Peter Lamb. Socialism. Cambridge, England and Medford, Massachusetts: Polity Press, 2019. 135 pages.
Peter Lamb’s book Socialism is part of a “Key Concepts in Political Theory“ series, including works on such topics as patriotism, fascism, authority, libertarianism, and citizenship. The series is clearly intended to provide introductory guides to important topics in political theory. This setting is important in judging the merit of this work, since the most crucial question about a member of such a series is, "Does this particular contribution fulfill its role in the series as a whole?" In the case under consideration, the answer will turn out to be, "In one respect, very well, but in another, rather poorly." So let us see how that can be so.
Lamb's remit is to somehow provide the reader with an adequate overview of "socialism" in a quite slim volume, and, no doubt, the extreme space restraints under which he worked are somewhat responsible for the lacunae I will note below. In any case, Lamb begins by describing the diversity of "socialist" thought, but proceeds to argue that nevertheless "socialism... remains a coherent ideology" (1), its diverse strands united by a commitment to "equality, freedom, and community" (1).
Lamb categorizes socialist thought as falling into three main camps: revolutionary socialism, exemplified by Marx, Trotsky, Lenin, and Mao; guild socialism with the main exemplar being G.D.H. Cole; and democratic socialism, represented by the British Fabians, such as George Bernard Shaw and the Webbs, and later C.A.R. Crossland. Lamb offers both clear explanations of the differences between these approaches, as well as excellent reasons to regard them all as properly categorized under the umbrella term of socialism. Lamb's knowledge of socialist literature, both theoretical and empirical, as well as the history of actual socialist regimes, is comprehensive and put to excellent use.
So far, so good. But surely an introductory work like this ought to deal with the critics of the idea it addresses, as well as its advocates. After all, it is in responding to critics that an idea really proves its mettle. And it is here that Lamb's book disappoints, as there is very, very little space devoted to critiques of socialism. Lamb, for instance, notes Sarkar’s claim that “many people in capitalist developing countries could only dream of the economic living standards of the German democratic republic” (5). True, a critic may reply, but the East German workers were enjoying a standard of living that had declined from Germany’s capitalist past, while those in developing countries were experiencing rising standards of living as their nations had become more capitalist. The critics claim may or may not be true: the point I wish to make here is that Lamb does not even consider such a view.
Lamb discusses "Julius Nyerere's African socialist project" (42) in Tanzania. He admits that after a dozen years of socialist rule, the country saw "continuing poverty, inequality, malnutrition, and lack of education" (43). But he does not examine what happened after Tanzania abandoned socialism, which is described in an IMF paper as follows:
"In 1985, Tanzania was in severe economic distress, plagued by widespread shortages and high inflation. Agricultural production, the mainstay of the economy, had been declining steadily... Exports of cash crops... had fallen by half between 1970 and 1985. A foreign exchange shortage led to a precipitous drop in imports, which in turn caused a crisis in the manufacturing sector...
"Twenty years later, Tanzania looks radically different. Inflation has declined to single digits... Economic growth is buoyant, averaging 7 percent a year since 2000. Real per capita income has risen by 50 percent..."
Of course, the above is from the IMF, and perhaps it is all just capitalist propaganda. Nevertheless, there are similar reports from many countries around the world, and it would have been salutary for Lamb to have addressed the argument running, "Sure, you socialists claim to want to help the poor, but, in fact, your preferred policies leave them poor, while market-friendly policies actually increase their standard of living." This argument might be incorrect, but certainly it is at least worthy of refutation in a book such as this.
Lamb, naturally enough, is anxious to disassociate the socialism he likes from National Socialism, or Nazism. And so he writes, “Nazism did not bring about anything like the combination of freedom and equality that lies at the core of socialism” (45). But neither, of course, have any of the regimes that Lamb does not think of as socialist “masquerades.” In fact, one of the most famous critiques of socialism, Hayek's The Road to Serfdom, makes the case that socialism is inherently incapable of bringing about the combination of freedom and equality to which socialists aspire. Again, it may be the case that Hayek is full of it and socialists can readily achieve their aims. Nevertheless, it is surprising that a book aiming to serve as a scholarly introduction to socialism barely mentions Hayek. Nor do we find Ludwig von Mises in the references (the book lacks an index), despite the fact that socialist Oskar Lange wrote, in his paper "On the Economic Theory of Socialism":
"Socialists have certainly good reason to be grateful to Professor Mises... For it was his powerful challenge that forced the socialists to recognize the importance of an adequate system of economic accounting to guide the allocation of resources in a socialist economy... a statue of Professor Mises ought to occupy an honorable place in the great hall of the Ministry of Socialization or of the Central Planning Board of the socialist state." (1936)
But the biggest surprise of all was Lamb's apparently complete rejection of one of Marx's key ideas. Discussing Stalin, Lamb claims "Stalin ignored the human-made nature of economic laws, which thus cannot be objective" (59). Here, this reviewer must reluctantly side with Stalin. Marx himself, who was a quite competent student of Smith, Ricardo, and other classical economists, would no doubt turn over in his grave upon seeing Lamb's claim. After all, if "economic laws" are just "human-made," then what becomes of Marx's claim that economic systems must, of necessity, proceed from primitive communism, through slave-based societies, to feudalism, to capitalism, to socialism, and then to mature communism? If this progression is "human-made," rather than objective, then perhaps feudalism could be what's coming next? Marx himself, in Capital, sought "to lay bare the economic law of motion of modern society" (Marx, 1867). But if this "law" was something merely made up by Marx, what in the world would have been the point of trying "to lay [it] bare"? Indeed, in the very same introduction, Marx goes much further, and states that his system "is a question of these laws themselves, of these tendencies working with iron necessity towards inevitable results" (Marx, 1867). Now, it is certainly possible that Marx was completely wrong about the "iron necessity" of economic laws, and that Lamb is correct in asserting that we humans simply make them up as we wish them to be. But if that is true, then Lamb ought to be honest and admit that his sort of socialism stands in stark contradiction to Marx's socialism, with it axiomatic dependency on the "inevitable results" of economic laws. Instead, Lamb repeatedly invokes the authority of Marx, while seemingly rejecting the most fundamental aspect of Marx's system.
Given the attraction of the socialist ideals of equality, freedom, and community, then why are there so few socialist regimes around? In his conclusion, Lamb claims that "Capitalist hegemony suppressed opposition by making alternatives appear unrealistic and undesirable" (116). While no doubt this is something capitalists and advocates for capitalism attempt to do, Lamb ought to admit that socialists, when they have actually gained power in some country, have done a pretty good job themselves of making their alternative "appear unrealistic and undesirable."
In summary, Lamb's book is an excellent primer on what socialists think about socialism. While I think it would’ve been a much better book if it also told us what non-socialists think about socialism, half the story well told is better than the whole story poorly told: one can always seek elsewhere for the rest of the story, at least if one knows it is missing.
Oskar Lange, "On the Economic Theory of Socialism," 1936, Review of Economic Studies, pp. 53-56, Vol. 4, No. 1.
Karl Marx, Capital Volume One, 1867, https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/p1.htm.
Roger Nord et al., "Tanzania: The Story of an African Transition," 2009, International Monetary Fund.