Socialism and the Classical Liberal Critique
About this Collection
Modern socialism emerged in the 1830s and 1840s in France and England at a time when classical liberalism was beginning to have an impact with reforms such as the First Electoral Reform Act of 1832 and the success of the Anti-Corn Law League. The success of socialist ideas in the revolutions of 1848 meant that classical liberals increasingly had to turn their attention to combatting calls for government intervention in the economy from the “Left” as Frederic Bastiat did in the last few years of his life. As classical liberalism began to decline in the late 19th century it fell to a handful of radical individualists like Thomas Mackay and Herbert Spencer to oppose the gradualist, Fabian school of socialism in Britain, and to strict laissez-faire advocates like Eugen Richter in the German parliament. It was only after the rise of the Bolsheviks to power in Russia after the First World War that the most coherent and devastating critique of socialism appeared in the work of Ludwig von Mises and later in that of Friedrich Hayek.
For additional information about Socialism and the Classical Liberal Critique see the following:
- in the Forum: Timeline on the Critique of Fabian Socialism
- in the Library: Debate on Fabian Socialism vs. Radical Liberalism
Members:
- Capital: A Critique of Political Economy. 3 vols. (Karl Marx)
- Ce qu'on appelle des idées nouvelles en 1848 (Amédée de Noé)
- The Challenge of Facts and other Essays (William Graham Sumner)
- Economic Sophisms (FEE ed.) (Frédéric Bastiat)
- Fabian Essays in Socialism (George Bernard Shaw)
- The Illusion of the Epoch: Marxism-Leninism as a Philosophical Creed (H.B. Acton)
- Individualism: A System of Politics (Wordsworth Donisthorpe)
- The Intellectual Portrait Series: A Conversation with Ljubo Sirc (Ljubo Sirc)
- Das Kapital. Kritik der politischen Ökonomie (Karl Marx)
- Karl Marx and the close of his system, a criticism (Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk)
- Liberty and Liberalism (1888) (Bruce Smith)
- The Man versus the State, with Six Essays on Government, Society and Freedom (LF ed.) (Herbert Spencer)
- Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei. Veröffentlicht im Februar 1848 (Friedrich Engels)
- A Manifesto. Fabian Tracts No. 2 (1884) (George Bernard Shaw)
- Manifesto of the Communist Party (Friedrich Engels)
- Pictures of the Socialistic Future (Eugen Richter)
- A Plea for Liberty: An Argument against Socialism and Socialistic Legislation (LF ed.) (Thomas Mackay)
- A Plea for Liberty: An Argument against Socialism and Socialistic Legislation (1891 ed.) (Auberon Herbert)
- A Policy of Free Exchange (Thomas Mackay)
- Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis (Ludwig von Mises)
- Socialistic Fallacies (Yves Guyot)
- Les Soirées de la Rue Saint-Lazare (1849) (Gustave de Molinari)
- Theory and History: An Interpretation of Social and Economic Evolution (Ludwig von Mises)
- Theory and History: An Interpretation of Social and Economic Evolution (LF ed.) (Ludwig von Mises)
- The Tyranny of Socialism (Yves Guyot)