Conclusion

Étienne Schmitt

This chapter highlighted the many interconnections and reciprocal influences between the currents of socialism. Since this ideology evolves with society and the demands of dominated groups, it offers an incredible diversity of perspectives enriched by the two centuries of history that have forged it, by the extremely varied local contexts in which it arose and was developed, by the internal conflicts that have occurred and continued to occur in it, and by the different philosophical traditions it has been able to integrate and that emanate directly from it. If socialism is declining as a political force at the beginning of the 21st century, we should not believe that it is an outdated, moribund ideology. On the contrary, it is reinventing itself in a context of more diversified, more open, more globalized societies, where economic and labor transformations as well as environmental and technological issues are generating new momentum. This new industrial revolution is leading to a re-reading of the theories formulated by yesterday’s ideologues, hence the success of intellectual figures such as Thomas Piketty (2014). It will undoubtedly create the currents of tomorrow.

Figure 5.6. Thomas Piketty.

 

Discussion Questions

  1. Have all regional and national contexts seen a socialist movement?
  2. Are globalization and new environmental and social questions of socialism leading to the creation of a “new proletariat”?
  3. What can socialism today learn and, more importantly, keep from the past?

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Political Ideologies and Worldviews: An Introduction - 2nd Edition Copyright © 2023 by Étienne Schmitt is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.

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