed at protecting workers' rights, including the right to form trade unions and bargain collectively.
Social democracy is a strain of socialism that allows capitalism to exist but attempts to reign in its excesses through regulation while also addressing inequality through government-run social programs. It gained ground after World War II, in part as a response to the economic failures and brutal governance of the Stalin-era Soviet Union. Countries such as Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden are examples of social democracies, and many social welfare programs in the United States and elsewhere might also be seen as social democratic initiatives.
Countries that combine both socialism and capitalism in this way are sometimes referred to as having mixed economies. In some countries where socialism has not taken hold as the official form of government, political parties such as the Social Democratic Party of Germany and the Labour Party in the United Kingdom exert large influence.
Communism has never gained much of a foothold in the United States, although the Communist Party USA, founded in , has run candidates for public office over the years. But much of that law has since been repealed, and the party remains in existence. Socialism has fared better but has also had its ups and downs. Numerous socialists have been elected to positions as mayors and several have been elected members of Congress. Eugene V. Debs, who was the socialist candidate for president in five elections , , , , and , earned close to 1 million votes on his final try.
For decades, the terms "communist" and "socialist" have been used in the U. Similarly, countless government programs and legislative proposals have been denounced as "socialist" or "communist" by those who oppose them for one reason or another.
That wall never contained communism. And, heck, communism contains some ideas that are still very appealing, especially in times such as now when an economic downturn has been felt by so many. Communism is a system of social organization that has never been truly tried and, these days, never truly explained.
Yet it inspires fear in some, derision in others, and an almost universal unconcern for what it is actually intended to convey. You could read Marx for yourself, of course, and find that his communism is not made from dreary monsters but instead complex reasoning toward a future social evolution. Many of its features may even be acceptable to your conservative aunt, if only she read him, too.
First up, you need to suffer one of those tedious passages where we define some terms. Here we go: Socialism and communism and liberalism are not interchangeable words.
The liberal, whether of a progressive or conservative sort, believes that social problems largely derive from poor individual morals. US presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, for example, said our moral intolerance of minorities is the great problem with America; US president Donald Trump said our moral privileging of minorities is the great problem with America. The communist cannot agree with either proposition. Currently, that system is capitalism.
Communism is the critique and the antidote to capitalism, with all its problems, including those of social and cultural division. A liberal believes that capitalism can be humanized. A socialist is skeptical about this. In other words, liberals think a few bad apples spoil the supply. A communist thinks that the crate itself is rotten. A communist is a socialist, but a socialist is not necessarily a communist.
A communist believes that socialism is a historical phase that precedes communism and follows capitalism. Socialism is that system where the state is the full or partial owner of all property. The press and books were subject to state censorship. This served to force all opposition underground and in the 19th century there were a large number of secret societies dedicated to political reform or revolution.
The Tsar's secret police, the Okhrana, frequently infiltrated and spied on these organisations. Serf : A medieval farm worker who belonged to his landlord and could not leave the land he worked on. The majority of the Russian population were peasants who were uneducated, poor and powerless to change their conditions. The state and the higher, privileged classes exploited them harshly. A large portion of the peasantry was made up of serfs. These were farmers or peasants who worked the land of the nobility and were the legal property of the landowner for whom they worked.
They had no rights and were forbidden to leave their landlords, who could order them to do whatever he chose. In the s, Tsar Alexander II freed the serfs so that they became free peasants, and could move about in search of different work. Some stayed in the rural areas as farmers or peasants, but others chose to go to the urban areas to become wage labourers in the developing factories.
However, according to tradition, serfs had to be bought in order to free them. The state held that as it had freed the serfs, it had bought them from the nobility, and demanded repayment. For many serfs, this demand was impossible to meet.
They never earned enough, and large numbers of them continued to live in desperate poverty. Without land of their own, they were still compelled to work for others to survive.
These figures from the census give a good idea of what the social structure in tsarist Russia looked like:. Although Europe had begun a process of industrialisation since the beginning of the 19th century, Russia lagged far behind. A big reason for this was the lack of available labour for factories. Serfs were still bound to the land and were therefore not free to be used as labour for the new industries.
