Heaven on Earth
Joshua Muravchik was a "red-diaper" baby. He was born into a family that had close connections with radical Marxism and socialism for several generations. Perhaps it is this historical connection that brought about his book Heaven on Earth: The Rise and Fall of Socialism [Encounter Books, San Francisco, 2002].
Socialism can be discussed on many levels. It can be seen as a philosophy or discussed as an economic system, or as Mises more rightly noted the negation of an economic system. Socialists tend to prefer to discuss socialism as an abstract future paradise. But Muravchik, in this book,discusses it as a historical series of events.
Instead of engaging socialism on the basis of what it promises to do he discusses where it came from, where it was tried and what were the results. In the cold light of reality socialism loses much of the glamour that attracts so many intellectuals to it.
Many people forget that socialism predates Marxism. Plymouth Plantation in the US was run on socialist principles when it was founded and the colony starved. When this experiment was replaced with private property and a market system the colony thrived and could feed itself -- an event still celebrated in the American holiday of Thanksgiving though few seem to know the actual reasons for it.
Before Plymouth the Anabaptist movement in Europe often practised forms of socialism. Karl Kautsky called the movement "the forerunner of the modern socialism". The town of Münster went Anabaptist in 1534 and quickly imposed a form of dictatorial socialism under the leadership of ministers Bernt Rothmann, Jan Mattys and Jan Bockelson. After purging the town of "sinners", by which they meant Catholics and Lutherans, they abolished money, private property and profit seeking. Collectivism was imposed under penalty of death. Soon the people were starving while the church leaders lived in luxury.
And we can go right back to the Book of Acts which says the early church held all things in common. Muravchik is more modest. He begins his discussion with the French socialists like Babeuf. And he discusses the early socialist experiments in America like New Harmony. With his discussion of Babeuf he explores the early ideas of socialism and with New Harmony we see one of the first modern experiments to establish a socialist society.
Robert Owen, the founder of New Harmony, is credited by many with the invention of the term "socialism". Like so many prominent socialists he was not a member a working class but a relatively wealthy individual. He firmly believed that the individual's character is created by the economic system under which he lives. This doctrine has long be favoured by many socialists. Owen said that perfection was possible through "the scientific arrangement of the people." He went even further. Under the socialist arrangement, he said, "There will be no cruelty in man's nature, the animal creation will also become different in character." The result a "terrestrial paradise... in which harmony will pervade all that will exist upon earth."
So Owen decided to fund this harmony by creating a socialist village in the heartland of America (though Owen himself was Welsh and lived in England). He bought a town,created by a religious order on communal principles, which had failed. He was sure that social engineering in his town would create "men and women of a new race, physically, intellectually and morally; beings far superior to any yet known to have lived upon the earth."
Instead Owen's village repelled the men and women of ability. Those seeking to live at the expense of others flooded the village looking for their paradise ---where others work while they dispose of the fruits of this labour. There was little harmony in New Harmony and quickly political factions developed each wanting to use the "communal resources" for their own purposes. The experiment lasted only four years and collapsed after Owen was no longer able to pour vast sums of money into the project.
One of the early pioneers in New Harmony, Josiah Warren, attributed the failure to the lack of individuality and private property. "It seemed that the difference of opinion, tastes and purposes increased just in proportion to the demand for conformity. Two years were worn out in this way; at the end of which, I believe that not more than three persons had the least hope of success. Most of the experimenters left in despair of all reforms, and conservatism felt itself confirmed. We had tried every conceivable form of organisation and government. We had a world in miniature. --we had enacted the French revolution over again with despairing hearts instead of corpses as a result. ...It appeared that it was nature's own inherent law of diversity that had conquered us ...our 'united interests' were directly at war with the individualities of persons and circumstances and the instinct of self-preservation... and it was evident that just in proportion to the contact of persons or interests, so are concessions and compromises indispensable."
Muravchik takes us on a journey through the various strands of socialism ranging from Marxist dialectics to Mussolini's fascism, to the social democrats of England to the African socialism of Julius Nyerere.
In the first part of his book he deals with the early socialist experiments and theories. Here he shows how Engels, another wealthy businessmen, was far more responsible for the rise of Marxism than was Marx himself. In his next section he investigate the triumphs of socialism in it's various guises. He discusses Russia under Lenin, fascism under Mussolini, the social democrats in England, and Ujamma under Nyerere.
And then he dissects the reform and eventual collapse of the socialist model. First, he investigate the labour union movement in the United States. And I found this chapter particularly interesting.
Early labour organisers, sympathisers to socialism themselves, found that government legislation to improve working conditions were often counterproductive and a waste of time. They soon discovered that private action was the best means of achieving their goals. The America labour movement not only moved quickly away from socialism but became staunchly anti-communist purging Marxists from positions of influence long before the days of McCarthy.
Next we learn how and why Gorbachev and Deng reformed communism toward more market oriented policies. And finally he discusses how the socialists in the British Labour Party redefined their beliefs. As he notes, by the 1990s the socialists in the West were more promarket than the so-called conservative parties of the 1950s.
If one wishes to read a critical book about the philosophy and economics of socialism then one can't surpass Socialism by Ludwig von Mises -- published in 1922 originally in German as Die Gemeinwirtschaft: Untersuchungen über den Sozialismus. But Muravchik's is a different book. First, he has the advantages which Mises did not have, that is to write his history after the collapse of socialism. Mises may have predicted it but he didn't live to see it. Muravchek did.
But what makes Muravchik's work important is that he discusses the story of socialism in practice not in theory. Through discussing the practice of socialism we learn about the major figures in the socialist movement and what they believed. This is not a technical work and is thus accessible to most lay readers and is highly recommended.
All items in this journal reflect the personal opinions of the author and are not necessarily those of the Institute for Liberal Values or its Board members.
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Institute for Liberal Values, Friday September 3rd 2010. |
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