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Example research essay topic: U S S R Five Year Plans - 3,048 words

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Red Freedom. The Application Of Reformed Socialism Red Freedom. The Application Of Reformed Socialism For A Fairer Future. In recent years there as been a major decline in support for that doctrine which originally looked so promising and had so much support & ends socialism. With the collapse of the Soviet Socialist Empire in Eastern Europe, and closer to home the movement to the right of the British Labour Party it seems that socialism has ceased to be an important ideology.

Even in China, which is in theory still a communist country, the government has been forced to make concessions to the free market under pressure from modern consumerism. My question, then, is simple: has socialism had its day or can it still be defended in spite of these recent political developments? Before we consider whether there is any validity left in socialism, we need to establish what socialism actually is, and why it has gone so drastically out of favour recently. Firstly, however, let us consider the antithesis of socialism, the capitalist system, which socialism was originally designed to replace.

Log cabin to white house is a flash slogan which the architects of the American dream would like us to believe is possible to realise under their capitalist system. This slogan is essentially a boast that every citizen, from whatever socio-economic background, enjoys a fundamental equality of opportunity. There are no formal barriers that prevent social mobility, and under the free market everybody is free to work hard and earn money to make themselves richer. Private ownership of business means that market forces make the economy as efficient as possible, with factors such as the processes of supply and demand and competition between industry increasing the profits for everybody.

Fundamental to the capitalist system is the idea that hard work brings financial reward, so people should be encouraged to earn money. This can be achieved by low levels of income tax to provide the maximum incentive to work. If the log cabin to white house idea is to be believed, any two people are equal at birth, and, regardless of their financial background, neither should have any advantage over the other. However, there is one major flaw in the capitalists claims to present equality of opportunity & ends namely the very existence of capital. The existence of capital means that those who come from affluent backgrounds are greatly advantaged from before they are even born. Consequently those born into less affluent situations are fundamentally disadvantaged.

This is because capital can be invested. It can be invested in many ways; it can be converted to stocks and shares where it just expands, it can be saved for the moment when it can be used to set someone up in business, or, perhaps most importantly, it can pay for education to make someone eminently more employable. These are the advantages of possessing capital. Under capitalism, wealth perpetuates wealth and the rich get steadily richer. Meanwhile, a lack of capital leaves anybody disadvantaged, as the temptation is to start earning money as early as possible. These are, of course, vast generalisations but if we take the nation as a whole it is clear that there is a great amount of inequality within our society.

Under the capitalist system, although theoretically anybody can go (to quote a capitalist clich&execute; ) from rags to riches, those who start out life in possession of capital have a much greater chance of success & ends indeed, they very nearly have a monopoly on it. While capitalism has many strengths, it cannot claim to present equality in any form, especially of opportunity. Arising from this lack of equality in the capitalist system, the doctrine of socialism has arisen to provide a more egalitarian alternative. Socialism is difficult to define, but in general traditional socialist theory centres around the belief that there is a conflict between the capitalists, who want to increase profits by keeping costs low and the workers, who want their wages (which are costs) to be as high as possible. Traditional socialists believe that the means of production should lie in the hands of the state rather than private individuals, and that the economy should be planned and controlled by the government. This form of socialism could be described as a lack of freedom to be unequal where the state ensures equality by taking control of the economy.

This traditional form of socialism, based on the writings of thinkers such as Marx, has been put into practice several times worldwide, perhaps most noticeably in Russia from 1921 to 1989. During this period, the U. S. S. R adopted extreme socialist economic and political principles to form the basis of their government, attempting to create the communist goal of a society of equals. This was done by the state controlling every aspect of life, and a complete ban on private enterprise.

There is a tendency among thinkers in the west to dismiss this period of communist rule in Russia as being totally inefficient and ineffective, and hence proof of the essential unworkability of the communist system. However, looking at the U. S. S. R objectively, this is not entirely the case. The U.

S. S. R, before its collapse in the early 1980 s, did achieve some of its goals, and had some successes compared with other forms of government tried by Russia throughout history. The communist system achieved full employment (admittedly in an inefficient way) and there was fairly wide ranging equality among people, with few extremes of very rich or very poor people. (The exception to this of course being the differences between the ruling clique of the communist party themselves and the rest of the country. ) By comparing the U. S. S.

