The evolution of the definition of 'socialism'?

[Popular Front of Judea]

I am curious as to how the definition of the word 'socialism' has changed over time, since its coining in the early part of the 19th century. (Merriam-Webster states that 1837 is the earliest known use in print.) I am looking for a timeline here with succinct definitions. No polemics please. Any links etc. would be appreciated.

[Skyhilist]

I don't know if "evolved" is really as good of a word as "branched off" for the definition of socialism. There are still numerous definitions of socialism depending on what tendency someone is. So if we wanted to look at things in terms of linguistic evolution, we would say that the word "socialism" itself is a common ancestor and the numerous definitions that we have today are the species that arose from it. There isn't a singular lineage, so a timeline I don't think would really make sense unless you created numerous timelines for different tendencies.

[Popular Front of Judea]

I don't know if "evolved" is really as good of a word as "branched off" for the definition of socialism. There are still numerous definitions of socialism depending on what tendency someone is. So if we wanted to look at things in terms of linguistic evolution, we would say that the word "socialism" itself is a common ancestor and the numerous definitions that we have today are the species that arose from it. There isn't a singular lineage, so a timeline I don't think would really make sense unless you created numerous timelines for different tendencies.

Okay. So is there a survey of the various definitions of 'socialism' arranged by tendency? Again succinct and sans polemics. The date of when the definition first appeared would be great.

[tuwix]

I am curious as to how the definition of the word 'socialism' has changed over time, since its coining in the early part of the 19th century. (Merriam-Webster states that 1837 is the earliest known use in print.) I am looking for a timeline here with succinct definitions. No polemics please. Any links etc. would be appreciated.

Its definition was traditionally distorted by bourgeois media. But it's impossible determine how much because everything is fluid for them. I say about phrases that Obama is socialist, etc.
Besides there bourgeois parties that calling themselves socialist or social democratic. For example Greek PASOK (Panhellenic Socialist Movement) or Spanish PSOE (el Partido Socialista Obrero Español). They're as socialist and they fulfill all demands of world bourgeoisie represented by IMF..

But tthos are distortions. But deifinition is intact.

[Popular Front of Judea]

So your succinct definition of socialism is ... ?

Its definition was traditionally distorted by bourgeois media. But it's impossible determine how much because everything is fluid for them. I say about phrases that Obama is socialist, etc.
Besides there bourgeois parties that calling themselves socialist or social democratic. For example Greek PASOK (Panhellenic Socialist Movement) or Spanish PSOE (el Partido Socialista Obrero Español). They're as socialist and they fulfill all demands of world bourgeoisie represented by IMF..

But tthos are distortions. But deifinition is intact.

[tuwix]

So your succinct definition of socialism is ... ?

As word originated form Lairin "societas" - society, the system where society as whole which means people rule.

[Blake's Baby]

It's not so much that the definition of 'socialism' has changed as that most of the the parties called 'socialist' gave up on socialism but kept the name. So now people say that 'socialism is what the Socialist Party of France does' - but it isn't. Socialism is still what these parties supposedly stood for before WWI - communism, in other words. But they kept the name while removing the content (and yes, I know that France was a bad example because the the PSF was only founded in 1971 or something). The fact is most 'socialist' parties aren't 'socialist' (honorable exceptions include the Socialist Party of Great Britain and Socialist Party of Canada). But they could hardly call themselves the 'Patriotic Warmongering Betrayers of the Working Class Party of Germany (or wherever)' now could they?

[Dave B]

According to an 1888 volume of A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles, the word socialism was coined on 13 February 1832 in Le Globe, a liberal French newspaper of Pierre Leroux.[5] The term "socialism" was further described in 1834 by Leroux[6] and Marie Roch Louis Reybaud in France. In England Robert Owen was also using the term independently around the same time. Owen is considered the father of the cooperative movement.[7]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_socialism


So we could start with Owen I suppose?

I 'think' John Gray described himself and his ideas as socialist/socialism pretty early on.

