Revollutionary and evolutionary socialist hae different ends and means Essay Example for Free

Revollutionary and evolutionary socialist hae different ends and means Essay Socialism is a broad ideology which covers a whole range of different traditions and ideals. There are disagreements within socialism are most definitely between revolutionary and evolutionary socialist in terms of means and ends. Revolutionary socialism believes in the idea that a capitalist system will not easily fall and so the only way to remove a capitalist society is for a mass up rise and overthrow of the system accepting that violence may be involved with this. From a Marxist-Leninist view the way for this to take place is for a vanguard party to help the proletariat to have some sort of revolutionary class consciousness. Revolutionary socialist reject electoral and constitutional politics as it is inextricably tied to the interest of a capitalist society and the ruling class, which is why Marxists see revolution as inevitable as they believe in the complete abolition of it. Revolutionary socialism therefore seeks the abolition of Private property and the state; this is because Marx and Engels viewed capitalism and its traditions to be a system of naked oppression and exploitation on the working masses and therefore the only way to remove capitalism and enforce socialism is by mass up rise from working class. Marxists therefore believe that political power reflects class interests and that the state is a bourgeois state that is based on the capital. Reasons in which there is a need for a overthrow of the bourgeois state by political revolution is because Revolutionary Socialists understand that change by political reform and gradual change which is supported by evolutionary socialist are clearly misleading as the ideas of universal suffrage and regular and competitive elections are simply a disguise of the actual reality of unequal classes and to mislead the political energies of the working class. Hence the need for the class-conscious proletariat to overthrow the capitalist state in order to enforce socialism. However in contrast evolutionary socialists believe that means of socialism should be brought about peacefully by the ballot. An example of this is Fabian Socialists who believe in inevitability of gradualism, which means that the working class would use the means of political democracy to empower them and therefore use voting to bring a Socialist Party into power. Fabian Socialists therefore take the liberals view on the state rather than the Marxist, so the state should be neutral authority rather than an agent of class oppression. They also believe that through education and a combination of political action that the elite of the capitalist society can be converted to socialism this way, essentially for them is the most easiest way to achieve socialism in the most peaceful manner. the use of the ballot would therefore develop an evolutionary outgrowth of capitalism. The inevitability of gradualism is supported by evolutionary socialists as extension of franchise would eventually lead to universal adult suffrage which will then lead on to political equality. if political equality is apparent, then in practice it will work in the interest of the majority. so evolutionary socialists believe political democracy would go in the hands of the working class as within any industrial society, the proletariat would be the majority. Therefore, as human nature seen by socialist is ultimately altruistic, they will inevitably be drawn towards social political parties which offer social justice. this will then guarantee the success of socialist parties numerically. once in power the party will then be able to legitimately create changes within society towards socialism and so achieving socialism peacefully and therefore making it inevitable. There are also disagreements with the terms of ends in socialism between revolutionary and evolutionary socialists. As seen, revolutionary socialism seeks to abolish capitalism and seek to replace it with a classless and stateless society which essentially the Marxist utopia; they also seek a social system based on common ownership. Revolution socialists believe private property should be removed as they believe that the origins of competition and inequality come from private property, and so they seek to remove private property as it is seen as unjust because wealth is produces as a collective effort of humans and so should not be owned by individuals. Common ownership as a terms of ends also emphasises on the fact that private property is morally corrupting and it fosters conflict in society ie. between owners and workers, or simply rich and poor. Therefore Fundamentalist socialists seek to abolish capitalism and replace it with a qualitatively different kind of society based on common ownership. Whereas, the evolutionary socialist seek to attain socialism through a parliamentary route and evidently showing the clear disagreement between evolutionary and  revolutionary socialists as they have very different ways to achieve socialism and the type of socialism that will be enforced as evolutionary socialists believe in a few types of ends ranging from the abolition of capitalism, to taming it through welfare state, wealth and progressive taxation which is definitely opposed by revolutionary socialists. Essentially they moderately critique capitalism as they only want to reform and reduce the economic inequalities and increase social justice. this has led to the redefinition of socialism in terms of distributive equality rather than common ownership. however there has been an exception within socialism with Fundamentalist democrats as they want to remove capitalism through the parliamentary route, however there has not been any demonstration of this type of ideology.