Change agents.

At the heart of leftist politics is the belief that humans can be improved. This idea goes all the way back to the ancient Greek philosopher Plato, who died in 347 BC, and his student Aristotle. People on the left of politics tend to believe that society and individuals can be bettered, and that a political system can be built that achieves that goal.

Lefties tend to favour:

* Change and innovation;

* Freedom of the individual on moral issues;

* The needs of the community over those of the individual;

* Economic and political equality;

* A commitment to cooperation among nations;

* The superiority of science and reason over tradition and religious dogma;

* Sovereignty in the hands of the people.

These are the principles upon which most people on the political left can agree.

Within the broad group of "The Left" there are many subgroups, some over at the extreme left, others close to the centre.

THE FAR LEFT

Karl Marx was a German philosopher who spent most of his life in exile in England. He was born in 1818 and died in 1883. Along with another German, Friedrich Engels (1820-95), he developed the theory of communism.

The two men started from the belief that the society in which they lived was grossly unfair. This inequality came about, they said, because the few factory owners had disproportionately more power than the many workers. Marx believed this was a continuation of the entire history of humankind, which he described as a struggle between the oppressed and their oppressors. He said that government had failed to protect the masses because it had become "nothing else but the executive committee of the ruling classes."

But, in their famous work, The Communist Manifesto (1848), Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels described their solution.

The idea was that all major resources and all means of production would be owned by the community rather than individuals. In theory, this communal ownership would lead to an equal sharing of labour, according to ability. The benefits from this communal work would be shared according to need.

These notions weren't all that new. Elements of them can be found in Plato's Republic (4th century BC), and the earliest Christian communes.

Marx and Engels believed that the transition to their new, communist society would mean a period of what they called "Dictatorship of the Proletariat." Marx saw all political rule as the domination of one class by another. With the Proletariat (the workers) in control, Marx saw this as a dictatorship just as much as capitalism was a "Dictatorship of the Capitalists." The big difference being that, with the proletariat calling the shots, the majority would be governing for the first time. Marx called this "winning the battle of democracy."

The people would then have joint ownership of land, transportation, banking, and industry. There would be no ownership of property and the inheritance of wealth and titles would be abolished. Taxation would be progressive, that is those with the most would pay the most.

Marx and Engels envisioned a classless society that would lead to the "Withering away of the state." The argument was based on the idea that in a classless society everybody has equal access to housing, food, education, health care, etc. Therefore, there is no need for political institutions to redistribute power and wealth.

Marx and Engels thought the change to communism would take place first in the most highly industrialized countries. They also thought that the transition could be achieved peacefully through the ballot box in countries such as Britain and the United States. In countries with a tradition of more authoritarian rule, such as France and Germany, they felt the change would be violent. They did not think that Russia was sufficiently developed for communism to take hold.

At the time they were alive, not many people paid attention to Marx and Engels.

THE LEFT

The roots of socialism can be found in the industrialization of Europe, and its main architects are Robert Owen of England, Eduard Bernstein of Germany, and Claude Henri de SaintSimon of France. The word socialism covers many beliefs rather than a single doctrine. That said, there are a number of ideas upon which almost all socialists can agree.

As with Marxism, socialism is founded on the belief that the inequalities of society should be evened out.

The fundamental problem, as socialists see it, is the concentration of the ownership of property and capital in too few hands. This forces the majority of people to sell their labour to the owners of capital. Being dependent on a wage curbs the individual freedom of the person and creates a society based on class.

Socialists seek to achieve full civil and political rights, but they see the ownership of private property as a barrier to true equality. They believe that society ought to be based on cooperation, self-sacrifice, and brotherhood. They reject materialism, competitiveness, and selfishness.

One of the major theorists of socialism was Robert Owen. He owned a factory in New Lanark, Scotland where he started experiments in improving working conditions. He found that when the working environment was made better productivity and profits went up.

Owen was convinced that the human race would advance through the improvement of each individual's living conditions. That was somewhat revolutionary thinking in the early 19th century.

Socialists see the public ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange of goods as something that works to benefit every member of society. An Australian socialist outlines the theory: "Workers are no longer a 'collective' mob of alienated non-owners employed by a minority of owners. Work becomes a free and self-affirming activity for each worker and they receive the full fruits of their labour. The capitalists and their servants no longer control production nor grow rich from other's toil. Everybody is an owner. Socialism is genuine free enterprise."

