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روح الاشتراكية
الاشتراكية خلاصة كثير من الرغائب والمعتقدات ومبادئ الاصلاح التي تستهوي العقول فالحكومات تهابها
والمشرعون يدارونها والامم ترى فيها فجر مقادير جديدة هكذا افتتح (لوبون) بحثه عن الاشتراكية والذي طبق فيه الافكار التي
سبق وان ارساها في كتابيه "سر تطوير الامم" و"روح الجماعات" حيث لم يتوغل في تفصيل مذاهب الاشتراكية مكتفيا بدرس جوهرها
وبتمحيص اسباب ظهورها والعوامل التي تعيقها او تساعد على انتشارها مبيناً النزاع الدائم بين المبادئ القديمة التي تأصلت بالوراثة في النفوس والتي ما تزال المجتمعات تستند الها وبين المبادئ الحديثة التي هي بنت البيئات الجديدة الناشئة عن تطور العلوم والصناعة الحديثة
والمشرعون يدارونها والامم ترى فيها فجر مقادير جديدة هكذا افتتح (لوبون) بحثه عن الاشتراكية والذي طبق فيه الافكار التي
سبق وان ارساها في كتابيه "سر تطوير الامم" و"روح الجماعات" حيث لم يتوغل في تفصيل مذاهب الاشتراكية مكتفيا بدرس جوهرها
وبتمحيص اسباب ظهورها والعوامل التي تعيقها او تساعد على انتشارها مبيناً النزاع الدائم بين المبادئ القديمة التي تأصلت بالوراثة في النفوس والتي ما تزال المجتمعات تستند الها وبين المبادئ الحديثة التي هي بنت البيئات الجديدة الناشئة عن تطور العلوم والصناعة الحديثة
327 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1898
33 people are currently reading
630 people want to read
About the author
Gustave Le Bon
195 books1,504 followersA social psychologist, sociologist, and amateur physicist. He was the author of several works in which he expounded theories of national traits, racial superiority, herd behavior and crowd psychology.
See also Гюстав Ле Бон
See also Гюстав Ле Бон
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
June 2, 2025
Holy shit this author is prescient. This was incredible. For a frame of reference this book was written in the 1880s and this is everything the author got correct:
1)Socialism would become the dominant global ideology
2)Socialism would have a profound inability to adapt in a world in which technological progress or globalization would rule the world
3)Socialism would succeed initially but fail as it would never be capable of realizing its ideal of heaven on earth.
4)The English speaking countries would be the Western nations most immune to socialism, thus meaning the 20th century would mark their dominance
5)The Latin speaking countries would see stagnation and fossilization in the 20th century due to cultures naturally amenable to socialism
6)Asia would see a mass industrialization which would gradually replace the West’s dominance. The Anglo Saxons would be able to keep up technologically but not Europe
7)Europe would slide into poverty versus America
8)In America the Socialists would ally with black and minority communities alongside developing long lasting welfare constituency. America would see a growing class of people with no place in the social structure
9)The main demographic which pushes socialism are not the lower classes but the over educated college graduate without practical skills. This demographic needs socialism since they can’t survive the market
10)Germany would be capable of having a short term advantage over France, probably conquering it while Germany would in the long term decay due to socialist bloat
11)the most marked struggle of the 21st century on a global basis would be population collapse driven by urbanization
12)Global competition would become the dominant factor of the world order, leaving behind noncompetitive societies like the Rustbelt
13)communism would always result in brutal dictatorship, followed by purges and the social collapse of the society
14)socialism was a new religion, replacing the old lost religions. This makes it immune to the scientific facts opposing it like genetics, Darwinism, equality isn’t real, success of market economies etc…
15)the rise of enormous world wars in the next century between great powers
The only thing the author didn’t get was the implications of WW1, which I think is fair since it was 20 years after he was writing. WW1 is what got Russia to turn communist, which the author did not predict but neither did anyone else, including Russians. WW1 is also what turned Britain socialist as well due to the nature of total war, which is against Britain’s mostly naval tradition
1)Socialism would become the dominant global ideology
2)Socialism would have a profound inability to adapt in a world in which technological progress or globalization would rule the world
3)Socialism would succeed initially but fail as it would never be capable of realizing its ideal of heaven on earth.
