How would you describe the difference between Socialism and Communism?
Essentially_Libertarian asked:
After repeatedly seeing answerers deriding any questioner that mentions socialism as ignorant, a redneck, a republican, or some combination, I decided to give them a chance to set us poor, ignorant, rednecks straight! What is the difference between Socialism and Communism? I will select the most articulate, researched, and reasoned response as best answer. If none of the answers are clearly superior, I will put it to a vote.
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socialism is social and communism is communal. articulate,etc enough? ha ha ha!
My definition – it takes communism or fascism (or any totalitarian government) to implement socialism since no one in their right mind wants it.
Communism is the last stage of Socialism, where pretty much everything is controlled by the government. Most systems never get to full communism.
In it’s purest form, socialism is a system where the government owns the means of production. Communism is when the people own the means of production.
According to Karl Marx, socialism is the step that occurs before communism. Unfortunately, both concepts have been corrupted over the years and become negative in connotation. Marx also said that in order to have socialism and the communism, a society must progress from a feudal society to a capitalist one and that would lead to socialism and then communism. Because Russia, for instance, seemed to have skipped the capitalist and socialist stages and tried to go straight to a communist society, the original concepts lost all meaning.
Communism is an economic system where the government owns everything. Example, Cuba. The government owns all assets and decides who gets what. Including clothes and food.
Socialism is the middle of the road between Communism and Capitalism. The people still own there own assets, however in this economic system, they are taxed. Usually at a very high rates. Then the proceeds from those taxes are used to perform expanded government functions (compared to capitalism) usually in the name of the “greater good.”
Many would argue that the US is already somewhat socialist although not as much as France or Sweden.
I prefer capitalism.
P.S. These are not forms of government. They are economic systems. They are not to be compared to dictatorship oligarchy or democracy.
there are many examples of a socialist policies at work in the west. in the uk the national health service is paid for out of national health contributions which everybody pays who works in uk but it for the benefit of all citizen that is a pure socialist act which i believe is great.
communism is the control of media, boarders salaries,which are all the same, police state basically in communism ever body is equal but it never really works
Socialism and communism are ideological doctrines that have many similarities as well as many differences. It is difficult to discern the true differences between socialism and communism, as various societies have tried different types of both systems in myriad forms, and many ideologues with different agendas have defined both systems in biased terms. Some main differences, however, can still be identified.
One difference between socialism and communism is that socialism is mainly an economic system, while communism is both an economic and a political system. As an economic system, socialism seeks to manage the economy through deliberate and collective social control. Communism, however, seeks to manage both the economy and the society by ensuring that property is owned collectively and that control over the distribution of property is centralized in order to achieve both classlessness and statelessness. Both socialism and communism are similar in that they seek to prevent the ill effects that are sometimes produced by capitalism.
Both socialism and communism are based on the principle that the goods and services produced in an economy should be owned publicly and controlled and planned by a centralized organization. However, socialism asserts that the distribution should take place according to the amount of individuals’ production efforts, while communism asserts that that goods and services should be distributed among the populace according to individuals’ needs.
Another difference between socialism and communism is that communists assert that both capitalism and private ownership of means of production must be done away with as soon as possible in order to make sure a classless society, the communist ideal, is formed. Socialists, however, see capitalism as a possible part of the ideal state and believe that socialism can exist in a capitalist society. In fact, one of the ideas of socialism is that everyone within the society will benefit from capitalism as much as possible as long as the capitalism is controlled somehow by a centralized planning system.
Finally, another difference between socialism and communism is centered on who controls the structure of economy. Where socialism generally aims to have as many people as possible influence how the economy works, communism seeks to concentrate that number into a smaller amount.
In a Communist government, the government controls everything. Business, production, public services, media…just about everything.
In a Socialist country, most public services are owned or funded by the government. Kinda like in Canada, the public gets free health care from the government. Of course, this is just an example. I wouldn’t call Canada a socialist nation, just trying to give you a picture.
Communism is an atheist system and does not allow people to have an election as we know it, it is a dictatorship and they want to control your mind, so they burn books which tell the truth, and they don’t want you to beleive in God and you are not allowed to own private property, everything is owned by the community, and you don’t have rights to privacy, they look at your mail and the news is monitored so only news good for communism is shown, I can’t go on, sorry
In the US we use terms like ’socialism’ and ‘communism’ as pejoratives. Republicans used to use the word ‘liberal’ for anyone they disagreed with or anything they didn’t like. They wore the word out completely! So now they use ’socialist’ and ‘communist’. ****** was ’socialist’ and so were Mao and Pol Pot and Saddam Hussein. And so is Obama. 8^)
But in reality, socialism is a principle of public ownership and control, Communism is a sort of ‘brand name’ for a particular form of socialism based on the principles of Karl Marx.