Where socialists split off into differing, and often bickering, groups is in how to bring the society they want into being.

Most socialists (not all, but most) reject the radical approach of violent revolution as a means of bringing about equality. The majority is willing to be patient and to use existing institutions to achieve their goals; to reform society through the ballot box by electing socialist candidates to government.

Socialists also dispute among themselves how to run industry. Some believe that industries should be operated in the same way as under private ownership--with efficiency and profit as ideals. Others want industry to concern itself with the wider social goals of providing employment and public services.

The more left-wing socialists argue for public ownership of all the means of production.

Those closer to the centre would restrict public control to such sectors as energy, health services, education, transportation, etc., what might be termed essential services. Smaller and less vital enterprises would be left under private ownership, and privately held cooperatives would be encouraged.

For a long time, the terms socialism and communism were used interchangeably. However, the cruel nature of the dictatorships in the Soviet Union prompted socialists elsewhere to distance themselves from communism.

Socialists in the Western world stressed that they were dedicated to the democratic process. Many of them dropped their demands for public ownership of the means of production and emphasized their plans to achieve greater social justice.

In many developing nations, however, socialism has been adopted as the best way to achieve national economic advances. In such countries, the state controls the major means of production, often after taking them over from foreign owners, and the governments begin to organize the delivery of social services.

Almost everywhere, socialists have forged links with trade unions. Their common interest in improving working conditions makes them natural allies.

THE CENTRE LEFT

Today, the social democratic movement includes a large number of ideologies that are closer to the centre of the political spectrum than those of socialists. Social democrats share common roots with socialists but they place maintaining representative democracy as their primary goal. Unlike pure socialists, social democrats place the construction of a socialist society second in importance. There are other distinctions.

The social Democrats began to move away from socialists in 1875 through Germany's Social Democratic Party (SPD).

The Gotha Program of 1875 set out the aims of the SPD. It called for the creation of "socialistic productive associations" not for the state takeover of the means of production. Other goals were:

* Abolish exploitation of every kind;

* Extinguish all social and political inequality;

* Grant the vote to everybody above 20 years of age;

* Secret ballot;

* Freedom of the press;

* Free and compulsory education 

* A single, progressive income tax, both state and local, instead of all the existing taxes, especially the indirect ones (such as sales taxes), which weigh heavily upon the people;

* Unlimited right of association;

* A normal working day corresponding with the needs of society, and the prohibition of work on Sunday;

* Prohibition of child labour and all forms of labour by women that are dangerous to health or morality;

* Laws for the protection of the life and health of workmen;

* Sanitary control of workmen's houses;

* Inspection of mines, factories, workshops, and domestic industries by officials chosen by the workmen themselves, and an effective system of enforcement of the same;

* Regulation of prison labour.

The fact that all of those demands sound very ordinary today, tells us a lot about the living conditions of working people 125 years ago.

Together with the German labour unions, the SPD came to embrace a moderate, democratic, evolutionary approach to socialism. By 1914, the SPD had become the single largest political party in the German parliament.

In Britain, the Labour Party under Ramsay MacDonald was in power for ten months in 1924 and again from 1929 to 1931. The Australian Labour Party held office from 1929 to 1932, from 1941 to 1949, and from 1972 to 1975. The Labour government of New Zealand, elected in 1935, remained in power until 1949. In Scandinavia, candidates of the Social Democratic parties of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden were elected to high positions early in the 1920s.

Canada has never had a social democratic government in Ottawa, although the movement has held power in a number of provinces. Under the banner of the New Democratic Party, social democrats have governed British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and Ontario.

Since World War II (193945), the Scandinavian countries have been governed mostly by social democratic parties. While the goals of the Gotha Program have been achieved, social democrats believe there remains a lot of work yet to be done.