4)The English speaking countries would be the Western nations most immune to socialism, thus meaning the 20th century would mark their dominance
5)The Latin speaking countries would see stagnation and fossilization in the 20th century due to cultures naturally amenable to socialism
6)Asia would see a mass industrialization which would gradually replace the West’s dominance. The Anglo Saxons would be able to keep up technologically but not Europe
7)Europe would slide into poverty versus America
8)In America the Socialists would ally with black and minority communities alongside developing long lasting welfare constituency. America would see a growing class of people with no place in the social structure
9)The main demographic which pushes socialism are not the lower classes but the over educated college graduate without practical skills. This demographic needs socialism since they can’t survive the market
10)Germany would be capable of having a short term advantage over France, probably conquering it while Germany would in the long term decay due to socialist bloat
11)the most marked struggle of the 21st century on a global basis would be population collapse driven by urbanization
12)Global competition would become the dominant factor of the world order, leaving behind noncompetitive societies like the Rustbelt
13)communism would always result in brutal dictatorship, followed by purges and the social collapse of the society
14)socialism was a new religion, replacing the old lost religions. This makes it immune to the scientific facts opposing it like genetics, Darwinism, equality isn’t real, success of market economies etc…
15)the rise of enormous world wars in the next century between great powers
The only thing the author didn’t get was the implications of WW1, which I think is fair since it was 20 years after he was writing. WW1 is what got Russia to turn communist, which the author did not predict but neither did anyone else, including Russians. WW1 is also what turned Britain socialist as well due to the nature of total war, which is against Britain’s mostly naval tradition
November 10, 2023
Gustave Le Bon wrote "The Psychology of Socialism" 125 years ago, so there are two things you must know before reading this book. First of all, it is chilling how a thinker who wrote in another country in a past epoch could seemingly foresee how trends in Western politics are unravelling in the present day. Yet, as is typical of older books, this is less of a work of scholarship and more political opinion. I'm not saying that Le Bon was completely wrong about everything, or that his opinions were not based on his own analysis of history, but that it is clear there is a great deal more passion and emotion inserted in this book coming from his own personal headspace.
Le Bon started his career in medicine and later focused on the psychology of the masses, developing some classic texts that examine the phenomena of human group think. Through his examination of history from a psychological lens, he rivals Tolstoy in his keen insights that can help us predict the behaviors of entire populations.
In his seminal work on "The Psychology of Crowds" (see my separate review of that book), he concludes that the collective intelligence of a crowd is always less than that of each individual. Humans become a multicellular amoeboid organism in a crowd. Therefore, he sees Socialism as a well-meaning belief destined to be destructive because it is merely a religion of a crowd formed as a reaction of the Collective against the Individual.
Except for cases of psychopathology, no person wants to see suffering and hardship in their fellow human beings. Life is a constant struggle, and yet resources are never equally distributed for all of us to meet the challenges posed by crises of all sorts. So those with limited power, abilities, influence, and finances suffer more than others. This seems to be the fate of the majority of citizens despite incredible wealth in their societies. It doesn't seem fair or morally defensible.
So naturally we would like to level the playing field. Le Bon says that, unfortunately, we cannot. To do so would be to undo the laws of nature. It is one thing to adhere to religious beliefs, such as those found in Christianity, which promises to correct the inequity in the afterlife. It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than a wealthy person to enter the kingdom of heaven, and all that sort of thing. But to think you can make these promises in the present world is to a have a belief no different than religion, often with the destructive consequences we have seen result from religious fanaticism.