R under communism to the much more prosperous western nations which were ruled under the capitalist system, many people have dismissed socialism as being the most inefficient of the two. While there may be some truth in this, it is interesting to remember that the most rapid period of economic growth in history has been the five year plans under Stalin, a point which William will develop later. Socialism, then, has had a fair amount of success in practice, but there has always been a terrible price to pay for this. In the case of the Five Year Plans the price was a humanitarian one. The Stalinist regime under which the Plans came about accused many thousands of workers and engineers of sabotage and executed them. (Although is this really any worse than America, where over 50 % of the prison population are black, while blacks constitute less than 5 % of the overall population? ) This is because the economic dreams of socialism were realised under a totalitarian state where the state had control over every aspect of peoples lives.

It was this totalitarianism that made the U. S. S. R a failure, as the result of the adoption of communist principles led to a complete lack of democracy. The lack of economic freedom so essential to the ambitions of traditional socialists brought with it a total lack of personal freedom. This was equally true of China in its early communist stages, where socialist ideal became corrupted in the hands of corrupt power-seeking government, as the book Wild Swans makes so clear.

There are countless other examples of nations that have experienced extreme socialist rule, specifically East Germany and North Korea. These nations have become worse off under traditional socialist regimes than their capitalist counterparts. This is because extreme socialist governments have been proved by history to be corrupt and ineffective, where the interests of the very people that socialism claims to emancipate have been overridden by the interests of those in power. The message of history, then, is clear; extreme socialism does not work. This may well account for its recent decline. Britain too has had a strong socialist influence on its political system in the last century, embodied by the Labour Party.

Traditional Old Labour policies are very left-wing, advocating nationalisation of industry, high progressive taxation and high public expenditure. During the Labour governments in the 1950 s and 1960 s, these policies were put into practice. However, there were many problems created by the application of left-wing economics, one particularly disturbing phenomenon being the brain drain where many professional high-earning people emigrated to avoid the high levels of income tax that was reducing their earnings in Britain. Some also believe that the British disease of poor efficiency and inefficient subsidised industry also stemmed from these labour policies. Having said this, the tax and spend policy adopted by Old Labour governments genuinely did, whatever right-wing critics may say to the contrary, create the Robin Hood effect.

The rich were being taxed, and more money was being spent on the poor. While this is a grossly simplified version of the facts, the fact remains that this did attempt to create an equality of opportunity which, to come back to our original slogan Log cabin to White house makes this possible. Recently, though, New Labour has abandoned the socialist principles which the party has advocated for so long in favour of more conservative economics. This was clearly shown by the last budget, where for example income tax was reduced still further. Socialism in Britain, then, has undergone a similar period of decline to the cause of worldwide socialism, and its support has dwindled as even the traditional socialist party has abandoned it.

What, then, is the answer? Traditional socialism has gone completely out of favour, and has faced a terminal decline. Does this mean that in the twenty-first century society will have no alternative but the inequality and privilege of the capitalist system, or is there still any future for left-wing ideologies? The answer lies in the ability of socialism, just like any other ideology, to evolve and change.

While traditional socialism is incompatible with the free-market and in extreme cases with democracy itself, there are other types of socialism which are not. One such ideology is Market socialism which is a combination of the best points of the free market combined with the best points of socialism. The capitalists may boast that theirs is the way of freedom; freedom to trade, freedom to accumulate wealth and the freedom of the people to run their lives free from government control. This liberty, however, is an illusion; without a certain amount of equality there can never be universal liberty, as some groups in society (under capitalism those without capital, the workers) will always be disadvantaged and hence will not have the means to accumulate wealth.

Capitalism gives people the freedom to be unequal; it is a system based on privilege, inequality and oppression. Market socialism hopes to reform this by reconciling the advantages of the free market with some of the equality of socialism. It is a pluralist doctrine, which considers the interests of all socio-economic groups & ends the employers, the employees and the consumers equally without giving priority to any one group as happens under traditional socialism and capitalism. This kind of reformed socialism, where the people themselves really do run the government, is a far cry from the repressive authoritarian regimes of China or Cuba. The difference between Reformed socialism and traditional socialism is vast; while traditional socialism believes incomplete state control of the economy, market socialism believes that power should be more widely distributed. As Andrew Vincent put it, it would be indicative rather than directly intervention ary.

On the question of state involvement in the economy, this is a much more widely accepted principle than many believe. The role of the government in the economy could take the form of strategic investment, majority shareholding or laying down broad policy parameters. While the liberal free-market shuns government intervention on the ground that the market is the most efficient way of running the economy, it is difficult to see and economy where intervention does not exist. Japan and Germany, two of the most effective economies in the world, both have some form of government participation. Under a reformed socialist system, government participation in the economy would play an important role in providing some equality, and liberty and prosperity could then follow.

