SOCIALISM

CAUSES OF SOCIALISM

• Bad work conditions in mines and factories
• Industrial capitalism caused by the Industrial Revolution
• Miserable living conditions in cities
• Class oppression and classism

EARLY SOCIALISM
The product of intellectuals who believed in the equality of everyone. They wanted to replace competition in industry with cooperation.

LATER SOCIALISTS
The ideas of early socialists were considered impractical dreams, and were called utopian socialists, especially by Marxist socialists.

UTOPIAN SOCIALISTS

• Robert Owen believed people were naturally good and would show it if they lived in a cooperative environment.
• He created a healthy community in New Lanark, Scotland, from a factory town.
• His attempt at a healthy community in New Harmony, Indiana failed due to internal conflicts.
• Women supported this as they believed reordering society would help them in gaining equality to men.
• Frances Wright bought slaves to set up a community in Nashoba, Tennessee, which also failed.

KARL MARX

• He developed the theory that socialism was based on
• He published The Communist Manifesto along with Friedrich Engels in 1848
• They blamed industrial capitalism for bad factory conditions
• He believed the bourgeoisie were oppressors and the proletariat were oppressed.
• He also believed that their struggle would lead to the proletariat revolting and creating a dictatorship.

SOCIALIST ACHIEVEMENTS

• Socialist parties such as the German Social Democratic Party were created
• Members infiltrated parliament and tried to pass laws to improve working conditions
• In 1889, leaders of socialist parties united in the Second International.
• Pure Marxists wanted to overthrow capitalism by violent revolution
• Revisionist Marxists wanted to organize political parties and work together for reforms.

TRADE UNIONS

• Won the right to strike in Great Britain in the 1870's
• Factory workers organized into these to use strikes and achieve reforms
• They had made progress in improving living and working conditions by 1914.
• They were a socialist force working for change.