No society can hold together without a defining heritage. Le Bon would argue against any country allowing mass immigration, for example. He doesn't say this from a xenophobic perspective, rather because different societies all have their own heritage which is not always compatible with another society, but without which no society can persist. Let's start with the idea to have a Wellsian global society where diversity is not so much a strength but eradicated by an embrace of a shared humanity. Not any one society has all the answers to meet the challenges of an ever changing world in a healthy way. The earth is just too large, too varied in resources, too different in geography, to expect everyone to operate the same. There is a psychological and survival necessity to have the wonderful diversity of cultures that we have. Hegel may have influenced Le Bon in the idea that races are so different in their thinking and behavior because because they lived through different historical periods with unique adaptations to unique challenges.
Globalization has created a perfect opportunity for socialist stirrings to rise again, according to Le Bon. It used to be that England and France didn't worry about whether China had coal, or who controlled oil in the Middle East and the Balkans. But the industrial revolution made distant countries neighbors, and required more resources to run the machines of mass production, so everyone started scrambling to compete for each other's stuff. Le Bon quotes Symbolist writer Marcel Schwob: "On the battlefield of modern industry and commerce there is neither peace nor alliance." So how does big business get around all these nationalist interests?
Why, you squelch the idea of nations, of course, and the surest way to dismantle a society is to encourage the dissolution of a culture's heritage through systematic replacement of racial and national identity through deconstruction of traditions, mythologies, religion, art, language, and institutions which maintain a sense of cohesion, and through policies of open borders which overwhelm the ability of a society to absorb and assimilate the newcomers into a common identity. Colonialism, Le Bon argues, was guilty of this. While pretending to be a means of bringing progress to "savage" peoples, the ultimate result was enslavement and absorption of entire races, often leading to their extinction, or at the very least, a constant fulminating hatred of the colonized against the civilizing forces which would eventually erupt into war.
Le Bon therefore says that for socialism to have any kind of chance of becoming the denominating belief and system of governance, the natural psychological order of peoples and nations must be disrupted by a post-colonial approach--to convince a culture to destroy themselves. A society must be convinced of the necessity of the moral imperative to efface themselves for the sake of enlightened constitutions of more intelligent and humane progress. You don't want to be like those "backwards countries," do you? Or like your abusive parents who it feels so empowering to know were all wrong and didn't know any better? To be anything like them is to be ignorant and bigoted. But YOU--you are special. You are enlightened. You are not a bigot. Except you are. If you really cared about the world you'd understand that you are problematic. You can't help it. It's in your very nature. In fact, if you really want to escape the evil of your ancestry and improve this so very flawed society, it's best you just get out of the way. Shut up. Go away for a while. You're not really needed. Or welcome.
What better way to destroy people than to convince them to hate themselves? Le Bon says that every nation has parts of their history of which they are not proud, and that monarchies have been toppled and democracies turned into dictatorships throughout history by soave revolutionaries who understood how to exploit these weaknesses to satisfy their own lust for power under the guise of having the inarguable moral high ground.
But the very act of creating a socialist society out of an individualist society prevents socialist experiments from ever working, as we've also seen throughout the history since the ancient Greeks. By destroying the common fabric that ties together a nation, one has merely isolated individuals. Hence, you have an incohesive collection of individuals instead of a collective.
While Socialism is based on the belief that it is the natural evolution of a benevolent society, Le Bon argues that there can be no progress in knowledge, science, art, and wisdom under such a system, because Socialism permits the individual to reduce effort to a minimum, while Individualism demands maximum effort.
And in the end, people attracted to Socialist ideas don't ever get what they want. The proletariat, in their wish for power, desire a system in which they ultimately have nothing and are nothing. As a psychological expression of the will to power, Socialism therefore is inadequate to fill the gulf between power classes, and in fact merely creates larger isolation between the ruling classes and the masses. An isolated mass of weak individuals with no ties, no identity, no aspirations, no moral fabric, is easier to control in perpetuity. Le Bon says that we should become highly suspicious when the richest people in the world pretend to be proponents of a progressive system of equity. Le Bon saw it happen in his day, and it's no surprise we see it now.