At the 18th Congress of the Socialist International in Stockholm, Sweden in 1989, a Declaration of Principles was adopted. Some highlights of this include:

* A fairer distribution of the world's wealth between developed and developing countries. The United Nations goal of developed nations providing 0.7% of the Gross Domestic Product to aid must be met;

* Disarmament and the destruction of weapons: "Peace is the precondition of all our hopes. It is a basic value of common interest to all political systems and necessary for human society. War destroys human life and the basis for social development;"

* A greater emphasis to be placed on protection of the environment because the planet is "threatened by an uncontrolled urban and industrial expansion, the degradation of the biosphere, and the irrational exploitation of vital resources;"

* A strengthening of international political structures;

* New technologies need to be introduced under democratic political control to ensure that they are not harmful to the environment and that they create jobs rather than increase unemployment. "Manipulation of human genetic material and exploitation of women through new reproductive technologies must be prevented;"

* An economy that includes public ownership of some sectors. Where there is private ownership public oversight is needed to ensure that social and environmental goals are achieved. There should be "worker participation and joint decision-making at company and workplace levels as well as union involvement in the determination of national economic policy ... The concentration of economic power in few private hands must be replaced by a different order in which each person is entitled--as citizen, consumer, or wage-earner--to influence the direction and distribution of production, the shaping of the means of production, and the conditions of working life;"

* "Special attention must be given to the relations between different generations. Elderly people in particular need the respect and support of the young. They need a guaranteed income through social security and public pensions, homes and nursing in the community, room for cultural and social activities, and the right to live their old age in dignity;"

* Women in every culture and structure of society must be accorded justice and equality;

* "We ... reject and condemn any form of religious or political fundamentalism."

MAJORITY/MINORITY

The Russian Social Democratic Labour Party held a meeting in London, England in 1903. The congress was a tense struggle between the left wing of the party and the right wing. Vladimir Lenin of the left wing pushed resolutions through that prompted the right wing to walk out. The left-wing ideology triumphed by a majority vote and its followers took the name "'Bolsheviks," from the Russian word for majority bolshinstvo. The minority group became known as "Mensheviks," from the Russian word for minority- menshinstvo.

COMMUNIST VARIANTS

Leninism. Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (1870-1924) was the leader of the Russian Revolution in 1917. Lenin argued that because the workers of Russia were mostly illiterate and backward they weren't capable of governing. What was needed was rule by the educated "professional revolutionaries."

Trotskyism. Leon Trotsky (1879-1940) was one of the major theorists of the Russian Revolution. He developed the concept of "permanent revolution" and called for exporting communism to every other country. He was critical of the way communism in the Soviet Union developed into a system for oppressing the population and concentrating power into the hands of a privileged elite.

Stalinism. Named after Joseph Stalin who governed the Soviet Union from 1929 to 1953. Under Stalinism a powerful bureaucracy developed under Stalin's ruthless and total control. All opposition to Stalin, whether real or suspected, was crushed. A centrally planned economy dictated the build up of industrial and military power. The destruction of the class structure was used as justification for massive, government-organized terror. Some experts say Stalinism was a necessary stage in the progress towards Marx's withering away of the state. Others (the majority) say that Stalinism was a gross betrayal of the communist ideal and was used by a brutal madman to seize and hold absolute power,

Maoism. Through a long civil war (1927-1949) Mao Zedong brought communism to China. He developed the concept of the "mass line," which called for talking to the people and getting their views. The ideas of the masses would then be analyzed by party officials at the centre and turned into usable policies. Mao also drew on Chinese tradition to build the notion of the state as educator; government apparatus would guide the people in the correct ways of thinking and behaving.

COOPERATIVE MOVEMENT 

In the 19th century, a cooperative movement began to grow in Europe. People joined together in economic, financial, and other ventures, sharing labour and profits. Cooperatives set up stores where workers could buy food and other goods at reasonable prices. Any profits from the stores were divided up among the members.

British socialist Robert Owen founded and inspired several cooperative communities. In his 1849 book Revolution in the Mind and Practice of the Human Race Owen wrote about developing a global socialist and cooperative society.

"This change will root up and utterly destroy the old vicious and miserable system of ignorance, poverty, individual competition, and contests, and of national war, throughout the world; and will introduce, in place thereof, the rational system of society, in which competition, strife, and wars, will cease for ever; and all will be trained, from infancy, solely to promote each other's happiness."

SOCIALISM'S THINK-TANK

Fabius Cunctator (depicted on the coin below) was a Roman general famous for avoiding direct battle. He developed the tactic of quick, minor attacks and delaying the enemy's progress. To a group of British socialists in the late 19th century he seemed the perfect model so They borrowed his name when they formed the Fabian Society.

