Yellow socialism has two meanings. It is primarily a system of government devised by Pierre Biétry in 1904, that offers the working classes a contrasting alternative to "red socialism" (Marxism). It was prominent in the early twentieth century prior to World War I, competing with Marxism for the minds of the workers. After this point, this movement became absorbed into fascism, and the previously developed Austrian national socialism which from 1920 developed into Nazism.
This philosophy entailed workers striving to be part of a capitalist system, forming unions that were equal with groups of companies (similar to corporatism). Workers were to share in company profits more greatly through negotiation between these two groups. The philosophy proposed that above this should lie a strong autocratic state.
However, the term was appropriated by Marxists to describe self-described socialists who were seen by Marxists as on the side of the ruling class; all non-Marxists considering themselves socialists ("revisionists"), whether they identified with the label or not. This usage included many whose ideas would later be known as social democracy and democratic socialism, very different concepts to that devised by Biétry.
Read more about Yellow Socialism: History
Famous quotes containing the words yellow and/or socialism:
“Tom: All right, boys. C’mon. Why don’t you say I’m a yellow belly and a big mouth at that?
Shep: You yellow? Who thinks you’re yellow? Did you hear what he said? A guy who’s got the nerve to marry? That’s more than Flash Gordon ever did.”
—Billy Wilder (b. 1906)
“Successful socialism depends on the perfectibility of man. Unless all, or nearly all, men are high-minded and clear-sighted, it is bound to be a rotten failure in any but a physical sense. Even through it is altruism, socialism means materialism. You can guarantee the things of the body to every one, but you cannot guarantee the things of the spirit to every one; you can guarantee only that the opportunity to seek them shall not be denied to any one who chooses to seek them.”
—Katharine Fullerton Gerould (1879–1944)