I haven't essayposted in a while and I feel the urge to, so I thought I'd run a little series of posts on the history of socialism. I think that, unfortunately, a lot of people know very little even if they are interested in the topic, and worse yet, I think a lot of people have absorbed wrong ideas from biased sources (tankies tend to have a particularly bad historiography, in my humble opinion, but for some reason their version of events has reached far outside of their own corners of the internet).
What qualifies me to talk? Nothing besides pedantry and autism. I do not have any relevant degree. That being said, I've read a lot of books by people with degrees, and I am an obsessive self-fact-checker, so hopefully I'm not too wrong about things here (and corrections will never be met with hostility). I should also note that while I will not be trying to write something biased, I have a personal bias toward democratic socialism. I will do my best to clearly flag anything that is only my own opinion.
In this post, I wanted to 1) define socialism, and 2) give an overview of proto-socialism (socialism before the Enlightenment). I then wrote the post, and realized that it was very long. Parts of it will come in later posts. This post will, aside from defining socialism, specifically ask, "Was Ancient Egypt Socialist, on Account of it Having Been Identified as Such?" (no), and then, "Was Jesus a Socialist?" (to which the answer will be "No, because socialism didn't exist yet, but let's see if we can identify socialist ideas in early Christianity and, more importantly, features of socialism that it might lack.").
After that, I will be posting about (alleged) proto-socialism in Ancient Rome, especially with regard to the GracchÄŤ brothers, and proto-socialist aspects to the Peasant Republics of Medieval Europe. Eventually this series will actually discuss self-identified socialists.
Anyway, we're starting with a definition.
One of the most straightforward and effective ways to analyze political ideologies that I have come across is the "is-ought-how" model. It identifies three components that all (effective) political ideologies have: a descriptive analysis of present-day society (the is), a normative prescription or vision of a perfect society (the ought), and a strategy or program for getting from one to the other (the how). Consider your own ideology, whatever it is. Can you give a detailed account of all three?
We will be using that model a lot, going forward, to analyze various ideologies under the socialist umbrella, but now I'll try to apply it to the umbrella itself. This will lead to a bit of frustrating vagueness; I will try to be as inclusive as possible.
The is of socialism: capitalism. Virtually all variants of socialism consider society to be ruled by an oppressing and privileged class of capitalists, who live well off the work of others.
The ought of socialism varies, but many variants envision an egalitarian republic or, in more radical circles, a stateless society. This is in either case a society with few hierarchies, if any. If there are hierarchies, they are based on merit or democratic election, not privilege or inheritance. Particular socialist ideologies have far more specific visions. Very few socialists imagine a monarchy or dictatorship as their end goal (not even communists say they do, despite their track record).
The how of socialism varies a lot, too. There are revolutionary variants and reformist variants. Some socialists literally want to kill all the rich people in a violent break with the old social order where all rule of law, at least temporarily, breaks down (often these are identified or differentiated from socialism as communists, but I will treat communism as a tendency within socialism rather than something fully separate in these posts), while others limit their work entirely to gaining representation through elections. The how also includes questions of organizing. Some socialists start or collaborate with unions, or publish their own newspapers, or go on public speaking campaigns, or participate in publicized debates. Once again, the how will get more specific once we look at specific movements, but it usually (among successful socialists) involves a look at building a material power base, rather than just an idealistic program.
From now on, I will generally harshly criticize any ideology that presents its is-ought-how triad as vaguely as I just did for socialism as an umbrella. I will identify movements that I believe failed specifically because their triad was weak on one or several points. Does this mean socialism is not a useful category of politics? No, but I think the missing component is a shared history. The true commonality of the entire socialist project is the labor movement: the movement for the working class. All of the greatest socialist movements have been worker's movements and all of the other socialist movements have at the very least stated themselves to be for or on the behalf of workers, if not by or of them, as is usually the case.
This will be where I draw the line. A socialist wants to educate, organize and empower the lower class: to give them the dangerous tools they need to define their own future. It is not enough to sympathise with, glamorize, or want to care for the workers. This is what I mean when I say it is the workers' movement.
Secondly, socialism has a material character, and tends to be, as a movement, a coalition of social and economic classes. As such, we can define it by ideals, like above, or by class composition (I will in this series consider both to be important factors).
In fact, we can think of each of the "Big Three" ideologies that came out of the Enlightenment (conservatism, liberalism, socialism) as class coalitions (we will discuss these three and why they specifically are the Big Three once we get to the Enlightenment, for now, please just accept that political science sees them as that).
Liberalism is a coalition mainly of freethinking intellectuals and cultural elites, minorities (especially religious minorities, historically), the middle-class (meaning small business owners, middle managers and desk jockeys with degrees, not "anyone who can afford a TV"), and a fluctuating subset of the capitalist elite. Their preference is for a capitalist society, but a free and open one. The branch of liberalism most likely to be confused with socialism is social liberalism, which advocates a welfare state and worker's rights, and perhaps even wealth redistribution, but rejects any fundamental change to society that might mean wealth redistribution would no longer be necessary.
Conservatism is a coalition of old money, inherited privilege, certain religious majorities, and "reactionary elements" of the lower classes, especially small business owners without degrees and low-education, low-literacy segments of the working class. Their goal is generally either to protect and maintain the interests of a perceived in-group against a perceived out-group, or to prevent political changes from being adopted to quickly, on the assumption that change, no matter how justified, if adopted quickly often destabilizes society and might lead to more harm than good. The branch of conservatism most likely to be confused with socialism is paternalism, which also frequently advocates welfare and worker's protections, but never worker's power.
