Are there lessons to be learned? - the future of socialism

Monthly Review, Feb, 1991 by Harry Magdoff

History has still to determine whether a class structure is necessary to make an economy work. Clearly, alternative ways have not yet been explored in the modern world. The test of the inevitability of class structure will depend on future attempts to create a socialist transition which consciously works not only to do away with the old class system but also to frustrate the formation of new classes and social strata.

3. What about other differences among the people?

Class and status differences do not exhaust the sources of inequality. Major regional differences in income, infrastructure, and social services are common in the capitalist world. In fact, they are a natural product of that order. The most extreme differences are of course those between third world and advanced capitalist countries-differences created in the process of the expansion of the capitalist system from the center. But significant regional contrasts can be found in the advanced capitalist nations as well.

As an example of the latter it is worth observing that at the beginning of the industrial revolution in Great Britain there were marked contrasts in living standards between the richer southern part of England and the poorer Celtic fringe (Scotland, Wales, Ireland, and parts of Northern England). After more than two centuries of economic growth under industrial capitalism, the disparity between the same rich and poor regions still exists.

Postrevolutionary societies are bound to find that the regional differences handed over from a long history of capitalist exploitation are hard nuts to crack. The tension between principle and pragmatism is particularly troublesome in dealing with this type of inequality. In view of the concentration of skills, infrastructure, sources of supply, and managerial experience in the more advanced areas, it is more efficient to concentrate on developing the already more developed areas, and consequently largely to neglect the underdeveloped areas. But that view of efficiency has to do with speed in the growth of production, and not with what is best from the standpoint of morality and the aim of reducing the differences among the people. The issue is further complicated by regional economic differences that grow together with the oppression of subordinated racial, ethnic, and national sectors of the population.

There is no simple formula to cope with this dilemma. And because there is no formula, no simple solution, the issue needs to be faced head on at every stage in the inauguration and application of social policy. Notably, the more that maximizing the rate of economic growth is the overriding goal, the more likely it will be that class and regional differences among the people (including racial and ethnic discrimination) will become ingrained in the social structure as a more or less permanent feature.

4. When is democracy democratic?

It has become almost axiomatic on the left that socialism without democracy is an oxymoron. Some add, quite properly, that without socialism there can be no true democracy. Why? Because without equality democracy is severely circumscribed, and only through socialism can meaningful equality ever be achieved. But a long time has to pass and many things have to happen before the ideal of equality can be reached. What happens in the interim? As mentioned above, inequality lingers in many shapes and forms: not only between classes and social strata, but also between city and country, between developed and underdeveloped regions, and between racial, ethnic, and national populations.