Author: Dr. Fazl Ahmad Ahmadi
Socialism (6th part)
Types of socialism
Modern socialists increasingly accept that capitalism is the only reliable means of producing wealth, so they don’t want to destroy it; rather, they wanted to make it “more humanitarian “, which usually required accepting the ideas of the social market; But traditional socialists have tried to create a substitute market for capitalism and consider socialism to be different from capitalism in terms of the nature of the economic form, such efforts are based on the hypothesis that socialism is superior to capitalism both in terms of morality and in terms of production capacity, although the set of Socialist works are full of economic models [from the technocratic industrialism of Saint-Simon to the decentralized self-government of Getter Kropotkin]; But the most influential of these models were raised in the framework of Marxist ideas, what is present in all of them is the belief that some form of economic planning should and can replace the market mechanism.
“Marx” did not provide a comprehensive plan for the economic organization of the future socialist society and limited himself to expressing a number of general principles. He certainly had in mind the destruction of private property and its replacement by a system of collective or social ownership that would allow the economy to serve the material needs of society, not the all-powerful forces of the market, however, because of Marx supporting widespread public participation at all levels of society and because of the prediction of the “destruction” of the state in the event of the establishment of communism, was far from the collectivization of the state and central planning – which characterized the economy of the Soviet Union in the 20th century.
Socialism not only seeks to limit power; Rather, it aims at its ultimate decline as the organizing principle of social life, and this, incidentally, or not so incidentally, is ultimately what Marx intended, although this is an idea that involves a very large gamble on abilities, and the capacity of the human species to achieve cooperation is non-compulsory and can be rejected as “imaginary” and impossible; But for socialists, this idea constitutes an essential part of the future promise of socialism, even if it is a long-term vision.
However, various types of socialism have also been proposed, this socialism has been divided into “ten” types, from which we can include Marxian socialism, practical socialism, democratic socialism, libertarian socialism, market socialism, regional socialism, utopian socialism, revolutionary, green socialism, union socialism, 21st century socialism, state socialism, and in the following only market socialism and state socialism are mentioned in more detail.
Continues…
