¶ … Social Revolution 1945 to 1990
Eric Hobsbawm's writing style was that of a historian. Nevertheless, his objective was always: adding to political action and thought, which he accomplished more effectively through this book than all his other works. Retrospectively, the author discovered that global socialism's challenge to the capitalist idea had a strength which was its opponent's weakness. Also, in truth, a large number of individuals who backed socialism sincerely to the very end held a belief, for long, that socialism's political Byzantinism, bureaucratic rigidities, and mass murders would eventually be overcome, and that the above horrors were responsible for ensuring capitalism remained afloat. The weaknesses of the socialist theory were underrated, while those of the capitalist theory were overvalued. In effect, the world was convinced in its belief that capitalism was unable to solve issues, while socialism could tackle their own issues. However, the latter issues were deep-rooted rather than being ephemeral problems. Thus, man's blunder in this regard could be considered a fine example of a blunder. From time to time, and with little conviction, the author suggests that a novel form of socialist theory may enjoy potential success. However, in no part of his book is this sort of hope encouraged. According to him, the Soviet's collapse was partly because of the Brezhnev regime's decision to attempt to get in line with America in the race for arms. On the other hand, Hobsbawm also makes it clear that the above factor only intensified a command economy's rigidities, which surfaced in full force after detente allowed socialist economy integration into the international economy. No matter which perspective one adopts when reading the author's acute analysis, one will arrive at the following two conclusions: command economies are unable to compete with economies that are capitalist; and one cannot find any cause to believe the idea that socialism in an alternative form can compete more successfully (Genovse, 2012).
In fact, Hobsbawm's book entirely supports the idea of mixed economies being superior to economies that are either free-market or socialist. Ultimately, one gets the feeling that the author accepts that mixed economies, irrespective of how hard they are to defend rationally, are both economically and morally preferable to other alternatives. If Hobsbawm considers mixed economies as 'socialist' like a few social democrats do, one must accept this. He is aware of the fact that this type of "socialism" is very different from what people perceived themselves to be striving for when they joined/supported left-socialism or communism (Genovse, 2012).
Decline of Peasantry
According to Hobsbawm, the most important and dramatic social change that occurred in the latter half of the 20th century, cutting society off irreversibly from the past world is peasantry's death for, ever since the times of Neolithic man, humanity survived off farming, livestock or fish. Except for Britain, farmers and peasants continued to constitute a key part of occupied populations of even developed nations well into the previous century, to the extent that, during the 1930's (Hobsbawm's student days), peasantry's refusal to die out continued to be utilized as the argument against Marx's prediction of its imminent collapse. After all, the author writes that Belgium and Britain were the only two developed nations where fisheries and agriculture employed below 20% of national population, just before World War II broke out. He claims that agriculture constituted about 25% even in USA and Germany (the biggest industrial economies in which agricultural population was witnessing a steady decline). Meanwhile in France, Austria, and Sweden, it continued to be about 35-40%. Lastly, for backward agrarian European nations such as Romania and Bulgaria, around 80% of the population comprised of land-workers (Hobsbawm, 1994).
Moreover, the author takes into account what occurred during three-quarters of the way through the 20th century -- By the early eighties, not even 3 in every hundred Britons or Belgians belonged to the agricultural population, such that average Britons were much more likely to come across an individual in their everyday life who was once a farmer in Bangladesh or India than an individual who actually tilled land in Britain. America's farming population reached this percentage as well, however, considering the nation's steep decline over a long period, this was not as surprising as the reality that this small percentage of the labor force could flood America and the rest of the globe with immeasurable amounts of food. The author asserts that all expected the West's farmers to decrease in number by the eighties. However, instead, the Spanish and Portuguese who accounted for just below half the population during the 1950s reduced to 17 and 14.5% respectively about three decades later. Even in Japan, farmers decreased in number...
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