Democratic Socialism + Evolutionary Socialism = Good Ideas for an Ideal World

A paper on comparing different political theorists' ideas on Socialism, written for a very interesting class on Political Ideologies...

Q: In what ways does the evolutionary socialism of Edward Bernstein and the democratic socialism of Michael Walzer modify Marx and Engel’s material dialectic? In what ways does it change the nature of the agenda to be followed by the socialist movement? Which vision do you find more accurate? Explain your position.


A: Edward Bernstein and Michael Walzer take the socialist ideas of Karl Marx and Fredrich Engels and meld them with less radical modern political ideas, with the results being ideas that are much more easily swallowed by the more moderate-minded person. They each show evidence of having weeded through the works of these early socialist writers in order to pluck out what they see to be the essential truths of socialism and to discard many of the ideas they see as being the results of biased reasoning. In the process, Bernstein and Walzer re-define what they believe to be a more realistic and effective movement toward the universal incorporation of the core ideas of socialism that they find to be true and to be truly capable of realization.

According to Marx, much of what happens in human society is dictated by the material world—history has been shaped by a “history of class struggles” between the oppressor and the oppressed, the haves and the have-nots (Marx & Engels, The Communist Manifesto, p. 209). In The Communist Manifesto, it is assured that the consolidation of wealth into fewer and fewer hands will continue to be the trend as bourgeoisie capitalism continues, and that the system will eventually completely collapse, whereupon socialism may blossom. Neither Bernstein nor Walzer indicate that this linear view of the consolidation of wealth is accurate, nor that collapse of all capitalistic social and governmental systems is crucial in order for socialist ideas to be realized. Instead, they advocate the socialistic idea of “the extension of democratic decision making from the political to the economic realm (Walzer, Town Meetings and Workers’ Control, p. 55)” using non-revolutionary means as the basis for most of what they write.

Bernstein argues in Evolutionary Socialism that the material dialectic Marx uses to predict the economic and social conditions of the future (leading toward the rise of socialism) does not fully translate into reality. For one, “the number of wealthy people for many years had increased, not decreased” at the time this piece was written (Bernstein, Evolutionary Socialism, p. 228), which is contrary to the idea that wealth will consolidate into fewer and fewer hands over time. This contradiction to the Marxist theory is just one point used to exemplify the major flaw Bernstein sees in Marx’s dialect—stagnancy regardless of changing times. He compares Marx’s dialect to architecture, in that Marx brought his own scientific insight into previously existing scaffolding, and “kept strictly to the laws of scientific architecture as long as they did not collide with the conditions which the construction of the scaffolding prescribed, but he neglected or evaded them when the scaffolding did not allow of their observance (Bernstein, Evolutionary Socialism, p. 228).” Bernstein argues that the movement toward a more socialistic state is, in reality, more organic—that newly emerging facts and experiences should not be disregarded as they are under the rigid “scaffolds” of the material dialect, but instead be paid attention to, even if it means parts of the original scaffolding must be re-built in ways that fit the changes in current reality.

Like Bernstein, Walzer adapts certain socialist ideas and expands on them rather than pushing the ideology in its entirety. He sees much similarity between the “central commitment of socialist politics” and the democratic ideal, which is “the abolition of the power of man over man” (Walzer, Town Meetings and Social Control, p. 54). Unlike the Marxist school of thought regarding the material dialect, Walzer does not seem to view the current state of society to contain such a marked antagonism between the upper and lower classes on all fronts. He sees democracy as a positive and successful force in government, for instance. He instead focuses on what he sees as being the biggest ongoing power-struggle for the workers of the world: the private business realm. The phrase most fitting of his views regarding sharing of power, “what touches all should be decided by all (Walzer, Town Meetings and Workers’ Control, p. 55)”, extends only to the political realm and, he says, should extend also to the economic realm. In order to do this, he states that at a certain point of development, when private business’ actions start to directly affect others, these businesses must be allowed to be publicly controlled (Walzer, Town Meetings and Workers’ Control, p. 61). Unlike Marx, it is not argued that the only way we can assure the abolishment of man having power over man is to do away with private property altogether—instead, he sees the main culprit as being large private businesses, which have authoritative control over many aspects of many peoples’ lives.

