Socialists believe that everyone is born equal and should end up equal. Redistribution of wealth helps even out the difference between rich and poor by taxing the richer and redistributing the wealth to the poor and needy via benefits.
- The Marxist view of history can be broken down into five simple stages. The first stage is Primitive Communism. Politically this means no government, socially this means no classes and very few commodities.
The second stage is Feudalism. Politically this means some form of monarchy that is usually absolute. Socially this means that there is one dominant social group, the Aristocracy. It also means that the mass of the population are peasants. The revolutionary class is the middle class, for example the merchants, however occasionally the peasants will revolt.
Capitalism is the third stage, with its Parliamentary democracy and the defence of Bourgeois liberal principles. The dominant social group is now the middle class but the mass of the population is still the working class, and they are also the revolutionary class. There has to be a socialist revolution before it can develop into the fourth stage of Socialism.
This is a complete change as now politically the workers control the state to resist a counter-revolution. The society is becoming more equal and the class system is breaking down. Wealth and goods created under the capitalist rule are now fairly distributed.
Last but not least is Communism. Here there is no state only the ‘administration of things’. There are no classes and everyone is equal. Plentiful goods are equally shared.
- Marx wrote that dictatorship of the proletariat is needed to prevent any counter-revolutions from the people who did not feel ready for change ie the bourgeoisie and those who were comfortable in Capitalism.
Marx recognised that there would be no immediate transition. Essentially they required a strong powerful regime to ensure that this new society is properly run in before Communism can occur.
This transitionary ‘socialist’ stage would persist as long as there are class differences. Eventually class divides would melt away as Communism emerges and the state that was imposed will simply ‘wither away’. As class divisions fall so the purpose of the state is no longer necessary to enforce these divisions and Communism will be stateless and classless and form a system of commodity production.
The Russian dictatorship of the proletariat is a good example of this theory in action. Lenin and later Stalin instigated an authoritarian state with a powerful red army and a seemingly omnipotent and intruding secret police force. This authoritarian state controlled by the proletariat is what Marx had in mind.
