The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics (253 page)

Social movements may encompass political parties and campaigning organizations, but also include individuals who are not part of any formal organizational structure. They are organized around ideas which give the individuals who adhere to the movement new forms of social and political identity. The success of the feminist movement thus does not depend just on various forms of political action, but also on the way in which the ideas associated with the movement led women, and ultimately men, to rethink hitherto accepted and largely unchallenged notions about the roles of women in society. They provide a means of introducing new ways of thinking to the political agenda, and thus provide mechanisms for significant political change. Their considerable potential political displacement may, however, be offset by internal divisions over goals, strategies, and tactics, as in the case of the environmental movement. Partial achievement of the movement's goals may remove much of its dynamic energy, as in the case of the civil rights movement, or the movement may be overtaken by shifts in social and political attitudes, as in the case of the student movement of the late 1960s. Social movements may become institutionalized, as in the case of the British ‘Labour movement’, a term which remains a useful umbrella for the Labour Party, trade unions, cooperatives, and socialist organizations, but no longer conveys a sense of a dynamic force seeking radical change.
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The study of classes or strata in a society. This is usually centred on the social grading of occupations. Sometimes this is done by reference to power and control over the means of production (for which see
class
). More usually, however, stratification is done by means of a mixture of class and status markers. For instance, the Registrar-General, responsible for the decennial census in the United Kindom, first produced a stratified table of occupations as long ago as 1911. Such a table must take note not only of a person's occupation (‘farmer’) but also his or her class or power position within that description (‘farmer employing others’, ‘farmer employing nobody outside the family’, and so on) Ultimately, the status of occupations means what most people think the status of occupations is.

 
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Taken over from other economists and adapted by K. J. Arrow , an ‘Arrovian’ social welfare function is any rule which derives a social ordering of available states of affairs from the set of individual orderings of them. It includes not only all voting procedures but also decision by dictators, oracles, and impersonal tradition. This is now the standard meaning.

 
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A political and economic theory or system of social organization based on collective or state ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange—although, like capitalism, it takes many and diverse forms, and is a continually developing concept.
The actual term ‘socialism’ was first used in the early 1830s by the followers of
Owen
in Britain and those of
Saint-Simon
in France. By the mid-nineteenth century the word was used to denote a vast range of reformist and revolutionary ideas in Britain, Europe, and the United States. What linked these ideas was a common emphasis on the need to transform capitalist industrial society into a much more egalitarian system in which collective well-being for all became a reality, and in which the pursuit of individual self-interest became subordinate to such values as association, community, and cooperation. There was thus an explicit emphasis on solidarity, mutual interdependence, and the possibility of achieving genuine harmony in society to replace conflict, instability, and upheaval. A critique of the social-class basis of capitalism was accompanied by the elevation of the interests of
working class
or
proletariat
to a position of supreme importance, and in some cases the principle of direct
workers' control
under socialism was invoked as an alternative to the rule of existing dominant classes and élites. Images of a future ‘classless’ society were used to symbolize the need for the complete abolition of socio-economic distinctions in the future: an especially important idea in the Marxist tradition. However, socialists rarely agreed on a strategy for achieving these goals, and diversity and conflict between socialist thinkers, movements, and parties proliferated, especially in the context of the First and Second International Workingmen's Associations (founded respectively in 1864s and 1889). Increasingly, as the nineteenth century developed, socialist aspirations focused on the politics of the nation-state (despite much rhetoric about socialism as an international and even global force) and the harnessing of modern science, technology, and industry. Yet other, alternative visions of a socialist future—emphasizing, for example, the potential of small—scale communities and agrarianism rather than full-scale industrialization—always coexisted with the mainstream tendency. In addition doctrines such as
anarchism
,
communism
, and
social democracy
drew on the key values of socialism, and it was often difficult to separate the various schools and movements from each other. Thus
Marx
and
Engels
regarded themselves as ‘scientific socialists’ (as opposed to earlier ‘utopian socialists’), but saw socialism in the strict sense of the term to be a transitional phase between capitalism and full economic and social communism.
As socialist movements and parties of all kinds have achieved control of government in many countries of the world, the focus of interest in socialism has inevitably shifted from theory to practice. The most basic disputes amongst socialists have concerned the role of the state in the ownership, control, and organization of the economy ( see
state socialism
), the relationship between socialism and democratic politics, and the tension between gradualist (e.g. parliamentary) and revolutionary strategies for change. By the 1930s two quite different systems of socialism could be seen to represent polar extremes of doctrinal interpretation: the socialism of the Soviet Union under
Stalin
, and the
National Socialism
of Hitler in Germany. Liberal, conservative, and even anarchist critics stressed the totalitarian tendency of all socialist thought. After the Second World War the division of Europe into a Western pluralist and liberal democratic bloc and an Eastern Marxist-dominated bloc further accentuated the distinction between alternative concepts of socialism. In Western Europe social democratic and Labour Parties used
Keynes
to support a non-Marxist approach to the regulation and control of capitalism, stressing the need to achieve social justice and equality through effective management of the economy (and including some, but certainly not total, nationalization of industry) and redistributive welfare policies ( See
welfare state
). Social democrats accepted the reality of the ‘mixed economy’, and turned their back on the Marxist analysis of capitalism and the idea of socializing the main instruments of economic production, distribution, and exchange.
Socialism in the Western world has entered a new phase of crisis and uncertainty in the 1980s and 1990s as the welfare state has found itself under increasing economic pressure, and as social democratic methods of Keynesian economic management have been challenged by alternative neoliberal and New Right theories. The collapse of Marxist socialism in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe at the end of the 1980s, and the failures of many Third World socialist regimes, have added further weight to the view that socialism is presently a doctrine in search of a new identity. Efforts to modernize, revise, and adapt socialism to new historical circumstances have led to a range of New Left ideas and theories over the last twenty-five years, some of them contained within existing socialist movements and parties, others achieving mobilization and support in the arenas of ‘new politics’,
post-materialism
,
feminism
, and
environmentalism
. There is also a conspicuous reawakening of interest amongst contemporary socialists in basic issues of radical democracy, including the changing relationship between state and
civil society
, the new dimensions of social pluralism, the need for enhanced opportunities for political
participation
, and the question of citizenship rights. As always socialists have much to argue about, not least with each other.
KT