From Plato's good of the whole to Tony Blair's Third Way philosophers and politicians have been looking for the most efficient or best way to run their country, control their people or simply distribute the scarce resources of the country amongst the infinite demands of the people. Today unbridled capitalism has been mindlessly accepted by all the major countries of the world. It can be shown, however, that capitalism does not only lead to practical inefficiencies but the study of capitalist rationality shows that as every individual or entity is likely to act in his own self-interest the good of the whole will suffer. And the feted market mechanism will not maximise output in the economy or well-being among the population. The way this can be proved purely theoretically through logic is with the so-called Prisoners dilemma. This is a hypothetical situation in which two-prisoners are kept in separate cells after being arrested for assisting each other in the same crime.

Each prisoner is faced with a conundrum; if the first prisoner were to confess he would have a maximum of 3 years in prison but only if the second prisoner confessed also. But if the 2 nd prisoner chose to remain silent while the first confesses he would get out in three months because he is an informant. If on the other hand the chooses to keep quiet both of them will only get 1 year because the police could not prove the crime but then there is always the risk that his accomplice will inform against him landing the first prisoner with 10 years. This situation inevitably results in both prisoners choosing to confess because they are keen to avoid the maximum 10 year penalty.

Obviously this is not the optimum outcome for the prisoners. This is because they have acted independently of each other in a typically capitalist way... To continue the analogy in a socialist world, if an intermediary had existed to organise their pleas, to go between them, the optimal output could have been achieved. In this scenario both suspects would have received just 1 year in jail rather than the three that they would otherwise have suffered in a capitalist system because they could have both entered a not guilty plea. This scenario might seem irrelevant to the world of economics but it is actually very profound and has abstruse political and economic ramifications. It can be applied to economic predicaments in many ways.

For example when companies are bidding against each other for a contract or to supplying a good to a market. Another example in which it is obviously apparent that socialism is better would be shareholders in a corporation. The capital for the company was put up by the stockholders and so as they are the owners they control the assets and the profits of the company. So at shareholder meetings the owners can vote to take their share of profits or dividends out of the company. As a result the company cannot reinvest in new machinery or expansion because it is always being constantly leached of all excess cash. Although this is not in the interests of the company as a collective the shareholders are acting in a individually rational capitalist and yet selfish manner.

Besides this largely theoretical proof there is practical evidence of the shortcomings of capitalism in the world around us. Last year if some economists were to be believed then we were on the brink of a global economic meltdown. Certainly in South East Asia their savage so called tiger-capitalism has not worked. Europe and America perhaps the two great bastions of the free-market are as we speak on the brink of a massive trade war because they are two entities acting rationally in their own selfish capitalist ways.

Socialist politicians being intrinsically more ideological then their capitalist peers are also less likely to prostitute themselves to votes as might be the case in a typical right-wing democracy. This short terms can lead to well-being among the population not being optimised. For example in ultra-capitalist 1920 s America southern politicians competed with each other to pursue more and more racist policies in order to win votes among the rednecks. This culminated in Governor George Walden proclaiming at a rally that he was not going to be outrigger by his adversary.

Traditional socialism in its most pure form i. e. communism has been shown not to work. Liberalism is too woolly and ideological a concept to offer any real solutions so what is needed is a compromise such as market socialism. And before market socialism is just written off in a pile with Stalinism the achievements of the USSR as a purely socialist system must be appreciated. While we accept that the human cost was unequivocally ghastly.

The five year plans were not just as Toby said the most rapid period of economic growth in history they rank among the greatest achievements of mankind. The figures are unbelievable and it was this Soviet iron which built the T- 34 s that prevented Hitler from conquering the whole of Eurasia, out manufacturing the United States and possibly winning the second world war. We believe that socialism, despite its recent decline, still has a great deal to contribute to world politics. The capitalist system under which we live at the moment is unequal, and oppressive, and Log Cabin to White House is clearly a myth. A myth, however, that could be translated into reality if we were to adopt a system of government which would create equality of opportunity for everybody regardless of wealth, background or status.

Traditional socialism may be unworkable, but socialism has evolved and changed with the times to produce a more pluralist system that would benefit everybody. Rather than writing off socialism by lumping it in with Stalinism and Maoism, we should acknowledge the terrible inequality present in our capitalist society and look to the reformed system of democratic market socialism for the hope of a fairer future. 394


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Research essay sample on U S S R Five Year Plans

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