Neosocialism (also hyphenated as neo-socialism) is a term used to describe any one of a wide variety of left-wing political movements that are considered socialist and have developed recently. The term has been in use since at least the 1930s, though its definition is always in a state of flux. Since "neosocialism" refers simply to the forms of socialism that have emerged most recently, its meaning changes as new kinds of socialism are developed. At the present time, the political movements and ideologies considered "neosocialist" are those forms of socialism that have arisen since the 1980s. This mainly includes three tendencies: The centrist "Third Way" embraced by some European social democrats, the new revolutionary socialism developing in Latin America, and the proposals for technologically-assisted socialism put forward by some Marxists. Some right-wing commentators use "neosocialism" as a pejorative against people or organizations which do not consider themselves socialist, but which are seen as socialistic by their opponents.
Third Way
Italian Defense Minister Antonio Martino gave a lecture in 1998 describing the evolution of socialism from its roots through changes in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s leading up to the emergence of the Socialist International, modern social democracy, and ultimately the Third Way philosophy as embodied by the British Labour Party under Tony Blair. He argued that these latest developments in the reformist socialist movement should be called neosocialism, because they depart significantly from traditional socialist positions - so much so that they come to agree with the premises of liberalism rather than classical socialist principles. According to Antonio Martino, "while all Third Way socialists and most liberals agree that some amount of regulation may be necessary, the difference between the two is given by the socialists' high propensity to give government the power to control the economy through regulation. In this, as in other areas (like taxation, environmental protection, public spending, etc.), the difference between socialists and liberals is quantitative."
In 2006, Swiss Federal Councillor Christoph Blocher, commemorated the fortieth anniversary of the death of Third Way founder Wilhelm Röpke in a speech asserting that Röpke's Third Way is both neoliberal and "neosocialist". In his words, "it is the neoliberals who are the true socialists, for no other school of thought has made a greater contribution to full employment, welfare and against poverty than that of neoliberalism."
There are a number of political parties worldwide that share common roots in the socialist movement but have come to adopt views more typical of liberalism than socialism. This has led to efforts from within and without these political parties to adopt "neosocialism" as a label for them. The uniting similarities of these movements are various levels of support for a regulated market economy, liberal democracy, redistribution of wealth through taxation, and liberal social policies.
Latin American revolutionary movements
Economic and political events in Latin America during the late 1990s and 2000s have brought new radical socialist movements to power in several countries, notably Venezuela and Bolivia. Venezuela's president Hugo Chávez has advocated an ideology that he calls "socialism of the 21st century" and Bolivia's Evo Morales was elected on the MAS (Movement Toward Socialism) ticket. Some have used the term "neosocialism" to describe these movements.
This use of "neosocialism" refers to a new wave of radical socialism, rather than the centrist "Third Way" socialism described above. Several political organizations supporting a radical socialist platform - based on classical socialist principles and goals but advocating new means to achieve those goals - have begun calling themselves "neosocialist". Thus, for example, the United Socialist Front describes itself as supporting a neo-socialist platform. The USF defines neo-socialism as a form of democratic socialism that replaces capitalism with economic socialism while rejecting Maoist or Stalinist dictatorships in favor of democracy.
Technologically-assisted socialism
In the 1990s, a number of Marxists began to see the exponential development of information technology as the key to the creation of a better, more efficient kind of socialist planned economy than had existed in the past. They argued that the growing processing power of computers could be used to resolve the economic calculation problem and create a non-market economic system based on a detailed central plan for the allocation of factors of production, and they believed that the use of technology rather than human bureaucracy would also help avoid the problems usually associated with centralized decision-making. This new type of technologically-assisted socialism was described in most detail in the book Towards a New Socialism. Earlier, in the 1940s, the socialist calculation debate between Hayek and Oskar Lange resulted in the conclusion that a planned economy more efficient than a market economy was not conceivable with the then current state of information technology. This led Lange to develop an intermediary Market Socialism (set into practice in Yugoslavia), while he continued to term the market "a calculation device of the pre-electronic age". Heinz Dieterich, together with Konrad Zuse, outlined what they termed "Computersozialismus" (Computer Socialism).
Belgium and French Neosocialism in the 1930s The term neo-socialism was used in France during the 1930s and in Belgium to describe several revisionist tendencies in the SFIO (the French Section of the Second International). In the wake of the Great Depression, a group of left-wing members, lead by Henri de Man in Belgium, founder of planisme, and in France Marcel Déat, Pierre Renaudel, René Belin, the "neo-Turks" of the Radical-Socialist Party (Pierre Mendès-France, etc.), opposed themselves both to Marxism and to gradual reformism. Instead, influenced by Henri de Man's planisme, they promoted a "constructive revolution" headed by the state and technocrats, through economic planification. Such ideas also influenced the Non-Conformist Movement in the French right-wing.
Marcel Déat published in 1930 Perspectives socialistes (Socialist Perspectives), a revisionist work closely influenced by Henri de Man's planisme. Along with over a hundred articles written in La Vie Socialiste, the review of the SFIO's right-wing, Perspective socialistes marked the shift of Déat from classical Socialism to Neo-Socialism. Déat replaced class struggle by collaboration of classes and national solidarity, advocated corporatism as a social organization model, replaced the notion of "Socialism" by "anti-Capitalism" and supported an authoritarian state which would plan the economy and from which parliamentarism would be repealed .
The Neo-Socialist faction inside of the SFIO, which included Marcel Déat and Pierre Renaudel, were expelled during the November 1933 Congress, because of their revisionist stances and admiration for Fascism. The neos advocated alliances with the middle-classes and favored making compromises with the "bourgeois" Radical-Socialist Party to enact the SFIO's program one issue at a time. After having being expelled from the SFIO, Marcel Déat and his followers created the Parti socialiste de France-Union Jean Jaurès (1933-1935) which was one of the main expression of Neo-Socialism in France. Inside the CGT trade-union, Neo-Socialism was represented by René Belin's Syndicats (then Redressements)'s faction.
On the other hand, Henri de Man's planisme influenced the left-wing of the Radical Party, called "Young Turks" (among them Pierre Mendès France). Planisme would later influence dirigisme, semi-planified economy, regionalism, spatial planning as well as Mendesism, "left-wing Gaullism" (Louis Vallon) and Socialist clubs in the 1960s (Club Jean Moulin, etc.).
The Neo-Socialists, however, evolved toward a form of participatory and nationalist socialism which eventually led them to join with the reactionary right and support the collaborationist Vichy Regime during the Second World War (René Belin and Marcel Déat became members of the Vichy government). By 1940 there was little or no difference between Déat's neo-socialism and fascism, leading to the discredit of the term in France after the war.
Use by the political Right
Rupert Murdoch and other conservatives have defined neosocialism as the pursuit of the classical ideals of socialism or Marxism through high taxation of wealth and heavy regulation of industry. Murdoch, the conservative owner of News Corporation, wrote that a "new class" of neosocialists was using government regulation as a tool for personal gain. This class includes career politicians and union members, according to Murdoch.
In traditional media, the word "neosocialism" has not been used widely outside of a few opinion articles, unlike the similar term "neoconservatism". A LexisNexis search conducted March 20, 2005, reveals 20 other uses of the terms "neosocialism" or "neosocialist" in newspapers, most of which agree with Murdoch's definition. In contrast, a search for the term "neoconservative" returns over 1,000 results. The Oxford English Dictionary does not include the term "neosocialism".
