IL Explainer - Ep 4 | Socialism Reconsidered by Minoo Masani

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHWzp2Z0ONA Duration: 277.6s

Narrator (00:00): Today, we’ll be discussing Socialism Reconsidered. This is a 1944 essay by Minoo Masani. Minoo Masani was an Indian parliamentarian, a public intellectual, and, of course, an Indian leader. In Socialism Reconsidered, Masani included, there were at least four assumptions of Marxist socialism that required reconsideration. The first among these was the assumption that argued that the abolition of private property and its nationalization would automatically lead to a society with economic democracy and a classless and and would lead to a classless society. Now Masani spoke of this assumption in the context of Russia where where despite Marxist socialism, we weren’t able to arrive at a classless society. Now if we want to consider this in the Indian context, in a society where caste, caste, class, gender based, their equalities are so deep seated, to think of a society which is which lacks private property and has absolute nationalization, it’s it’s very difficult for marginalized and vulnerable groups that lack political bargaining power to to to achieve socioeconomic mobility. The second Marxist assumption that Masani suggested, he did while viewing, assumed that the dictatorship of the proletariat was is a possible and indeed a necessary transition state to socialism. The theory was that having served its purpose, the dictatorship would evaporate and indeed as Lenin following Engels put it, the state will then wither away. Now, Masani spoke of this assumption in the context of Russia. He said the state was far from withering away. In fact, the stranglehold of the state on individual liberty had increased. Let’s look at this assumption in the context of India or let’s generalize it further and think about it in the context of the incentives that get created in a society where the state is so greatly empowered. In a society where state holds great power to this extent, there do not exist incentives to for there to be a change in structure for the power to shift from the governing to the One assumption that Masani suggested that it required reviewing was one that argued that socialism could be achieved by appealing to the collective selflessness of the working class and its collective hatred for the property owning classes. Now, unfortunately, Masani said that this this appeal to the collective selflessness of the working class often leads to them becoming them becoming party to the injustice that they were essentially arguing against. Now he he explains this in the context of Britain when the collective working class was empowered through the Labour Party and was given a small share of the profits of the empire, the Labour Party then eventually ended up becoming a perpetuator of the same imperialism that it was, you know, that it was trying to oppose. Now if you were to think of this in a more abstract sense, in a society where you try to counter the flaws or gaps in the in the system by becoming, you know, part of the system and so deeply such a deeply seated part of the same system, then you end up perpetuating the gaps or the flaws of the system. Now the fourth assumption that Masani outlined before I I jump into the fourth assumption, I must tell you that Masani himself held socialist belief till the light late nineteen thirties, shortly before this this essay was written. And he then suggested that the fourth assumption of socialism was that it is the only alternative to capitalism or existing gaps in capitalism. Now he he he said that this might be a might be an unfair assumption to say the least because there must exist a system that is better. One and Masani, in fact, was among the the early proponents of mixed economy. Now whether or not the mixed economy that India eventually ended up having was the one that Masani envisioned is is is up for debate, but he was definitely among the first proponents of a mixed economy.