Jonah Achumi
Socialism is a social and economic system characterised by social ownership of the means of production and co-operative management of the economy as well as a political theory and movement that aims at the establishment of such a system. “Social ownership” may refer to cooperative enterprises, common ownership, state ownership, citizen ownership of equity or any combination of these things. The term “socialism” was created by Henri de Saint-Simon, one of the founders of what would later be labelled “Utopian Socialism”. The term “Socialism” was created to contrast against the liberal doctrine of “individualism which later came to be known as “Liberalism”. The word ‘Socialism’ finds its root in the Latin word “Sociare,” which means to “combine or to share”.
A socialist economy is based on the principle of production of use, to directly satisfy economic demand and human needs and objects are valued by their use-value as opposed to the principle of production for profit and accumulation of capital.
In the traditional conception of a socialist economy, coordination, accounting and valuation are performed in a kind by way of using physical quantities by a common physical magnitude or by a direct measure of labour-time in place of financial calculation. For distributing output, two alternative principles have been proposed: to each according to his contribution and from each according to his ability, to each according to his need. The Original Socialists condemned Liberal Individualism as failing to address social concerns of poverty, social oppression, and gross inequality of wealth. They viewed liberal individualism as degenerating society into supporting selfish egoism that harmed community life through promoting a society based on competition. They presented socialism as an alternative to liberal individualism that advocated a society based on cooperation. The modern definition and usage of the term “Socialism” settled by the 1860s, becoming the predominant term among the earlier associated words such as “Co-operative”, “Mutualist” and “Associationist”.
Socialism is where the factors of production—labor,capital goods and natural resources are owned equally by everyone in the society. They can be represented by a cooperative, a public corporation where everyone in the society has shares, or a democratically-elected government. These factors of production are valued for their usefulness to people. This includes not only individual needs but also greater societal needs such as preservation of natural resources. That means most economic decisions are made by central planning as in a command economy. A society may decide to define the common good as including caring for those who can’t directly contribute to production, such as the elderly, children, and their caretaker.Socialism basically says let’s have a kinder, gentler society. Let’s share things. Let’s have an economic system that produces things not because they’re profitable for some corporation, but produces things that people need. SOCIALISM SUPPORTS THE POOLING OF SURPLUS PROFIT THROUGH MEANS OF PROFRESSIVE TAXATION TO REDISTRIBUTE THESE FUNDS TO PROVIDE SCOCIAL WELFARE, INCLUDING PUBLIC HEALTHCARE, PUBLIC EDUCATION AND PUBLIC HOUSING. It advocates nationalization of strategic industries and services. It emphasizes the need for a MORALLY CONSCIOUS ECONOMY based upon the principles of service, cooperation, and social justice while OPPOSING POSSESSIVE INDIVIDUALISM. Ethical socialism is distinct in its focus on criticism of the ethics of capitalism, and not merely criticism of material issues of capitalism. Its founders denounced the self-seeking amoral and immoral behaviour that he claimed is supported by capitalism. The system opposes what it calls the “acquisitive society” that causes private property to be used to transfer surplus profit to “Functionless Owners”.
There are many different types of socialism like Democratic Socialism,Revolutionary Socialism,Libertarian Socialism,Market Socialism,Green Socialism,Christian Socialism,Utopian Socialism,Fabian Socialism,Modern Socialism,Nanosocialism and National Socialism.
NATIONAL SOCIALISM:
National Socialism believes the State is but an end to a means – the survival of the people and race – and never an end in itself. However, due to the many similarities between certain political movements in the first half of the 20th century, the term “fascism” has been used to describe all of them. Whether this is a good use of the term is debatable.
National Socialism, originally is the doctrine of the liberation of the White race. It represents the soundest means of assuring the survival and advancement of a race. National Socialism was at first a political outlook adopted in several European nations, but evolved quickly into a pan-European vision. It is a form of right-wing thought in that it emphasizes the importance of hierarchy and inequality for the creation and maintenance of civilization. The practical goal of National Socialists today is to convert more people to the cause, in order to be able to create a state guided by National Socialist principles. National Socialists believe in the quest for excellence and constant improvement. MORAL RULE EXISTS TO SERVE THE COMMUNITY: to ensure its long-term survival and prosperity, for the sake of its members. Without morality, living together and cooperating peacefully in a society would be impossible. Therefore, morality is not only a private matter, but of great importance for the state. National-Socialism in practice was not socialism in the same sense as Marxism-Leninism: the state did not take ownership of enterprises. The state, however, did regulate the economy as needed for the benefit of the society as a whole and conducted extensive social programs. National Socialism does not endorse tyranny; that is, a political apparatus that functions contrary to the interests of the people. National Socialism endorses the “leadership principle,” the idea that a nation is best governed by those most capable of guiding their fellow citizens and providing for their common needs and wants. Socialism is the view that the community (the people) embodies the most important value; the individual is a member of the people and has to support his people.
National-Socialism therefore demands the precedence of politics over economics. THE ECONOMY SHOULD SERVE PEOPLE AND STATE, NOT THE INDIVIDUALS. The most important Socialist principle runs: COMMON GOOD BEFORE SELFISH GOOD. Certainly there is deserved private profit, but this must always be subordinate to the well-being of the entire people. If everyone cares only for himself, then the people go to ruin, and every individual along with it. But if everyone devotes himself to the community, then the people thrives and along with it every individual also thrives as a member of the people. In the National Socialist state, there is no longer property with which the individual can do with whatever he wishes.
