Municipal socialism

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Municipal socialism is a

private enterprise into new forms of public service.[1] This journal contributed to a growing network of municipal socialists in Europe and North America, in which three types of movements were united at a local level: trade unions particularly of municipally run public services such as gas, transport, sewage etc., consumer and industrial co-operatives, and other associations of consumers including tenants groups opposed to price and rent increases.[1]

History

There have been several historical and contemporary movements that aim to use local government to develop socialism.

In the United States

Municipal socialism has been used to describe public ownership of streetcar lines, waterworks, and other local utilities, as was favored by "

Sewer Socialism was also used to describe the pragmatic reformist policies of Emil Seidel, Daniel Hoan and Frank Zeidler, Milwaukee's three Socialist
mayors in the 20th century.

A chapter on municipal socialism appears in Class in America: an Encyclopedia:

The heyday of municipal socialism is generally considered to have been from 1901 to 1917. [...] In 1911 there were seventy-three Cities with socialist mayors, and over 1,200 other socialist elected officials across the nation.[4]

In the United Kingdom

The term municipal socialism has been used [

social reform developed in the United Kingdom. This includes the reforms initiated by Joseph Chamberlain as mayor of Birmingham between 1873 and 1875. These reforms included rendering gas and water supplies public services, controlled by the government, clearing slums and the introduction of a city park system.[5] Chamberlain's approach was also described as "gas and water socialism".[6] Chamberlain's reforms were influential on Beatrice Webb, one of the leaders of the Fabian movement.[citation needed
]

Beatrice Webb's husband,

Sidney Webb
, wrote in Socialism in England, published in the 1890s:

It is not only in matters of sanitation that this 'Municipal Socialism' is progressing. Nearly half the consumers of the Kingdom already consume gas made by themselves as citizens collectively, in 168 different localities, as many as 14 local authorities obtained the power to borrow money to engage in the gas industry in a single year. Water supply is rapidly coming to be universally a matter of public provision, no fewer than 71 separate governing bodies obtaining loans for this purpose in the year 1885-86 alone. The prevailing tendency is for the municipalities to absorb also the tramway industry, 31 localities already owning their own lines, comprising a quarter of the mileage in the Kingdom.[7]

The Fabians were influential in the

Poplarism in Poplar, east London, led by George Lansbury.[8]

More recently, the term refers to attempts in the 1980s in British cities by left-wing figures in the British Labour Party to resist the curtailment of local government powers by Margaret Thatcher's right-wing Conservative central government during the rate-capping rebellion. This movement was also known as "local socialism" or the "new urban left".[9] Examples of such local authorities included the Greater London Council under "Red" Ken Livingstone, Lambeth council under "Red" Ted Knight and Linda Bellos, Liverpool council under Derek Hatton and Sheffield council (sometimes referred to as "the People's Republic of South Yorkshire") under David Blunkett. These authorities were often derided as "loony left" by Conservative supporting tabloid newspapers.[10]

Recently, some media outlets have identified a resurgence of municipal socialism in places like Preston.[11] The New Statesman has also called the policies of the town "new municipalism" and "community wealth building" alongside that of municipal socialism.[12] Both The Economist and New Statesman tie the projects to Jeremy Corbyn's leadership of the Labour Party.[11][12]

In Australia

There have been several examples of municipal socialism in Australian history, a belief that was most popular in the state of

libertarian socialist Alderman Ned Lowry led a municipal socialist movement in the 1890s, which advocated for the "municipal ownership of gas, tram and other industries".[13] Although Lowry died in 1897, the movement was picked up by the Townsville newspaper Democrat. In the neighbouring City of Maryborough, the municipal socialist movement advocated for the municipalisation of "water, lighting, transport, abbatoirs, markets, washhouses, and the conveyance of coffins to cemeteries [sic?]".[13]

The

Greek People's Liberation Army.[14]

In Austria

Between 1918 and 1934, the Social Democratic Party of Austria had near-total control over the Viennese local government during a period known as Red Vienna. During their rule, the SDAP passed new labor laws and expanded access to public housing, sanitation, and childcare services in the city.

Critical reception by communists

philistine, reactionary utopia of bringing about socialism piecemeal is particularly hopeless.[15]

Subsequent

leninist groups pursued this critique of municipal socialism in its 1980s incarnation. The Revolutionary Communist Group
wrote:

"Municipal socialism" became an avenue that Labour used to retain the allegiance of the new

Law Lords overruled an attempt to introduce cheap fares on London transport, and Ken Livingstone's Greater London Council did not make a serious fight of it. In reality, Thatcher destroyed "municipal socialism" by continually restricting local democracy and the rights of local authorities to raise and spend money.[16]

See also

References

  1. ^
    S2CID 161327546
    .
  2. ^ Prix nobel de la paix; candidature de M. Edgard Milhaud, Professeur d'économie politique à l'Université de Genève (in French), Geneva: Journal de Genève, 1948, p. 43, retrieved 2017-08-28
  3. ^ Source: The American Nation: A History of the United States (Authors: Mark C. Carnes and John A. Garraty, Published by: Pearson / Longman); Gail Radford "From Municipal Socialism to Public Authorities: Institutional Factors in the Shaping of American Public Enterprise" Journal of American History Archived 2007-12-23 at the Wayback Machine
  4. OCLC 185041248
    .
  5. ^ "Raymond F.Betts Europe In Retrospect: A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE PAST TWO HUNDRED YEARS, Ch.5 "Concentration"". Britannia.com. Retrieved 2009-10-11.
  6. ^ Upton, Chris (25 September 2014). "Joseph Chamberlain and the rise and fall of local government". The Municipal Journal. Retrieved 2 February 2024.
  7. ^ "Internationalist Communist Union". Union-communiste.org. Retrieved 2009-10-11.
  8. ISBN 9780099570387
    .
  9. doi:10.1093/cdj/28.1.38
    . Retrieved 2 February 2024.
  10. ISBN 0-415-12142-6
    .
  11. ^ a b "Preston, Jeremy Corbyn's model town". The Economist. 19 October 2017.
  12. ^ a b "What is "new municipalism", and can it really combat austerity?". 7 June 2021.
  13. ^
    ISBN 0868615374
    .
  14. ^
    JSTOR 27508799
    .
  15. ^ "Lenin "Municipalisation of the Land and Municipal Socialism" 1907". Marxists.org. 2005-03-10. Retrieved 2009-10-11.
  16. ^ David Yaffe 2001

Further reading

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