Finally, socialism is, as I mentioned, a coalition whose backbone is almost always organized labor and the more educated elements of the working class (be it educated through school, self-taught, or popular education), with supporting wings tending to include students and segments of academia, arts-and-culture-people, and those dependent on public support (such as the disabled and retirees). Socialists tends to also include, or at least be closely allied to, other organized egalitarians, such as feminists and the queer movement. Their goal is equality, not just under the law, but on social and cultural fronts as well, and some kind of restructuring of the economic system, which is in its present form seen as allowing an entrenched elite to maintain unearned privilege. This ranges from social democracy to very radical ideologies, but we will differentiate them when we get to them.
With that out of the way, let's move to the second part of today's post:
2. Socialism before Socialism
The word "socialism" was first, to our knowledge, used in a French periodical in 1832. Why, then, do you sometimes hear people say things like, "Thomas More's Utopia contains a socialist vision," or even, "Jesus was a socialist"?
Jesus of Nazareth died before 1832,[citation needed] so how can this be?
Generally, proto-socialism is a label applied to political movements with an egalitarian or pro-lower-class character. Virtually every peasant revolt in history has been labelled proto-socialist, no matter how inappropriate the label might be. All the same, I figured I could run through a couple of examples (the examples will continue in a future post):
This is a bad example of proto-socialism, but I've seen it so I'm bringing it up. Like many bronze age societies, Egypt was a heavily centralized society where all land ultimately belonged to the state. Rather than power flowing up from a landed aristocracy to the king, power flowed down (much like in many Chinese dynasties) from the king to appointed bureaucrats. Mind you, these "bureaucrats" were not middle class clerks but a class of mainly hereditary Big Men whose day-to-day jobs and lifestyles looked almost exactly like more traditional landed aristocracy (they just happened to depend on the Pharaoh for their power in a very direct way, rather than the Pharaoh depending on them).
Ancient Egypt was only socialist in the yankee sense of, "socialism is when the government does stuff."
Christianity began as an apocalyptic religious tendency within Judaism in the Roman province of JĹŤdaea and centered on the cult of Jesus of Nazareth (Aramaic: Yeshua), a Jewish Aramaic-speaking preacher. His followers were convinced that he, after execution by crucifixion, rose from the dead and then disappeared, but that he would return very soon.
While Jesus' message was, by all accounts, mainly religious and not political, many early Christians formed intentional communities or "communes" (something we will see in many later posts as well, especially with the utopian socialists, so that's promising) where members gave up all personal possessions and held everything in common.
In Christian sources, it is noted that Jesus wanted his followers to give up worldly possessions and that he viewed merchants in the Temple as profaning it with their presence. Hostility towards commerce and ownership has been identified as proto-socialist, especially when it inspired communes, as mentioned. However, many early Christians took this in more individualist directions: giving up your possessions was just as often seen as an argument for asceticism and self-isolation as for communal living.
A Christian emphasis on generosity and sharing is frequently cited by Christian socialists as a basis for why Christians should be socialists. This phenomenon was notable enough in the early church that one of our earliest non-Christian sources on Christianity even brings it up: the (in my opinion, brilliant) Roman Greco-Syrian satirist Lucian of Samosata, admired widely in the ancient world as an excellent writer, but maligned by Christians for mocking them, and later by racists for "not being Roman [read: white] enough," despite his genuine mastery of Latin. He is sometimes noted today as the inventor of science fiction for his surreal satire A True Story.
Here's what he has to say about the reaction of the Christian community to the imprisonment of Peregrinus, a fellow Christian (implied by Lucian to have been insincere in his faith):
People, sent with funds raised by Christians, came all the way from Asia to assist, represent and comfort him. The Christians show incredible readiness to fundraise and throw all their money away. Peregrinus acquired not a little revenue by way of this cash flow motivated by his imprisonment.
The poor wretches have convinced themselves that they are immortal and will live forever, and because of this they despise death and willingly give themselves into custody. Furthermore, their first lawgiver has persuaded them that, once they transgress and reject the Greek gods and start worshiping that crucified sophist and obeying his laws, then they are all brothers.
Therefore they despise all things indiscriminately and consider them common property, and they accept all this without any real evidence.
Should some clever charlatan come among them who knows how to work people, he would be able to amuse himself greatly at the expense of these halfwits and be rich in the blink of an eye.
â Lucian of Samosata, On the Passing of Peregrinus, published around 165â180 AD
It is hardly a sympathetic portrayal, but in my opinion that just makes it more believable that these attitudes really did exist among early Christians.
Does that make Christians socialists? I would say not really. A majority of religions emphasize charity, many praise asceticism, and fundraising for a member of your religious community in trouble, while charitable, doesn't really have to be grounded in egalitarianism.
While early Christianity is in some respects noted for egalitarianism (permitting women and slaves to join their congregations, something somewhat transgressive for the time, even if the Epicureans had already been doing it, and getting flak for it, for three hundred years when Christianity came onto the scene), and often advocates charity and sympathy for the poor, it rarely advocates that workers or peasants be given power or education. Rather, it simply emphasizes humility and empathy, while criticizing extravagance and selfishness. This is, as I mentioned, what really sets socialism apart, and the strongest case for this in Christianity is, I suppose, that the Meek Will Inherit, but that's a promise, not a program.
I would never claim that Christianity is incompatible with socialism (and I doubt any religion really is) but I don't think you could call the New Testament a socialist manifesto, either.
This post was initially a lot longer, but I'm breaking it up and editing it down a bit. The next post will cover class war in Ancient Rome, and after that we will discuss medieval peasant republics. I am very excited to talk about both. After that? Probably an overview of the politics of the Renaissance and early Enlightenment up until the French Revolution. Somewhere down the line I am going to have to talk about Karl Marx without showing my personal opinions too much. Fun!
I hope you found this a worthwhile read. The next part will be up when I'm done with it.
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