What is socialism?

Historically, we can go back to the Diggers autonomous social collective around the end of the English Civil War, in the late seventeenth century to find the answer. That has all the hallmarks of what pure socialism is supposed to look like. Common ownership, total equality in all things i.e., no leaders, and so on and so forth. In principle it's a beautiful idea, but principles have often been enough to hang a man.

What, then, happened to the Diggers? Some say they just fizzled out when the person whose idea it originally was died. Others say that it was doomed, when it was realised that a leader was needed and opened up a cavernous, philosophical black hole which swallowed everything; principles and all. All that is known for certain, is that it didn't last long even if it is still celebrated in popular song.

Then there's Marx and Engels. Marxist philosophy came about as a response to the iniquities of the nineteenth century. It espoused many of the Diggers' philosophies, but it was much more thought out and expansive. Many people think that the horrors of communism are directly attributable to the philosophies of Marx, but the communism of the Bolsheviks, bear very little relation to Marxist teachings. Marxism is, on the whole, well balanced in its theories, but like any other Utopian vision, it gets caught up short when it comes up against the brick wall of reality.

Socialism, essentially, stands for common ownership of the principles of production. The theory is that if everyone has access to the means of production, that means everyone can make good for themselves. It implies a care for those who cannot tend to their own needs, and for a modest scope for those who are able to use those commonly-owned means of production for entrepreneurial purposes.

So far, so beautiful. However...

We are left with an awkward factor which cannot easily be neutralised, and while Communism tried to do just that through the NKVD, Stazi and other secret police tactics; its dearth in those cases meant also the death the people's humanity.

That awkward factor is human nature. Socialism would work perfectly if everyone were programmed to act for the common good and to exercise their responsibilities, no matter how light or onerous. Only those sufficient to earn a modest standard of living and furthermore trust other people to act the same way, isn't reality.

Like it or not, human beings are animals and we may have more developed brains and opposable thumbs, but we are programmed to grow, compete and to fight. We cannot usually act for the common good if that common good means we ourselves will be annihilated.

We have our likes, dislikes, loves and hates; we have ups and downs and we have emotional swings and roundabouts. All this is what makes us human and none of this is compatible with the compulsion that pure socialism must entail.

Socialism isn't bad as an idea, but as a practical, workable solution to the problem of living; it's nonsense.

Learn more about this author, Tabitha Hergest.
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