OWNERSHIP AND WELFARE ECONOMICS

Socialism derives its specific character and problems from its attitudes toward ownership.

The ideologies of the nineteenth century sometimes described ownership as the mainspring of progress, at other times as the root cause of the miseries of the class system. The former position was espoused by representatives of bourgeois liberalism, an ideology closely associated with the industrialization process. The latter was the view of socialist theorists, who generally believed that it would be necessary to interfere with the right of private ownership in order to create a happier society in the future. Karl Marx developed this view into a provocative theory of industrial development. He taught that mass poverty made it impossible for capital owners to find customers for all their products. As a result, violent crises would arise in the capitalist system. In the end the system would be hit by a major catastrophe, in which the economically exploited workers would seize power and transfer industrial companies to public ownership. Toward the end of the nineteenth century, practically all Social Democratic parties embraced this program.

In Sweden, the early Social Democrats put all their energy into political reforms unrelated to the ownership of capital. Together with the Liberals, they struggled for universal suffrage and parliamentary government.