That's because the wealthy and powerful don't expect to be living side-by-side with their diverse masses. They tell the poor and hungry of other nations that here lies sanctuary, as long as you don't show up in THEIR neighborhood or summer home in Martha's Vineyard. They don't expect to be rolling up THEIR sleeves, working the fields with the proletariat, and dividing their wealth equally--they expect to be the ones making the rules. The French Queen supposedly said of the masses, "Let them eat cake." The Socialist elite express outrage over such a sentiment, but as long as they have their cake, they could care less if you eat Fentanyl patches.
In short, Le Bon sees the psychology of Socialism as the psychology of the slave, a product of mass hypnotism and the easily manipulated collective mind that is far less intelligent and more reactionary than the individual. It is the exploited will to power by those in already in power or who stand to profit by such a system. Therefore, it stands as a dichotomy to itself; it requires the destruction of a nation to be born only to shortly self-destruct itself. And while a society can be wiped out quickly, it takes so much more to rebuild.
I have summarized the sentiments of almost 400 pages so you get kind of an idea of what you are in for. As I said, this volume smells more of pundintry than actual psychology, and his economic analysis led to some interesting predictions, such as the rise of China as a superpower, but failed to anticipate China's own revolution and "fall" to communism. I'm surprised he never once mentioned the American Civil War in his mental calculations. It also may seem that Le Bon does not offer much of an alternative solution, being equally critical of aristocratic elites, rich capitalists, religious power structures, and corporate media, because any large group is less intelligent and susceptible to hypnotic manipulation by excitatory events. He seems to say that the world will always have poor and disenfranchised people, and that there is nothing we can do about it.
Except not completely. He encourages educational reforms, opportunities for advancement within a career field, encouragement of individual ingenuity and self-sufficiency to solve economic problems, keeping food production of a nation in balance with population so that they are not dependent on imports to survive, and a more grassroots approach to helping each other that is a more natural and less disruptive means of easing societal sufferings rather than through forced subservience to a government State. But his intent was more to warn individuals about the signs of mass manipulation by the powerful in the guise of socialist altruism before the psychology of the mob leads to the next pointless Reign of Terror. In his own words, "the duty of the philosopher is performed when he has pointed out to the nations the dangers which threaten them."
If Le Bon is right about the psychology of crowds, then this book will not convince an adherent to any side of the debate regarding the merits and viability of socialism to reconsider their position. You can't confront the beliefs of a crowd with contradictory evidence. And whenever the machinery of public opinion, whether through the powers of news media or the influence of celebrity and wealthy corporations, attempts to extinguish the beliefs of an opposing crowd with contempt and persecution, it only increases the pugnacity of their hold on their beliefs.
But the individual can and does change opinions. I have certainly had my varying thoughts regarding socialism throughout the decades, ranging from passionate support of socialist ideas to dismissal of those same ideas as intellectual masturbation. Perhaps that is because I do endeavor to be cognizant of my own propensity to be influenced by my peer network, and the propaganda of our leaders and the media I consume. I know I don't have all the answers, and neither does Le Bon. But if you are a curious and psychologically-minded reader, one who has been weighing the merits of both sides, or has been open-minded about how you feel about contemporary issues, this will serve as an interesting and compelling addition to your growing arsenal of literary wisdom.
SCORE: 3.5 out of 5, rounded to 4
Le Bon started his career in medicine and later focused on the psychology of the masses, developing some classic texts that examine the phenomena of human group think. Through his examination of history from a psychological lens, he rivals Tolstoy in his keen insights that can help us predict the behaviors of entire populations.
In his seminal work on "The Psychology of Crowds" (see my separate review of that book), he concludes that the collective intelligence of a crowd is always less than that of each individual. Humans become a multicellular amoeboid organism in a crowd. Therefore, he sees Socialism as a well-meaning belief destined to be destructive because it is merely a religion of a crowd formed as a reaction of the Collective against the Individual.
Except for cases of psychopathology, no person wants to see suffering and hardship in their fellow human beings. Life is a constant struggle, and yet resources are never equally distributed for all of us to meet the challenges posed by crises of all sorts. So those with limited power, abilities, influence, and finances suffer more than others. This seems to be the fate of the majority of citizens despite incredible wealth in their societies. It doesn't seem fair or morally defensible.
