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Difficulty: HardSocialist, Communist, and Reformist Reactions to Industrialization

Source: Louis Blanc, French socialist reformer, *The Organization of Work*, 1839

'What is competition to the worker? It is a system of extermination. A manufacturer needs a worker: three present themselves... "How much for your work?" "Three francs, I have a wife and children." "Good. And you?" "Two and a half francs, I have no children, but a wife." "Very well. And you?" "Two francs will do; I am single." "You get the job." The contract is closed. The lowest bidder wins. But what becomes of the other two? They will starve... Under the system of unlimited competition, work is not guaranteed, and the worker is constantly at the mercy of market fluctuations. We demand that the state establish social workshops, owned by the workers but funded and regulated by the government, to ensure employment and fair wages for all.'

Which of the following best explains how the solution proposed by Blanc in the passage differs from the revolutionary communist perspective developed by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels?

  1. A
    Blanc's proposal for state-regulated social workshops was later adopted by Marx and Engels as the primary method to achieve a stateless communist society through peaceful parliamentary reforms.
  2. Blanc believed that the existing government could be utilized to fund cooperative workshops to assist workers, whereas Marx and Engels argued that the state was an instrument of the ruling class that had to be overthrown.Answer
  3. C
    Blanc championed a violent proletarian revolution to seize private factories, while Marx and Engels argued that moderate legislative reforms and state-regulated wages were sufficient to achieve a classless society.
  4. D
    Blanc advocated for a return to mercantilist trade monopolies to protect French industrial workers, while Marx and Engels championed the expansion of free-market capitalism to increase wages.

Answer

Blanc believed that the existing government could be utilized to fund cooperative workshops to assist workers, whereas Marx and Engels argued that the state was an instrument of the ruling class that had to be overthrown.
The correct option is correct because Louis Blanc represented a reformist socialist view that sought to use the resources and authority of the existing state to establish cooperative workshops to protect workers from competition. In contrast, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels argued in their communist theory that the capitalist state was inherently an instrument of class oppression that could not be reformed, and thus must be violently overthrown to establish a classless society.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Analyze the stimulus to identify the author's primary argument and proposed solution.
Louis Blanc critiques unlimited competition under industrial capitalism and proposes 'social workshops' funded and regulated by the state to guarantee employment and wages.
This establishes the baseline reformist/socialist perspective presented in the document.
2
Recall the core tenets of Marxist/communist theory regarding the state and social change.
Marx and Engels argued that the state is an instrument of class rule (the bourgeoisie) and cannot be reformed from within; it must be violently overthrown by the proletariat to transition to a classless society.
This provides the comparative framework requested by the prompt.
3
Compare Blanc's proposed solution with Marxist theory to identify the key difference.
Blanc relies on the existing state apparatus for reform, while Marx and Engels reject the existing state apparatus entirely in favor of revolutionary overthrow.
This isolates the correct conceptual distinction between reformist/utopian socialism and scientific/revolutionary communism.

Key Concept

The distinction between reformist/utopian socialism and revolutionary communism as reactions to the social impacts of the Industrial Revolution.
Estimated Time:2m 0s
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Topics

Socialist, Communist, and Reformist Reactions to Industrialization

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