The Fabians rejected Karl Marx's notion of revolutionary class struggle and favoured a peaceful and evolutionary change to socialism. They chose education and gradual acceptance of socialist thought instead of forced, violent indoctrination. They held lectures, discussion groups, conferences, and summer schools, carried out research into political, economic and social problems, national and international, and published books, pamphlets, and periodicals. They promoted equality through collective ownership and democratic control of the nation's resources.

The Fabian Society attracted many talented and influential people to its ranks. The economist Sidney Webb and his wife, sociologist Beatrice Webb were early recruits.

The playwright George Bernard Shaw edited Fabian Essays on Socialism (1889), which became a best seller. The novelist H.G. Wells joined the ranks, as did Ramsay MacDonald, who became Britain's first socialist prime minister in 1924.

The Fabians are still active today. The society has a membership of around 5,000 and operates more as a socialist think-tank for Britain's Labour Party. The Fabian Society is not a political party and does not run candidates in elections. Its members do, however, work on the election campaigns of parties that share its goals.

LEFTIST AGENDA?

The Liberal Party of Canada is often referred to as the country's "Natural governing party." It has held power federally 61 percent of the time from Confederation in 1867 up to January 2004. The Liberals have managed this impressive record by always staying close to the political centre. During the ten years of Liberal government under Prime Minister Jean Chretien (1993-2003), the party moved to the right of centre with an agenda that focussed on lowering taxes and cuts to government services.

However, after a decade of cutbacks to social programs Canadians began moving to the political left of centre position. Long line-ups in hospital emergency rooms, few textbooks in the schools, crumbling cities, and many other declines have convinced many Canadians that pulling back from the right wing a bit might be a good idea. The reasons the Liberals have had such a lock on power is that they've always been good at sniffing out a change in the ideological wind. So, in the 2002 Throne Speech, a very activist and centre-left agenda was laid out.

Ottawa was going to: double foreign aid; expand the public service; look seriously at decriminalizing possession of small amounts of marijuana; become active in early childhood education; force industry and consumers to comply with the Kyoto Accord on greenhouse gas emissions; increase health-care funding; provide more money for urban transit, legal aid, subsidized housing, and families with poor children; create ten new national parks; improve work prospects for First Nations peoples; police corporations more closely; subsidize "knowledge economy" businesses that locate in the poorer regions; reform political campaign financing; and, double the number of students graduating from bilingual high schools. On taxation an interesting shift of emphasis was noted. Taxes would be "fair was no mention of "lower."

Mr. Chretien, of course, is gone and the new prime minister, Paul Martin, moved quickly away from this agenda.

DO-IT-YOURSELF IDEOLOGY

Someone invented the words "absent-minded" to describe people such as G.K. Chesterton. The English writer once found himself on a railway platform in the middle of the country with no clue as to why he was there. In the days before wide private ownership of telephones Mr. Chesterton sent a telegram to his wife asking: "Am in Market Harborough. Where ought I to be?" His wife, who knew that telegrams were charged by the word, responded: "Home."

If G.K. Chesterton was sometimes foggy about what he was supposed to be doing at any particular time it was probably because his mind was fully engaged on untangling a complex theory. He liked neither capitalism nor socialism. Unable to find an ideology with which he was comfortable, Chesterton, along with his friend and fellow writer Hillaire Belloc, decided to invent one. They called it distributionism, and it still has its followers today.

Distributionism sees private property as essential for human dignity. In a series of essays called The Uses of Diversify, G.K. Chesterton puts it as follows: "Too much capitalism does not mean too many capitalists, but too few capitalists." Distributionism calls for small farms, small family run businesses, and a movement away from blind trust in the benefits of technology.

Chesterton and Belloc said laws should favour small businesses over large ones; the people should boycott retail chain stores; trade guilds should be revived to support skilled craftspeople; taxes should be levied more heavily on bigger companies; the poor should have free access to the law so as to Support them in property disputes.

Underlying all this is a belief that ordinary people can make a difference and can make basic structural changes in society.

Most critics dismiss distributionism as sentimental nonsense. Defenders ask: Does mammoth agri-business produce better food than the family farm? Does the mega-provide better service to the community on main street? Is it stupidity to place limits on transnational corporations?