So naturally we would like to level the playing field. Le Bon says that, unfortunately, we cannot. To do so would be to undo the laws of nature. It is one thing to adhere to religious beliefs, such as those found in Christianity, which promises to correct the inequity in the afterlife. It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than a wealthy person to enter the kingdom of heaven, and all that sort of thing. But to think you can make these promises in the present world is to a have a belief no different than religion, often with the destructive consequences we have seen result from religious fanaticism.
No society can hold together without a defining heritage. Le Bon would argue against any country allowing mass immigration, for example. He doesn't say this from a xenophobic perspective, rather because different societies all have their own heritage which is not always compatible with another society, but without which no society can persist. Let's start with the idea to have a Wellsian global society where diversity is not so much a strength but eradicated by an embrace of a shared humanity. Not any one society has all the answers to meet the challenges of an ever changing world in a healthy way. The earth is just too large, too varied in resources, too different in geography, to expect everyone to operate the same. There is a psychological and survival necessity to have the wonderful diversity of cultures that we have. Hegel may have influenced Le Bon in the idea that races are so different in their thinking and behavior because because they lived through different historical periods with unique adaptations to unique challenges.
Globalization has created a perfect opportunity for socialist stirrings to rise again, according to Le Bon. It used to be that England and France didn't worry about whether China had coal, or who controlled oil in the Middle East and the Balkans. But the industrial revolution made distant countries neighbors, and required more resources to run the machines of mass production, so everyone started scrambling to compete for each other's stuff. Le Bon quotes Symbolist writer Marcel Schwob: "On the battlefield of modern industry and commerce there is neither peace nor alliance." So how does big business get around all these nationalist interests?
Why, you squelch the idea of nations, of course, and the surest way to dismantle a society is to encourage the dissolution of a culture's heritage through systematic replacement of racial and national identity through deconstruction of traditions, mythologies, religion, art, language, and institutions which maintain a sense of cohesion, and through policies of open borders which overwhelm the ability of a society to absorb and assimilate the newcomers into a common identity. Colonialism, Le Bon argues, was guilty of this. While pretending to be a means of bringing progress to "savage" peoples, the ultimate result was enslavement and absorption of entire races, often leading to their extinction, or at the very least, a constant fulminating hatred of the colonized against the civilizing forces which would eventually erupt into war.
Le Bon therefore says that for socialism to have any kind of chance of becoming the denominating belief and system of governance, the natural psychological order of peoples and nations must be disrupted by a post-colonial approach--to convince a culture to destroy themselves. A society must be convinced of the necessity of the moral imperative to efface themselves for the sake of enlightened constitutions of more intelligent and humane progress. You don't want to be like those "backwards countries," do you? Or like your abusive parents who it feels so empowering to know were all wrong and didn't know any better? To be anything like them is to be ignorant and bigoted. But YOU--you are special. You are enlightened. You are not a bigot. Except you are. If you really cared about the world you'd understand that you are problematic. You can't help it. It's in your very nature. In fact, if you really want to escape the evil of your ancestry and improve this so very flawed society, it's best you just get out of the way. Shut up. Go away for a while. You're not really needed. Or welcome.
What better way to destroy people than to convince them to hate themselves? Le Bon says that every nation has parts of their history of which they are not proud, and that monarchies have been toppled and democracies turned into dictatorships throughout history by soave revolutionaries who understood how to exploit these weaknesses to satisfy their own lust for power under the guise of having the inarguable moral high ground.
But the very act of creating a socialist society out of an individualist society prevents socialist experiments from ever working, as we've also seen throughout the history since the ancient Greeks. By destroying the common fabric that ties together a nation, one has merely isolated individuals. Hence, you have an incohesive collection of individuals instead of a collective.
While Socialism is based on the belief that it is the natural evolution of a benevolent society, Le Bon argues that there can be no progress in knowledge, science, art, and wisdom under such a system, because Socialism permits the individual to reduce effort to a minimum, while Individualism demands maximum effort.
