Poza marksizm
Beyond Marxism

Hendrik de Man, "planning" of the 1930s and the transformation of European social democracy

Summary/Abstract: Interwar period in history of European Social Democracy was a time of great hopes, but also huge, even dramatic failures. However, in the following article I argue that two decades between world wars (especially the 1930s) were a time of deep ideological reassessment in major European Social Democratic parties too. Inspired by Tommaso Milani’s work „Hendrik de Man and Social Democracy. The Idea of Planning in Western Europe, 1914-1940”, I try to present a portrait of Hendrik de Man, one of the most original, but also the most controversial, thinker of interwar Social Democracy. At first, I closely studied the intellectual roots of de Man’s „planism” – agenda, which was to be the ground-breaking answer for the deep political crisis of Social Democracy in the first half of the 1930s. De Man’s „Plan of Labour” (Le Plan du Travail) was a package of structural reforms, which should – according to de Man himself – boost economic growth in the short term, but also create firm foundations for the planned economy in the long term. In contrast to the Marxist orthodoxy, de Man believed that socialization of already monopolized heavy industry and state control over the banking sector are sufficient conditions for an effective planned economy. Furthermore, „Plan of Labour” propaganda campaign was to inflame enthusiasm among the working-class constituency of the Belgian Social Democracy and attract potential new, non-proletarian supporters. De Man’s „planism” in the middle of the 1930s aroused interest among socialists and social democrats in the whole Europe. Despite of the anathema caused by de Man’s collaboration with Nazis during World War II, the sole idea of „planism” represents important episode in intellectual history of Social Democracy and might be perceived as an early symptom of the evolution, which led to rejection of the Marxism and adoption of capitalist welfare state model after World War II.

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