Socialism and capitalism could be seen as opposites or simply as alternative forms of economic system. But neither exists in its pure state. Every developed country is some combination of one and the other. In the US we are probably the furthest to the right, the furthest towards pure capitalism, but we have socialized roads and infrastructure, education, defense, police and fire protection, postal service, libraries, public health (i.e. disease and epidemic control, vaccination of children, financing of medical research, etc.) Because we see that these services are better provided by public investment and control than by private investment.
Communism is harder to define because it’s never really existed at all. Communism is not antithetical to democracy, as lots of people think, it’s just that every actual example of it, every country where it’s been tried, has not had a pre-existing tradition of democracy. So people ended up swapping one set of despots for another. NONE of the existing experiments with communism have really followed the principles of Marx, they only used them as a justification for another oligarchy. I think communism -could- work to bring a country out of the ’stone age’, but it would depend on the people running the system. I think the problem is that revolutionary leaders tend to be megalomaniacs and once they win they want to be in charge and to run the country for themselves and their friends.
I do think capitalism is a better system (not perfect certainly) but communism could serve as a transition from a strong-man dictatorship or absolute monarchy to capitalism. And that really seems to be what is happening today in Russia, China and Vietnam! Sadly, democracy is still not part of the process.
The perks for the elites under communism are usually more egregious and in starker contrast to the lives of the masses. We’re talking big screen tee vees for the ruling class (party leaders, party functionaries, regime tools, toadies and hangers-on) , and hovels and thin gruel for the masses. See Jong Il, Kim for an example of that crapola.
Under socialism, people are more equally miserable. The elites still do WAY BETTER than the rank-and-file, but they’re less OBVIOUS and OSTENTATIOUS about it. They actually like to sell the population a line of crap that they’re all “the same” when that’s a load of BS. See Chavez, Hugo, for an example of that nonsense, as the wealthy flee his nation, the middle class stand, twitching, in “fight or flight” mode, and the poor, thrown the odd crumbs and reduced work week, cheer on the fat, bloated guy with the red shirt, who goes home to HIS flat-screen tee vees.
The bottom line is this, though: Aside from completely demotivating the workers from getting off their behinds and working (why bother? The government will only take it away, after all), the system favors those that administer it overwhemingly. And we know about power. It corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely, too.
Those that RULE OVER the masses in either system aren’t sacrificing Jack-Chit. They’re living large and loving it, while the suckers at the bottom of the pile grunt away, laboring on behalf of a huge behemoth of a government, in order to perpetuate a system that keeps those craven, hypocritical elites in power.
Ohhhh, but it’s so wonderful!! Everyone’s the SAAAAAAME~!
That’s the battle cry of those WITH NOTHING. Who haven’t earned anything, who have had it and lost it, or who aren’t motivated to get up off their ***** and work for it.
Under what other system is laziness a virtue?
Socialism is using taxes collected from the ppl according to their income, to pay for services for those in need. Social security is an example, so it is not all bad. We pay into it,and if and when we need assistance, we receive money or services from the govt. National health care is another. The problem is not with the idea, but with the extent of it. All governments have some degree of socailism.
Communism is govt ownership of the means of production . All major industries are owned and managed by the govt. IT was a really bad idea and was out dated almost before if was put in place in the Soviet union. iT requires so much beaurocracy, and is a nightmare to administer. It also stifles competition and research and development, because the profit motive is non existent. AS with Soviet Russia ,it is doomed to be crushed under its own weight,or gradually morph into a Capitalist system as it is doing in China. Communist countries practise an exterme form of socialism. The confusion comes from the fact that communist countries have used the word “socialist” in their propaganda as a euphemism for Communism.
Socialism-
the stage of society, in Marxist doctrine, coming between the capitalist stage and the communist stage, in which private ownership of the means of production and distribution has been eliminated
Communism-
a hypothetical stage of socialism, as formulated by Marx, Engels, Lenin, and others, to be characterized by a classless and stateless society and the equal distribution of economic goods, and to be achieved by revolutionary and dictatorial, rather than gradualistic, means
As you see, they’re both part of the Marxist hypothetically utopic society. You can also tell by the definition that most economies that claim to be Communist are really just socialist that wish they mimiced Marx’ Communist Utopia but have fallen short. Venezuela is a very Socialist country and some countries have target specific sectors for Socialism, like education and medicine.
the appearance of free elections that is about all except Communism the govt owns all the means of production, land and property. Socialism is communism lite but close enough.
Sweden socialism Russia communism. America can get a dose of communism. We need every one works together. government always pays well and has health benefits. ***** love national socialism welfare for Aryans. That is hitler’s thing socialism for aryans. The jews with the bill.