SYNDICALISM:
Syndicalism was developed at the end of the 19th century out of the French trade-union movement—Syndicat is the French word for trade union. It was a significant force in Italy and Spain in the early 20th century until it was crushed by the fascist regimes in those countries. In the United States, Syndicalism appeared in the guise of the Industrial Workers of the World or “Wobblies, ”founded in 1905.” Syndicalism is an economic system where industries are organised into Confederations (Syndicates); the economy is managed by negotiation between specialists and worker representatives of each field, comprising multiple non-competitive categorised units. Thus, Syndicalism is a form of communism and economic corporatism and also refers to the political movement and tactics used to bring about this type of system.
Syndicalism rejects State Socialism and the use of establishment politics to establish or promote Socialism. They reject using state power to construct a socialist society, favouring strategies such as the General strike. Syndicalists advocates a socialist economy based on federated unions or syndicates of workers who own and manage the means of production. An influential anarchist movement based on Syndicalist ideas is Anarcho-Syndicalism. Anarcho-Syndicalism is a theory of anarchism which views Syndicalism as a method for workers in capitalist society to gain control of an economy and with that control, influence broader society. Although Syndicalism advocates the control of production units by the workers it does not, as is the case for Socialism, advocate the central control of the economy. Instead Syndicalism advocates the operation of a production unit for the benefit of the workers of that production unit. This means that the workers sell or barter the production of their unit for the output of the other production units.
Although not as well known as the socialist movement Syndicalism has had a notable role historically. In the western United States the IWW, the International Workers of the World, were influential in the mines and were perceived as a definite danger to own or to control the mines. There were laws passed in some western states for the suppression of criminal syndicalism.
Syndicalism is a type of proposed economic system, a form of anti-thesis socialism, a replacement for capitalism. Industry in a Syndicate system runs through co-operative confederations and mutual aid. Local syndicates would communicate with other syndicates through the labour exchange which would cooperatively determine distributions of commodities. National Syndicalism offers rejuvenation with the elements of impulse, rebellion, desire for freedom and an IDENTITY AND RESPECT FOR ONES PEOPLE AND HOMELAND WHICH IS PERMANETLY NEEDED.
So after the in-depth analysis of the two ideologies mentioned above, these two systems are somewhat like a Day and Night and poles apart like the North and the South Pole. One is like a Desert and the other a Rainforest. It has the difference of fire and ice or flood and drought .The first one is for the greater good of one’s own countrymen and people but what we are experiencing in our homeland now in praxis is completely opposite of the very name of its ideology The theory and the practical seems to be completely in contrast with one another. While the second one is the ideology where all the basic tenets it is supposed to stand for is completely absent here. Our own workers, farmers and entrepreneurs are being choked and snuffed by this system. The ones who should be standing for us are now completely conniving with others and trampling our own people .I believe not even a single Naga dreamt or hoped for this kind of system where we would be pushed, shoved and sidelined here in our own land just because of some people who wants to monopolize and capture the market for their own selfish gains .Those people who patronise this Syndicate System must honestly ask their own conscience and before God if this is the kind of freedom they want to give to their own people and the coming generations. A very big question comes to the mind of every present generation that’ If the stake-holders who has christened themselves with the word ‘Socialist’ ,then the Syndicate System which they work hand in gloves for their own profits is just much in contrast to that very term ‘Socialist’. While Socialist ideology stand for social welfare, especially the working class, Syndicate System stand only for some privileged few and only few gain from it. In our land it is responsible for putting an end to so many young dreams of becoming self-dependent or self-reliant by promoting self-interests in the guise of Sovereignty .Much in contrary to Socialism, Syndicalism stands only for a certain segment of group or circle and not for the people as a whole.
Today, all fingers point towards the much opposed, disliked and the infamous Syndicate System for dashing the hopes and dreams of the tomorrow’s children. Whatever maybe the reason for all these fallacies and maladies in our present society, we all have to re-think and re-devise the policies which the society are now finding it as anti-native programmes or policies. There has been a tremendous increase in unemployment and when government jobs have reached a saturation stage, the youths have no other alternatives to find their source of income, except to fend themselves at the mercy and whims of a reticent and a resilient society that does not seem to care as long as life goes on without any hindrance or enjoy ones’ fruits without a care for his fellowmen. What if, tomorrow, the children of those Guardians of this system who want to take up some business activity or become self-employed are all choked, snuffed and trampled by others of their own kind who promote this kind of ideology for their own personal benefits? Would they be happy in their old age tomorrow when they see their own flesh and blood suffers from the system that is happening today, which some now so staunchly profess and defends and forces it in a tyrannical way upon others’ children of our blood, soil and our own native land? A Great Native American Indian proverbs says “WHEN THE BLOOD IN YOUR VEINS RETURN TO THE SEA AND THE EARTH IN YOUR BONES RETURN TO THE GROUND, PERHAPS THEN YOU WILL REMEMBER THAT THE LAND DOES NOT BELONG TO YOU BUT IT IS YOU WHO BELONGS TO THE LAND…………WE DO NOT INHERIT THIS EARTH FROM OUR ANCESTORS BUT WE HAVE BORROWED IT FROM OUR CHILDREN.” We will be forever remembered by the tracks we leave behind. How you wish to see your children tomorrow, do the same on others’ children of today. Only then you can be called a rebel with a cause and a true salt of the land. A true patriot is the one who sacrifices himself for the good of others. His task is to take care of the elderly, the defenceless and those who cannot provide for themselves and above all the children, who are the future of humanity.