Only when the serfs were freed to move and work in the urban areas was real industrialisation possible. For this reason, Russia's economic development fell far behind the rest of Europe. The Russian government took steps to catch up. Millions of roubles were borrowed from European banks to set up state industries, and a large number of British and French companies were invited to build and operate factories in Russia. As the freed serfs provided an increasing pool of cheap labour for the factories, a small but significant working class began to develop.
They lived in appalling conditions and were paid very little. Coupled with the oppressive rule of the tsarist regime, this exploitation created fertile ground for unhappiness and strikes. The Tsarist regime was unable to deal with the pressures of popular dissatisfaction. The Tsar tried to divert attention away from internal problems by launching imperialist wars to increase Russia's size and influence.
The first such war took place in and was followed with another in The wars were disastrous, and instead of distracting the masses, made them even unhappier with the Tsar. In both instances they propelled the country into revolution. In the war, Russia suffered a severe military defeat against the Japanese.
The economy slumped, prices rose and labour unrest increased. On 20 January , a church-led procession of workers marched to the Tsar's winter palace in St. Petersburg to hand over a petition requesting amnesty for political prisoners, a meeting of the Constituent Assembly, and an 8-hour working day.
Fearing an attack on the palace, guards opened fire on the marchers. Several hundred people were killed, and the incident became known as Bloody Sunday. Following the Bloody Sunday massacre, civil unrest and strikes erupted throughout the country. In St. Petersburg renamed Petrograd in , a soviet or workers' committee took power. These reforms included the formation of a parliamentary government along European lines, which would be called the Duma.
The opposition then backed off. However, Tsar Nicholas was not prepared to let go of power so easily. He constantly manipulated the Duma, disbanding it when it displeased him and gradually reduced the number of people able to vote until the Duma was comprised only of unrepresentative conservatives and nobles.
Nevertheless, between and there were some improvements. The economy grew and led to a gradual improvement of living standards and wealthier farmers were offered bank loans. Yet most reforms brought about by the October Manifesto were quite short-lived, and overshadowed by the misery of Russia's experience of the First World War. War weary and hungry Russians were ready for the Revolutions. After the failure of the Revolution to bring about real reforms, it had become clear that there was to be no parliamentary road to freedom in Russia.
Although the Tsars of Russia ruled autocratically and political parties were not allowed, this did not prevent organised opposition to them. Repression in Russia simply forced political resistance underground. The peasant revolutionaries made up of the Populists or Narodniks, and the Social Revolutionaries who wanted power in the hands of the peasants. The reformers or liberals who wanted to keep the Tsar, with his power limited by elections and a constitution.
Russian Populism dates from the s. It was a revolutionary movement that believed that the peasant mass of the population represented the future of Russia. The Narodniks opposed both the Tsar and industrialisation, and rather than following the capitalist system of Western Europe, they wanted Russia to build a cooperative system based on agriculture. The Narodniks were unable to persuade the peasants to adopt their revolutionary programme.
As a result of the failure of their campaign, many Narodniks turned to violence as the only means of getting rid of the Tsar, which also failed. In , the peasant revolutionaries formed another party, the Social Revolutionaries. They combined the violent actions of the Narodniks' extremist group, the People's Will, with their own efforts to mobilise the peasants into mass action. With the slogan "All land to the peasants", they were hugely popular with the peasantry and became an important political force in the Russian Revolution.
The Socialists followed the ideas of Karl Marx. They believed that working class interests should guide society, and their goal was to overthrow the capitalist system for this purpose. The socialists wanted workers to control the factories and share the profits fairly among themselves, rather than industries being owned by a wealthy minority who paid their labourers exploitative wages to make ever bigger profits for themselves. The leading Russian socialist party, the Social Democratic Party, was established in under the leadership of George Plekhanov, the "father of Russian Marxism".
Serious differences soon emerged among members and in the party split in two. The majority group was the Mensheviks, and the minority group the Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Ilych Lenin.
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