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Monday, February 17, 2025

Does socialism go through evolution or transformation?

By: Dr. Štefan Šumah

When we talk about socialism today, most people still think of the originally Soviet-style socialism, which is based on the classical tenets of Marxism – primarily social or state ownership, a planned economy, and state control in all societal subsystems. But is this really the case? Or is socialism also undergoing evolution or transformation?

Let’s try to think differently. On one side, we have a completely libertarian state with a fully free-market economy; on the other, a planned economy with total regulation and all property owned by the state. Let’s call it absolute libertarianism on one end and complete socialism (communism) on the other. Of course, both extremes are utopian, and throughout history, no perfect system has ever truly existed. The closest examples of socialism were China, Vietnam, and Cambodia, while no country has ever come close to absolute libertarianism. In reality, there are no fully extreme systems – only mixed systems that vary primarily in the degree of free-market participation and the level of market regulation.

If today libertarian advocates are labelled as neoliberals by their opponents, what if there exists a form of neo-socialism or modern socialism? A system driven by the goal of maximising market regulation and state control. In the 1930s, two ideologies emerged as a form of modern socialism and as a counterbalance to Bolshevism – Nazism and fascism. They also opposed classical capitalism and the free market while appealing to the working masses. However, they allowed for wealthy individuals and private ownership, but only for the “correct” people. If we set aside their totalitarian characteristics – such as restrictions on freedom of speech, personal freedoms, censorship, human rights violations, and prioritising the collective over the individual – and focus primarily on economic aspects, we can argue that Nazism, in many ways, took inspiration from Bolshevism. Corporate-state management, state planning initiatives (such as socialist five-year plans and Nazi four-year plans), strict market regulation (if Nazi-era regulations were still in place, companies like Hofer or Lidl would not exist in Germany today), state-mandated production quotas for private companies, and limited nationalisation – all these resemble exemplary socialism. Did you know that the first country to introduce a “green agenda” and implement environmental protection laws was Nazi Germany? From an economic standpoint, one could say that Hitler was the first modern socialist.

And today? Increasingly regulated production, market controls, CO2 quotas, the planned phase-out of internal combustion engine vehicles by 2035! Government mandates on the percentage of so-called green energy that must be produced within a given timeframe, growing restrictions on free speech, censorship, the erosion of national sovereignty, expanding bureaucracy, and the increasing tendency toward corporate governance within the European Union. Does this remind you of anything? And when we add ideological factors – such as the legal imposition of woke ideology, the green agenda, and migration policies – we arrive at neo-socialism. Yes, today’s Brussels is governed by neo-socialists, the unelected rulers of Europe.

However, as I mentioned before, no country is entirely liberalised, nor is any country fully regulated. Every system is a combination – some with minimal regulation and a highly free market, others with heavy regulation and limited market freedom, and many variations in between. One fact remains: the more free-market elements and the less regulation a country has, the better its economy performs, the higher its GDP, and the better the standard of living. The path that the EU has chosen in recent years is misguided, leading towards neo-socialism or modern socialism. We can only hope that the new composition of the European Parliament brings more common sense and guides Europe in the right direction.

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