I think he is quite important and much overlooked.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Gray_(socialist)


As to what they (both) interpreted it as being you would just need to read their stuff I suppose.

[But we in the SPGB would not define as socialism what both of them were describing as 'socialism'.]

[Dave B]

The emphasis on work was perhaps the most revolutionary aspect of Saint-Simon's theory, because tied to it was a theory of class beyond economic function. The obstacles to restored health were the oisifs, those who did not work, who produced nothing, who monopolized capital and who had no capacity or imagination to plan an ever-expanding economy and an ever-wider distribution of wealth. The political social and economic systems must be organized by wise men, artists, "industriels" to assure the greatestproductivity of useful and emotionally satisfying things. The institution of property must be redefined, the institution of the "family" must be broadened. Egoism must be replaced by what was eventually named (by Saint-Simonian Pierre Leroux) "socialism."

http://www.ohio.edu/chastain/rz/simon.htm

[Dave B]

Pierre Leroux, "Individualism and Socialism" (part 2)

III.


(From a 1850 footnote?????????)

(2) It is clear that, in all of this writing, it is necessary to understand by socialism, socialism as we define it in this work itself, which is as the exaggeration of the idea of association, or of society. For a number of years, we have been accustomed to call socialists all the thinkers who who occupy themselves with social reforms, all those who critique and reprove individualism, all those who speak, in different terms, of social providence, and of the solidarity which units together not only the members of a State, but the entire Human Species; and, by this title, ourselves, who have always battled absolute socialism, we are today designated as socialist. We are undoubtedly socialist, but in this sense: we are socialist, if you mean by socialism the Doctrine which will sacrifice none of the terms of the formula: Liberty, Fraternity, Equality, Unity, but which reconciles them all. (1847.) — I can only repeat here, with regard to the use of the word Socialism in all of this extract, what I said previously (pages 121 and 160 of this Volume).

When I invented the term Socialism in order to oppose it to the term Individualism, I did not expect that, ten years later, that term would be used to express, in a general fashion, religious Democracy. What I attacked under that name, were the false systems advanced by the alleged disciples of Saint-Simon and by the alleged disciples of Rousseau led astray following Robespierre and Babœuf, without speaking of those who amalgamated at once Saint-Simon and Robespierre with de Maistre and Bonald. I refer the reader to the Histoire du Socialisme (which they will find in one of the following volumes of this edition), contenting myself to protest against those who have taken occasion from this to find me in contradiction with myself. (1850.)

Despite the bits of ehh ………crap ……..associated and linked up with the word even in the 1830’s it is perhaps interesting as it seems to have been coined as an antonym or antithesis or whatever for egotism.

Which is good enough for me as a moralist.

Which kicks much of the plagiarising Stirnerite and Bakuninist into touch.

There was also quite a bit of ‘early Christianity’ or the interpretation of it mixed in with it, elsewhere.

As Fuerbach realised, in his proto Marxist ‘Essence of Christianity’ and what followed from it, Marx’s Paris Manuscripts etc. Washing your mates feet and ‘meekness’ was also a ‘philosophical’ antithetical paradigm to egotism.




.

[Remus Bleys]

Pierre Leroux, "Individualism and Socialism" (part 2)

III.


(From a 1850 footnote?????????)


Despite the bits of ehh ………crap ……..associated and linked up with the word even in the 1830’s it is perhaps interesting as it seems to have been coined as an antonym or antithesis or whatever for egotism.

Which is good enough for me as a moralist.

Which kicks much of the plagiarising Stirnerite and Bakuninist into touch.

There was also quite a bit of ‘early Christianity’ or the interpretation of it mixed in with it, elsewhere.

As Fuerbach realised, in his proto Marxist ‘Essence of Christianity’ and what followed from it, Marx’s Paris Manuscripts etc. Washing your mates feet and ‘meekness’ was also a ‘philosophical’ antithetical paradigm to egotism.




.

Please use a smaller font.