Question

Why is the mid nineteenth century socialism widespread attention in europe?

Answer 1

Note: this subject more than most does not lend itself to purely “objective, unbiased” discussion. Old Cold Warriors see in 19th-Century socialism the seeds of the Stalinist terror, and Marxists see in it the hope for a better world. My own biases are somewhat more mixed: sympathy with some of the aims of the socialists, admiration for their analyses of capitalism, and general hostility for the forms of socialism which dominated much of the world for the first half of the 20th Century. My goal in this essay is to convey to the reader something of the background which led many intelligent, sensitive people to convert to socialism and advocate its implementation–without disregarding the often deplorable consequences.

One of the features of the Enlightenment was the exaltation of property rights to the status of a bulwark of liberty by philosophers such as John Locke. In older Europe property had always been accompanied by power; but that power was justified by the belief in the inevitability of aristocratic rule–the concept that the wealth of the nobility was their God-given right. To some slight degree it was balanced by a traditional Christian suspicion of wealth which endorsed holy poverty for the clergy and preached to the wealthy that they owed charity to the poor. Further, its power was limited by its basis–agriculture–which could expand only so