And in the end, people attracted to Socialist ideas don't ever get what they want. The proletariat, in their wish for power, desire a system in which they ultimately have nothing and are nothing. As a psychological expression of the will to power, Socialism therefore is inadequate to fill the gulf between power classes, and in fact merely creates larger isolation between the ruling classes and the masses. An isolated mass of weak individuals with no ties, no identity, no aspirations, no moral fabric, is easier to control in perpetuity. Le Bon says that we should become highly suspicious when the richest people in the world pretend to be proponents of a progressive system of equity. Le Bon saw it happen in his day, and it's no surprise we see it now.
That's because the wealthy and powerful don't expect to be living side-by-side with their diverse masses. They tell the poor and hungry of other nations that here lies sanctuary, as long as you don't show up in THEIR neighborhood or summer home in Martha's Vineyard. They don't expect to be rolling up THEIR sleeves, working the fields with the proletariat, and dividing their wealth equally--they expect to be the ones making the rules. The French Queen supposedly said of the masses, "Let them eat cake." The Socialist elite express outrage over such a sentiment, but as long as they have their cake, they could care less if you eat Fentanyl patches.
In short, Le Bon sees the psychology of Socialism as the psychology of the slave, a product of mass hypnotism and the easily manipulated collective mind that is far less intelligent and more reactionary than the individual. It is the exploited will to power by those in already in power or who stand to profit by such a system. Therefore, it stands as a dichotomy to itself; it requires the destruction of a nation to be born only to shortly self-destruct itself. And while a society can be wiped out quickly, it takes so much more to rebuild.
I have summarized the sentiments of almost 400 pages so you get kind of an idea of what you are in for. As I said, this volume smells more of pundintry than actual psychology, and his economic analysis led to some interesting predictions, such as the rise of China as a superpower, but failed to anticipate China's own revolution and "fall" to communism. I'm surprised he never once mentioned the American Civil War in his mental calculations. It also may seem that Le Bon does not offer much of an alternative solution, being equally critical of aristocratic elites, rich capitalists, religious power structures, and corporate media, because any large group is less intelligent and susceptible to hypnotic manipulation by excitatory events. He seems to say that the world will always have poor and disenfranchised people, and that there is nothing we can do about it.
Except not completely. He encourages educational reforms, opportunities for advancement within a career field, encouragement of individual ingenuity and self-sufficiency to solve economic problems, keeping food production of a nation in balance with population so that they are not dependent on imports to survive, and a more grassroots approach to helping each other that is a more natural and less disruptive means of easing societal sufferings rather than through forced subservience to a government State. But his intent was more to warn individuals about the signs of mass manipulation by the powerful in the guise of socialist altruism before the psychology of the mob leads to the next pointless Reign of Terror. In his own words, "the duty of the philosopher is performed when he has pointed out to the nations the dangers which threaten them."
If Le Bon is right about the psychology of crowds, then this book will not convince an adherent to any side of the debate regarding the merits and viability of socialism to reconsider their position. You can't confront the beliefs of a crowd with contradictory evidence. And whenever the machinery of public opinion, whether through the powers of news media or the influence of celebrity and wealthy corporations, attempts to extinguish the beliefs of an opposing crowd with contempt and persecution, it only increases the pugnacity of their hold on their beliefs.
But the individual can and does change opinions. I have certainly had my varying thoughts regarding socialism throughout the decades, ranging from passionate support of socialist ideas to dismissal of those same ideas as intellectual masturbation. Perhaps that is because I do endeavor to be cognizant of my own propensity to be influenced by my peer network, and the propaganda of our leaders and the media I consume. I know I don't have all the answers, and neither does Le Bon. But if you are a curious and psychologically-minded reader, one who has been weighing the merits of both sides, or has been open-minded about how you feel about contemporary issues, this will serve as an interesting and compelling addition to your growing arsenal of literary wisdom.