These alternative views on incorporating parts of socialism into the political and social landscape would significantly alter the nature of the movement and the end result of the movement. In my opinion, the main change would be the need for an all-out revolution would no longer be seen as the only viable option for the emergence of socialist values. If “company democracy” gave workers equal power in the workplace as opposed to the more watered-down power given through “union democracy” (Walzer, Town Meetings and Workers’ Control, p. 60), feelings of dissatisfaction and antagonism would dissipate immensely. And if legislation were passed to make it so that the “rights of the propertied minority have ceased to be a serious obstacle to social progress”, then “the appeal to a revolution by force becomes a meaningless phrase (Bernstein, Evolutionary Socialism, p. 229).”

Under Walzer’s democratic socialism, the socialist goal to do away with private property would no longer refer to all private property (as I mentioned in ¶ 4), but only to private property in the realm of private businesses that employ and wield control over their employees under the current un-democratic economic realm of society. Similarly, under Bernstein’s evolutionary socialism, legislative reform in favor of the worker would not only prevent the eruption of the revolution called for by revolutionary/scientific socialism, but would also encourage the distribution of wealth into more and more hands—this would do away with the encouragement of wealth consolidation, which Marxist socialism requires to happen for the eventual success of socialism, and in its stead would promote the spreading of social wealth (Bernstein, Evolutionary Socialism, p. 228).

Between the views of Marx (and Engels) and the modified socialism views of Bernstein and Walzer, I feel that the more modified views would be much more readily accepted as viable alternatives for the current state of society, economics, and politics by the great majority of the population than would the views of Marx and Engels. The “abolition of private property”, as is advocated by Marx and Engels (Marx, The Communist Manifesto, p. 216), would be a major point of contention alone. However, if this view were tempered down to the advocation of the “abolition of private business (when it affects other people)” would seem like more of an extension of democracy than a destructive, revolutionary idea. After all, there are already attempts made by certain parties involved in democratic government to restrain the control wielded by big businesses. It would also seem to be merely an extension of democracy for there to be a movement in legislation towards compromising between the proletarian majority and the bourgeoisie minority, which Bernstein advocates (Bernstein, Evolutionary Socialism, p. 229). Because neither of these visions are extreme enough to insinuate complete system collapse, people wouldn’t be as frightened of accepting the change.

If I could only choose either the vision of Walzer or that of Bernstein, I would choose Walzer’s. I agree with his views on the need for the extension of democracy in the economic realms, and I agree that it would address many of the problems with inequality and lack of control that affect people today. I also agree with Bernstein on many points, but I find his belief that wealth is actually dispersing to more hands under capitalism to be inaccurate when applied to the modern age. Evidence almost universally points to the opposite, in fact, as our society sees its middle class shrink and lower class balloon in size. Bernstein also glorifies the effectiveness of unions in vastly improving the lives of workers, whereas today the government increasingly attacks and diminishes the power of unions to affect change of any sort. Because of these discrepancies between the reality that inspired the views of Bernstein and the realities of today, I cannot consider his views to be accurate. I do, however, agree with his insistence upon the need for changing the nature of the movement to match the changing of the times—the fact that the reality of today and of the days of Bernstein are so different regarding the condition of the workforce is proof enough that there must be room left for the changing of ideas.

It remains to be seen as to whether the government and economic structures of today will crack as the class rift widens, as Marx and Engels predicted, or whether enough change can occur through democratic or evolutionary socialism to prevent complete collapse. Either way, there is truth in all presented arguments in that something needs to be done to abolish the “power of man over man” in order to finally give back the power that the workers of the world have been denied of for so long.