SCORE: 3.5 out of 5, rounded to 4
February 24, 2015
كتاب جميل جدا ، يتحدث عن الجماعات ، تعريفها ، طريقة تفكيرها ، العوامل المحركة لها ، و كيفية التأثير فيها .. إلخ
بالطبع معظم اﻷمثلة الموجودة في الكتاب عن شخصيات الثورة الفرنسية ، بالجمل كتاب ممتع يحتاج إلى إعادة قراءة لترسيخ أفكاره الكثيرة و الجديدة الدالة على ملاحظة شديدة من قبل الكاتب لسير اﻷمم و الجماعات .
بالطبع معظم اﻷمثلة الموجودة في الكتاب عن شخصيات الثورة الفرنسية ، بالجمل كتاب ممتع يحتاج إلى إعادة قراءة لترسيخ أفكاره الكثيرة و الجديدة الدالة على ملاحظة شديدة من قبل الكاتب لسير اﻷمم و الجماعات .
July 17, 2019
In this work, Gustave Le Bon describe the development of socialism in the late nineteenth century. According to the author, socialism is a religion that is becoming more popular. According to him, after the triumph of socialism, democracy will collapse quickly and replace it with a military regime. Example of the Third Reich and the Soviet Union proves this thesis. The author devotes a lot of space for criticism of contemporary culture, which in many countries produces with classic education masses of unfit people. These people later are condemned to live in poverty, which pushes them to socialism. You can find a lot of information on the situation of trade and industry in countries such as England, France, Germany or the US. The author also criticizes the socialism of the position of classical economics.
//polish
W tej pracy Gustaw Le Bon zajmuje się rozwojem socjalizmu pod koniec XIX wieku. Według autora socjalizm jest religią, która zdobywa coraz większą popularność. Według niego po tryumfie socjalizmu demokracja szybko upadnie i zastąpi ją wojskowy reżim. Przykład III Rzeszy i ZSRR udowadnia tą tezę. Autor poświęca dużo miejsca na krytykę współczesnej sobie kultury, która w wielu krajach produkuje za pomocą klasycznej edukacji masy nieprzystosowanych ludzi. Ci ludzie później są skazani na życie w nędzy, co popycha ich do socjalizmu. W tej pracy można także znaleźć wiele informacji dotyczących sytuacji przemysłu i handlu w takich krajach jak Anglia, Francja, Niemcy czy USA. Autor krytykuje także socjalizm z pozycji klasycznej ekonomii.
//polish
W tej pracy Gustaw Le Bon zajmuje się rozwojem socjalizmu pod koniec XIX wieku. Według autora socjalizm jest religią, która zdobywa coraz większą popularność. Według niego po tryumfie socjalizmu demokracja szybko upadnie i zastąpi ją wojskowy reżim. Przykład III Rzeszy i ZSRR udowadnia tą tezę. Autor poświęca dużo miejsca na krytykę współczesnej sobie kultury, która w wielu krajach produkuje za pomocą klasycznej edukacji masy nieprzystosowanych ludzi. Ci ludzie później są skazani na życie w nędzy, co popycha ich do socjalizmu. W tej pracy można także znaleźć wiele informacji dotyczących sytuacji przemysłu i handlu w takich krajach jak Anglia, Francja, Niemcy czy USA. Autor krytykuje także socjalizm z pozycji klasycznej ekonomii.
May 1, 2016
This work by the father of social psychology written a century ago is somewhat dated, but it advances cogent arguments why socialism is always doomed to fail.
July 30, 2024
"No man is a true socialist without hating someone or something" - a quote summarising the entire book. Le Bon is trashing the ideology of socialism and is again forecasting the bloody Russian Revolution that happened about 20 years after the book was written. He is right in many respects for example when he compares the ideology of socialism with a religion. The difference he says is that religions, as a rule, promise a Heaven after death and thus they endure in time because the promise is impossible to check. Ideologies are promising things they cannot possibly deliver; sooner or later, they degrade into chaos and tyranny. Certainly the usage of "races" is outdated and "cultures" would be much more appropriate, as well as the characterisation of women as impulsive and irrational is a typical line of thoughts for the times when the book was written, so this points will definitely make some fragile readers angry and triggered, but the main idea of the book is unfortunately true to this day. A large part of the book is already old and not important since it describes several countries in the 19th century and it is history already.
January 23, 2019
С Лебоном я познакомился еще в 2014 прочитав его произведение "Психология народов и масс". Автор показался мне необычным и легко улавливающим суть. Данное произведение написано в 1908 году и в первую очередь интересно с исторической стороны. Узнать как люди думали, жили и предсказывали в те времена. На удивление суть мне показалась очень четкой и более глубокой чем у нынешних мыслителей, но конечно форма мыслей кажется необычной. Читая эту книгу очертывается разница парадигм мышления тех времен и нынешней мысли. Формирование нашего мировоззрения началось после Французской революции и закрепилось ритуальным кровопролитием Второй мировой войны.
В книге поднимается тема предсказаний и удивляет точность их по отношению к тактике становления социализма. Автор критикует академическое образование и усиление государства, разграничивает народы на латинские и англосаксонские или как он это называет расы. Здраво рассуждает об экономике, пошлинах и экономических войнах с востоком.
Читать стоит всем кого интересует история психологическом смысле, а именно то как думали тогда, а не простая интерпретация нынешних историков. И хотя в середине книга проседает и становится менее интересной, все равно заслуживает 5 звезд.
post scriptum: немного перенял форму автора :3
Файл с заметками тут.
В книге поднимается тема предсказаний и удивляет точность их по отношению к тактике становления социализма. Автор критикует академическое образование и усиление государства, разграничивает народы на латинские и англосаксонские или как он это называет расы. Здраво рассуждает об экономике, пошлинах и экономических войнах с востоком.
Читать стоит всем кого интересует история психологическом смысле, а именно то как думали тогда, а не простая интерпретация нынешних историков. И хотя в середине книга проседает и становится менее интересной, все равно заслуживает 5 звезд.
post scriptum: немного перенял форму автора :3
Файл с заметками тут.
January 1, 2025
كتاب روح الاشتراكية لغوستاف لوبون، بترجمة عادل زعيتر، يقدم رؤية فلسفية ونقدية عن الفكر الاشتراكي، يتناول لوبون جذور الاشتراكية وأهدافها، مع تحليل آثارها الاجتماعية والسياسية.
يركز على التحديات التي تواجه تطبيق الأفكار الاشتراكية في ضوء طبيعة الإنسان وخصوصا بين إنجلترا و فرنسا، ويرى أن بعض مبادئها قد تكون غير قابلة للتنفيذ بشكل عملي، يناسب هذا العمل المهتمين بالفكر السياسي والاجتماعي، خاصة من يسعون لفهم الاشتراكية من منظور نقدي متوازن ومبني على تأملات فلسفية وتاريخية.
يعيب لوبون أنه إمبريالي وداعم للتطهير العرقي، كما تغلب عليه العنصرية فظهرت جليةً في أفكاره.
يركز على التحديات التي تواجه تطبيق الأفكار الاشتراكية في ضوء طبيعة الإنسان وخصوصا بين إنجلترا و فرنسا، ويرى أن بعض مبادئها قد تكون غير قابلة للتنفيذ بشكل عملي، يناسب هذا العمل المهتمين بالفكر السياسي والاجتماعي، خاصة من يسعون لفهم الاشتراكية من منظور نقدي متوازن ومبني على تأملات فلسفية وتاريخية.
يعيب لوبون أنه إمبريالي وداعم للتطهير العرقي، كما تغلب عليه العنصرية فظهرت جليةً في أفكاره.
January 14, 2021
A lot right, but equally much wrong. He dose understand that America would face the problem of integrating many different religions, but attributed this solely to Catholics. He saw that the EU based on Charlemagne and Napoleon would eventually take fruit as the great promise of Europe, but missed the outcome of the Civil War's effect on the South.
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